Asia-Pacific markets live: Tokyo CPI, gold, U.S.-China

Asia-Pacific markets were set to mostly climb Friday after Wall Street gained for a third straight day as tech stocks rallied.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 is set to open higher, with the futures contract in Chicago at 35,690 while its counterpart in Osaka last traded at 35,560, against the index’s last close of 35,039.15.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 22,158, higher than HSI’s last close of 21,909.76.

Australian markets are closed for a holiday.

Futures linked to the S&P 500 were 0.3% higher, while Nasdaq-100 futures gained 0.4%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered around the flatline.

Overnight stateside, the three major averages closed higher thanks to strong gains in megacap tech names, as investors continued to look for signs of progress on the global trade front.

The S&P 500 ended up 2.03% at 5,484.77, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 2.74% to finish at 17,166.04. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged the other two indexes, weighed down by a 6.6% drop in IBM, but still added 486.83 points, or 1.23%, at 40,093.40. 

Shares of Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Tesla and Microsoft all closed higher, propelling the major averages to their third day of gains in a row

“Investors are becoming more comfortable with the uncertainties of tariffs as earnings roll in,” said Louis Navellier, chairman and founder of Navellier & Associates. “The market seems to be positioning itself for a near-term reduction in the current sky-high China tariffs,” he added.

— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Pia Singh contributed to this report.