Asia-Pacific markets set to rise as Wall Street looks past trade developments

Asia-Pacific markets were set to mostly climb Wednesday, as Wall Street rose overnight, shrugging off Trump tariffs and China’s retaliation to measures.

All eyes will be on China, which will resume trading after the Lunar New Year holidays. The Chinese government on Tuesday announced tariffs on U.S. imports in retaliation to duties on its exports.

China is slated to release its Caixin Services PMI figures for January later in the day. The metric captures the country’s services activity.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 20,971 pointing to a stronger open, compared to the HSI’s close of 20,789.96.

Japan benchmark Nikkei 225 was set to open higher, with the futures contract in Chicago at 39,000 while its counterpart in Osaka last traded at 38,950, against the index’s last close of 38,798.37.

Overnight in the U.S., the three indexes moved higher following the developments around global trade.

Software player Palantir popped about 24% on fourth-quarter results. AI major Nvidia advancing 1.7% during the session.

The tech-heavy index Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.35% to 19,654.02, while the S&P 500 rose 0.72% to 6,037.88. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 134.13 points, or 0.3%, to 44,556.04.

— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.