tokyo asian shares fell thursday after heavy selling of bigname tech stocks pushed benchmarks lower on wall streetstocks fell in tokyo hong kong seoul and sydney but rose in shanghai us futures were lower oil prices retreatedthe declines came despite a sharp upward revision in japans estimated economic growth rate for the januarymarch quarter to 27 per cent that was above what analysts had expectedjapans benchmark nikkei 225 sank 09 per cent to 3164127 australias spasx 200 shed 03 per cent to 709970 south koreas kospi slipped 02 per cent to 261085hong kongs hang seng edged less than 01 per cent lower to 1924226 the shanghai composite gained 04 per cent to 321144taiwans taiex lost 11 per cent while indias sensex gave up 02 per centon wednesday us stocks drifted to a mixed close as declines for microsoft and other tech stocks overshadowed gains for much of the rest of the market its a reversal from much of this year as excitement about artificial intelligence and hopes for an end to interest rate hikes have buoyed the tech sectorthe japanese economy has been recovering since restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic were lifted the nation has seen a return of tourists as well as other economic activitythe focus is now on when japans central bank may move away from the easy monetary policy its stuck to for years in the past year the us federal reserve and the worlds other central banks have been raising interest rates japans benchmark rate is minus 01 per centwhile a higher growth reading may provide some room to consider a policy exit from the bank of japan the central banks stance could remain unmoved for now with recent comments from the governor kazuo ueda pointing to more waitandsee yeap jun rong a market analyst at ig said in a reporton wall street the sp 500 fell 04 per cent to 426752 even though the majority of stocks within the index rose the dow jones industrial average gained 03 per cent to 3366502 while the nasdaq composite fell 13 per cent to 1310489microsoft amazon nvidia and alphabet all sank at least 3 per cent and were the heaviest weights on the sp 500 because theyre some of wall streets most valuable stocks their movements pack extra punch on the indexthe russell 2000 index of smaller stocks jumped 18 per cent to continue its hot streak since a strongerthanexpected report on hiring last week suggested a recession may be further off than fearedthe market in general has climbed for months thanks to a resilient economy thats managed to defy predictions for a recession but the threat still looms and wall street is questioning which will come first a recession or inflation falling enough to get the federal reserve to cut interest ratesmost traders expect the fed to leave rates steady next week that would mark the first policy meeting in more than a year where it hasnt hiked its benchmark rate which is at its highest