Asia-Pacific markets track Wall Street gains as Fed rate-cut hopes rise

Asia-Pacific markets rose Wednesday, tracking gains on Wall Street, as hopes for a rate cut by the Federal Reserve rose, while investors also assessed August inflation data from China.

Consumer prices in China fell 0.4% year over year in August, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics released Wednesday, missing expectations of a 0.2% drop by economists polled by Reuters.

Meanwhile, the producer price index fell 2.9% year over year, in line with expectations and improving from the 3.6% drop in July.

Shares of Asian tech firms part of Apple‘s supply chain traded higher after it launched new iPhones, watches and AirPods on Tuesday. Taiwan-based iPhone maker Foxconn rose 1.2% and Samsung Electronics increased 1.4%. However, investors seemed unimpressed by Apple’s latest lineup, with shares of the Cupertino-based company closing 1.48% lower.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark climbed 0.72%, while the Topix index rose 0.53%.

Over in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was 0.16% higher.

Mainland China’s CSI 300 was up 0.22%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index advanced 1.16% to its highest level since late 2021, while the Hang Seng Tech index was up 1.76%.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba Group pared gains to rise 2.1%, after hitting a near-four-year high earlier in the session. This comes after Chinese humanoid startup X Square Robot announced that it has secured around $100 million in a funding round led by Alibaba Cloud.

South Korea’s Kospi index advanced 1.5% to its highest level since the end of 2021. The country’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose slightly to 2.6% in August compared with July’s 2.5%, according to government data. The small-cap Kosdaq rose 0.53%.

Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite Index rose 0.81%, recovering from its three-session losing streak. The index closed 1.78% lower in the previous session after President Prabowo Subianto unexpectedly dismissed Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati late Monday.

The Indonesian rupiah strengthened 0.15% to 16,446, after retreating over 1% in the previous session.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s Straits Times Index jumped 1% to a new record high at 4,341.32.

India’s benchmark Nifty 50 opened 0.42% higher, while the Sensex index rose 0.5%.

U.S. equity futures rose slightly in early Asian hours, as traders looked ahead to the release of the latest producer price index Wednesday stateside and the consumer price index data on Thursday, which will offer more insight into the impact of inflation on the economy.

Overnight, all three key benchmarks in the U.S. closed at all-time highs as investors moved past concerns about disappointing jobs data and bet on Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The S&P 500 index settled up 0.27% at 6,512.61, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.37% to end the day at 21,879.49, with the latter hitting a new all-time intraday high as well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 196.39 points, or 0.43%, at 45,711.34, thanks to a surge in UnitedHealth shares.

— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Sarah Min contributed to this report.