The view of Nanjing Road East Pedestrian Mall, the main shopping street in Shanghai.
Bruce Yuanyue Bi | The Image Bank | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets climbed Wednesday, after all three key benchmarks on Wall Street advanced overnight on optimism that U.S.-China trade tensions could ease.
This comes after U.S. President Donald Trump indicated that final tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. “won’t be anywhere near as high as 145%.” However, he added that the duties “won’t be 0%.”
Trump also said he has “no intention” to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell before his term ends, alleviating investors’ concerns over the central bank’s independence.
Hong Kong stocks led gains in the region. The Hang Seng Index soared 2.37% to end the day at 22,072.62, while the Hang Seng Tech Index surged 3.07% to 5,049.40. Meanwhile, Mainland China’s CSI 300 index ended the day flat at 3,786.88.
Over in Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 advanced 1.89% to end the day at 34,868.63, while the broader Topix index added 2.06% to 2,584.32.
In South Korea, the Kospi index ended the day 1.57% higher at 2,525.56 while the small-cap Kosdaq increased 1.39% to 726.08.
India’s benchmark Nifty 50 moved up 0.52% while the broader BSE Sensex was up 0.45% as at 2.31 p.m. Indian Standard Time.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.33% to end the day at 7,920.50.
U.S. futures jumped after Trump’s comments on not planning to remove Powell from his post as central bank chair.
Overnight stateside, stocks rebounded from steep declines in the previous session, as investors cheered the possibility of easing U.S.-China trade tensions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1,016.57 points, or 2.66%, to close at 39,186.98. The S&P 500 gained 2.51% and settled at 5,287.76, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.71% to end at 16,300.42.
— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Alex Harring contributed to this report.
