The markets are set to close the week with significant gains.
Stocks are posting their biggest weekly gain of the year, while bonds have rallied and the dollar has weakened as investors welcomed the pause in US interest rate hikes.
Stock benchmarks in Hong Kong jumped more than 2%, while shares in Australia and South Korea rose about 1%.
MSCI's Asian benchmark was on track to post its best week in two months.
Markets in Japan are closed for holidays.
Discordant note from the US, with US stock futures plummeting following Apple's disappointing results.
The iPhone maker reported a fourth-quarter revenue decline as it grapples with a sluggish Mac market and shaky demand in China.
Overall, though, global stocks are up 4.3% for the week so far, the biggest weekly gain since November 2022.
Rate lull boosts stocks today: euphoric markets Stocks rise and bond yields fall today.
Stock indexes and Asian currencies gained ground alongside dollar weakness, as traders embraced riskier assets on the prospect that the Federal Reserve's tightening cycle is nearing an end.
Additionally, the U.S.
Treasury Department said Wednesday it would auction off longer-dated debt securities than expected, and a weaker-than-expected manufacturing survey helped bolster bets that no further increases would be needed.
of the cost of money.
The Bank of England also left interest rates unchanged on Thursday and stressed that it does not plan to cut them anytime soon.
The Bank of Japan, however, will continue to dismantle its ultra-loose monetary policy next year, six sources familiar with the BOJ's thinking told Reuters, although the slow progress was little comfort for a yen weighed down by low rates of interest to Japan.
On the equity front, the session is drawing to a close in Asia with Chinese indices showing strong momentum.
Shenzhen and Shanghai increased by 1.24% and 0.71% respectively.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong closed at +2.31%.
In China, the services sector grew at a slightly faster pace in October, according to the Caixin services survey.
The purchasing managers' index stood at 50.4, just above September's level of 50.2.
Long-dated Treasury bond yields fell.
The 10-year benchmark slipped nearly eight basis points.
UBS expects the 10-year Treasury yield to fall to 3.5% by June next year as the Fed shifts its focus from rate hikes to rate cuts.
Others take a more cautious view.
Hedge fund K2 Asset Management expects benchmark 10-year Treasury yields to rise to 5% — from 4.66% — while Franklin Templeton says they could peak at 5.25% — a level seen l last time in 2007.
Barclays Plc co-head of global markets division Stephen Dainton said it was "very unlikely" that the Fed would end the restrictive policy.
Elsewhere, weaker oil is expected as the war between Israel and Hamas remains brutal, but contained as clouds gather on the demand horizon.
Gold headed for its first weekly decline in four.
Bitcoin is under special scrutiny, after Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of a massive fraud that led to the collapse of his FTX exchange.
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