Asian markets advanced Wednesday following strong gains on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +2.06% , S&P 500 SPX, +2.14% and Nasdaq Composite COMP, +2.65% all rose more than 2% on Tuesday, spurred by comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that left the door open to an interest-rate cut.
While there was no major news on the U.S.-China trade front, Reuters reported U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will meet with Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Japan this weekend. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between high-level members of the two countries’ trade-negotiation teams since talks stalled in early May.
Japan’s Nikkei NIK, +1.80% closed up 1.8%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.50% gained 0.3%. The Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.03% was flat, along with the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite 399106, +0.04% South Korea’s Kospi 180721, +0.10% advanced 0.1%, and Taiwan’s Taiex Y9999, +0.31% gained 0.3%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.41% closed up 0.4%. Data showed growth in Australia cooled to its slowest annual pace in almost a decade.
Among individual stocks, robotics maker Fanuc 6954, +2.99% surged in Tokyo trading, along with SoftBank 9984, +3.02% and Nintendo 7974, +2.97% . In Hong Kong, Sunny Optical 2382, +2.32% , CNOOC 883, +0.16% and AIA 1299, +2.15% posted strong gains. Samsung 005930, +1.04% and SK Hynix 000660, +0.00% advanced in South Korea and Taiwan Semiconductor 2330, +0.86% rose in Taipei trading. Beach Energy BPT, +2.84% and Westpac WBC, +1.36% gained in Australia.