06:39 AM EDT, 10/29/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Asian stock markets largely rallied on Wednesday on hopes for improving China-US trade relations, and a generally good earnings season.

Exchanges in Tokyo, Seoul and Taiwan all closed at fresh zeniths driven by tech optimism, while Shanghai also gained ground. Trading floors in Australia sagged after a hotter-than-expected inflation report doused expectations for central-bank easing. The Hong Kong exchange was closed on holiday.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 opened higher on Wall Street cues and rose to the close, finishing up 2.17% as traders again crowded into tech issues.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1,088.47 to 51,307.65, although, unusually, losing issues outnumbered gainers 182 to 43. Gains were largely limited to AI-related enterprises.

Leading the upside was semiconductor-test equipment maker Advantest, up 22.1% after reporting earnings and lifting guidance, while IT-enterprise Shift declined 6.9%.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.7% to 4,016.33 on hopes for improved China-US trade relations, and after media reports that the state-owned COFCO food company bought 180,000 tons of US soybeans, considered a possible goodwill gesture by Beijing.

On the other regional exchanges, the S. Korean KOSPI rose 1.8%; the Taiwan TWSE inclined 1.2%; the Australian ASX 200 declined 1%; the Singapore Straits Times Index fell 0.2%, and the Thai Set inclined 0.1%. In late trading in Mumbai, the Sensex was up 0.4%.