Asia-Pacific markets mostly rise after tech rally pushes Wall Street higher

Asia-Pacific markets mostly rise after tech rally pushes Wall Street higher


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 mostly rose Tuesday after all three key benchmarks on Wall Street rose on a tech rally.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 started the day 1.12% higher, while the broader Topix index was rose 1.31%.

In South Korea, the Kospi index added 0.44% in early trade, while the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.26%.

Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was flat.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 21,585, pointing to a stronger open compared to the HSI’s last close of 21,417.40.

India is expected to release its inflation figures for March later in the day. Economists polled by Reuters’ expect the country’s consumer price index reading to come in at 3.60%, compared to 3.61% in the month before.

A separate poll indicates that India’s wholesale price index is forecast to come in at 2.5% in March, from 2.38% in February.

U.S. futures slipped as investors awaited first-quarter earnings reports and weighed U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.

Notices by the U.S. Commerce Department indicated that it would be investigating the impact of “imports of semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment” as well as “pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, including finished drug products,” on national security in the U.S.

Overnight stateside, stocks rose in a choppy session, thanks to a rally in tech names spurred by a surprise tariff exemption from Trump.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 312.08 points, or 0.78%, to close at 40,524.79. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.64% to end at 16,831.48, while the S&P 500 added 0.79% and settled at 5,405.97.

— CNBC’s Lisa Kailan Han, Alex Harring and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.



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