Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index leads gains as Asia markets rise; SoftBank Group shares soar almost 6%

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific rose in Wednesday trade, with stocks in Hong Kong leading gains regionally

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong soared 2.06% to close at 24,829 as Chinese tech stocks bounced back from their Tuesday losses. Shares of Alibaba jumped 6.83% while Tencent gained 2.72% and Netease advanced 4.88%

Mainland Chinese stocks rose on the day, with the Shanghai composite up 0.79% to 3,479.95 and the Shenzhen component advancing 1.545% to 13,531.31

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 closed 1.08% higher at 27,579.87 while the Topix index climbed 0.94% to 1,952.22. Shares of SoftBank Group surged 5.85% after the Japanese conglomerate on Tuesday announced plans to take Arm public following the collapse of a planned sale of the unit to Nvidia

Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia climbed 1.14% to close at 7,268.30 as bank stocks jumped: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) surged 5.58%, Westpac gained 2.43%, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group advanced 1.71% while National Australia Bank rose 2.38%

CBA on Monday announced a jump in its first-half profit and also a share buy-back worth 2 billion Australian dollars ($1.43 billion)

South Korea’s Kospi finished its trading day 0.81% day higher at 2,768.85

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 1.52%

Overnight stateside, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 371.65 points to 35,462.78 while the S&P 500 advanced 0.84% to 4,521.54. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.28% to about 14,194.46

Meanwhile, investors await the release of U.S. consumer inflation data expected Thursday for clues on how the Federal Reserve could react to the rising price pressures

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 95.623 after touching an earlier low of 95.482

The Japanese yen traded at 115.37 per dollar, having weakened from levels below 115 against the greenback earlier this week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7156, against an earlier low of $0.7139

Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures falling 0.12% to $90.67 per barrel. U.S. crude futures shed 0.21% to $89.17 per barrel