Major stock markets stumbled Wednesday, as lingering concerns over sky-high inflation offset positive earnings.

In a sign of the uphill struggle in the battle against soaring prices, UK inflation jumped back above 10 per cent last month.

London's FTSE 100 shares index steadied and the pound fell following the data – and as Britain's under-fire Prime Minister Liz Truss faced a grilling in parliament.

Foreign exchange traders were keeping tabs also on whether the dollar would reach 150 yen, which would be a fresh high for 32 years.

Japan's currency is being hit hard as the country's central bank holds off from hiking interest rates, in sharp contrast to its peers the world over which are aggressively hiking borrowing costs to try and cool decades-high inflation.

Asian stock markets diverged after Wall Street ended higher for a second session running on Tuesday, heartened by forecast-beating results from Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson.

They came on the heels of better-than-expected reports from banking giants Citi, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo.

Traders were given an extra boost by news that Netflix gained more than two million subscribers in July-September.

"Earnings season offers investors the opportunity to focus more on the actual earnings power of corporate America, and less on the machinations of the backward-looking economic data stream," said Art Hogan, a strategist at B. Riley. "A better-than-feared earnings season may well be the catalyst the market needs to see a break in the steady grind lower."

Earnings season offers investors the opportunity to focus more on the actual earnings power of corporate America, and less on the machinations of the backward-looking economic data stream- B. Riley strategist Art Hogan

In Europe, Nestlé's sales surged in the first nine months of the year as the maker of Nespresso capsules, Purina pet food and Haagen-Dazs ice cream raised its prices in response to soaring inflation.

On commodity markets, crude oil prices rose on renewed supply worries.

They had slumped on Tuesday on bets that US President Joe Biden would order the release of more barrels from the country's emergency reserves in order to keep fuel prices subdued heading into mid-term elections.