Japan, Australia, India PMI, BOK decision

Asia-Pacific markets opened mostly higher on Thursday, as investors assess flash business activity data from Australia, Japan and India throughout the trading day.

The Bank of Korea has also held its benchmark interest rate at 3.5%, in line with expectations, but traders will watch the language used in its press release later to see if any policy easing is on the cards.

This comes after the Federal Reserve released minutes for its July meeting, where the summary revealed that some participants made the case to ease rates at the July meeting instead of September.

However, “the vast majority” of participants at the July 30-31 meeting “observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting,” the summary said.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 0.79% higher, while the broad based Topix was up 0.29%. Japan’s business activity expanded at a faster pace in August, with the composite purchasing managers index climbing to 53.0 from July’s 52.5.

The country’s manufacturing sector swung back to growth, while its services sector saw a faster expansion.

South Korea’s Kospi was 0.23% up, but the small-cap Kosdaq dropped 0.25%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were at 17,514, higher than the HSI’s last close of 17,391.01.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.34%, after the country’s flash composite purchasing managers index in August increased to 51.4 from 49.9 the month before, reaching a three-month high and underpinned by rising services activity, Judo Bank said.

In the U.S., all three major benchmarks gained after the Fed minutes reinforced hope for lower rates in the near future.

The S&P 500 added 0.42%, bringing the benchmark within 1% of its all-time record close. The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.57%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up by 0.14%.

—CNBC’s Alex Harring and Samantha Subin contributed to this report.