Asia markets track Wall Street gains amid renewed U.S. rate cut hopes; Hong Kong stocks hit 10-month high

Hong Kong led Asia-Pacific stocks higher on Friday as markets tracked Wall Street gains, with renewed hopes for rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve bolstering market sentiment.

The Hang Seng index hit its highest level in 10 months, up 2.32% after Bloomberg reported regulators were considering a proposal to exempt individual investors from paying taxes on dividends earned from Hong Kong stocks bought via Stock Connect.

Mainland China’s CSI 300 marginally rose to hit its highest level since October 2023, ending at 3,666.27.

Meanwhile, Japan’s overall household spending in March fell 1.2% year on year, less than the 2.4% expected by a Reuters poll of economists. However, on a month-on-month basis, household spending rose 1.2%, compared with estimates of a 0.3% drop.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.41% to end at 38,229.11, while the broad-based Topix gained 0.54% to close at 2,728.21.

South Korea’s Kospi closed 0.57% higher at 2,727.63, but the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.69%, ending at 864.16.

The Australian S&P/ASX 200 ended up 0.35% at 7,749.

Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes climbed as fresh weekly jobless claims data came in at the highest level since August, raising expectations that central bankers might cut interest rates at some point this year.

The 30-stock Dow jumped 0.85% to notch its longest win streak since a nine-day run in December. The S&P 500 added 0.51%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.27%.

— CNBC’s Brian Evans and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.