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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.
Japanese stocks surge over 2% in early trade
Japanese stocks surged over 2% in early trade Wednesday, leading gains in Asia markets as investor sentiment picked up on the potential easing of U.S-China trade tensions.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 2.33% to 35,015.23 as at 9.29 a.m. local time.
Still, the index is down 14.22% since the start of the year.
Nikkei 225
Gains in the Nikkei, which last crossed the 35,000 threshold nearly three weeks ago on April 3, were led by the financials, consumer cyclicals and technology sectors, data from LSEG shows.
Among the top performing stocks were Taiyo Yuden which advanced 7.09%, Hitachi which added 5.11% and Fujikura, which increased 5.02%
Meanwhile, the broad-based Topix index was up 2.17%.
— Amala Balakrishner
Stocks making the biggest moves after hours
Check out some of the companies making headlines in extended trading:
- Tesla — Shares were marginally lower in extended trading after first-quarter results missed analysts' estimates on the top and bottom lines. The electric vehicle company earned an adjusted 27 cents per share on revenue of $19.34 billion, while analysts polled by LSEG were looking for 39 cents per share in earnings and $21.11 billion in revenue.
- Enphase Energy — The energy technology company sank more than 12% after first-quarter results missed Wall Street estimates. Enphase reported adjusted earnings of 68 cents per share on revenue of $356 million, while analysts surveyed by LSEG forecast earnings of 70 cents per share and $361 million in revenue. The low end of Enphase's second-quarter revenue outlook also fell short of analysts' estimates.
- Intuitive Surgical — The biotechnology stock lost almost 6%. The company warned that its non-GAAP gross profit margin for 2025 will range from 65% to 66.5% of revenue, down from 69.1% in 2024, reflecting estimated effects from tariffs. The outlook overshadowed beats on the top and bottom lines for the first quarter.
Read the full list here.
— Brian Evans
English (US)