A HDR evening shot taken at sunset of the Tokyo skyline.
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South Korea’s Kospi rose 2% to hit a record high on Friday, amid regional gains after the White House said that U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping were set to hold talks next week.
U.S. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump will leave for Malaysia late Friday and then travel to Japan and South Korea, meeting Xi next Thursday after speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit, Reuters reported.
South Korea’s small-cap Kosdaq was 0.92% higher. The country’s finance ministry said Friday it was ready to step in to stabilize the foreign exchange market if needed, amid persistent volatility in the won-dollar trade.
The South Korean won, which strengthened 0.11% to 1,434.7 against the dollar on Friday, has dropped more than 4% against the greenback over the last three months. It has appreciated 2.86% against the dollar this year.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index climbed 0.78%, while the Topix added 0.39%. Japan’s core inflation rate accelerated to 2.9% in September, the first increase since May and in line with expectations from economists polled by Reuters.
This was higher than the 2.7% seen in August. The core inflation metric in Japan strips out the prices of fresh food but includes energy costs.
Headline inflation in Japan also climbed to 2.9% from 2.7% the previous month.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 was trading 0.19% higher at the open. The Reserve Bank of Australia is planning to review upgrades to the nation’s interbank settlement system from next year, Governor Michele Bullock said Friday.
She said the central bank will examine ways to modernize the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System — the nation’s interbank settlement platform — including adopting newer data-exchange technology, extending operating hours, and expanding the use of central bank money for settlements.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.83%, while mainland CSI 300 added 0.57%.
Overnight, the three major averages closed higher. The S&P 500 climbed 0.58% to close at 6,738.44, boosted by tech stocks, after a batch of strong earnings results.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded up 144.20 points, or 0.31%, to finish at 46,734.61. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed, rising 0.89% to settle at 22,941.80, seeing support from the gains in Nvidia, Broadcom and Amazon. A nearly 3% jump in shares of fellow artificial intelligence player Oracle also boosted sentiment.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Pia Singh and Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.