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.
Japanese markets led gains in Asia, surging nearly 2% in early trade. The benchmark Nikkei 225 added 1.99%, while the broader Topix index advanced 1.92%.
In South Korea, the Kospi index increased 0.86% while the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.62%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 increased 1.55%.
Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 21,772 pointing to a stronger open compared to the HSI’s last close of 21,562.32.
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.
