Europe shares up, Asia stocks fall on Fed, Ukraine, omicron

By YURI KAGEYAMA
AP Business Writer

TOKYO (AP) — European stocks are higher after a day of steep losses in Asia. Markets are waiting to hear from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell after a two-day policy meeting. Other factors adding to uncertainty are the possibility of conflict between Russia and Ukraine and concern over coronavirus outbreaks. Japan has expanded the number of areas observing special precautions to slow the spread of infections as the omicron variant of coronavirus surges. On Monday, a late buying spree pushed the benchmark S&P 500 index to a 0.3% gain after pulling it out of so-called correction territory _ a drop of 10% or more from its recent high.