Asia-Pacific markets track Wall Street gains on rising Fed rate-cut expectations

Asia-Pacific markets opened higher Wednesday, tracking Wall Street gains on hopes that the U.S. Federal Reserve could cut benchmark interest rates in December.

Expectations rose after Bloomberg reported that White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett was being considered as the frontrunner to become the next Fed chair. Investors see Hassett as someone more likely to push the central bank toward a lower-rate environment favored by President Donald Trump.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday that there was a “very good chance” that Trump could name a new Fed chair before Christmas.

Markets are pricing in a more than 84% chance that the Fed would cut rates in December, according to the CME FedWatch tool. New York Fed President John Williams also said on Friday that there was room to lower rates “in the near term.”

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 and the Topix index rose 0.9%.

Japanese tech stocks advanced for a second consecutive session, with semiconductor testing equipment supplier Advantest rising 2.5% and Tokyo Electron trading 0.61% higher. Lasertec and chipmaker Renesas Electronics rose more than 2% and 1%, respectively. Tech-focused investment company SoftBank Group rose 5.9%.

Shares of Kioxia plunged more than 12% after Nikkei reported late Monday that U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital was planning to unload about 350 billion yen ($2.24 billion) worth of its shares in the Japanese memory chip maker. The block trade will trim Bain’s combined ownership in Kioxia to 44%, from 51%, the report said.

The Japanese supplier to Apple reported fiscal second-quarter earnings and guidance that missed expectations after the bell on Nov. 13. The company’s shares plummeted 23.03% the next day.

South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.67%, and the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 0.64%.

Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 was trading 1.2% higher on open. The country’s inflation accelerated in October, beating analysts’ estimates and rising at its fastest pace in seven months, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.

The consumer price index rose 3.8% year on year in October, the fastest pace since adopting a new headline inflation measure in April, according to the official release.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.59% at the open, and mainland China’s CSI 300 was up 0.95%.

Overnight, the key U.S. benchmarks closed higher after a volatile session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average index advanced 664.18 points, or 1.43%, to close at 47,112.45. The S&P 500 gained 0.91% to settle at 6,765.88, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.67% to finish at 23,025.59. That marks a turnaround from the losses seen earlier in the day.

At session lows, the S&P 500 was down about 0.7%, while the Dow and tech-heavy Nasdaq had dropped more than 100 points, or 0.2%, and more than 1%, respectively.

— CNBC’s Anniek Bao, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.