Asia-Pacific markets mostly rise as investors assess business activity data from the region

Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Wednesday as investors assessed a slew of data from the region, while Wall Street rose overnight as U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said there was "progress" on inflation.

The au Jibun Bank reported that Japan's composite purchasing managers' index fell to 49.7 in June, down sharply from 52.6 in the previous month. This signals a decrease in Japanese private sector activity for the first time in seven months.

The bank noted that a slight reduction in services activity, the first decline since August 2022, outweighed a marginal increase in manufacturing output for the month.

Separately, the Caixin services purchasing managers' index showed that China's services sector expanded for the 18th consecutive month, though it was at its slowest pace since October 2023. The PMI was 51.2 in June, down from 54.0 a month prior.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.26% to end the day at 40,580.76, extending its run above the 40,000 mark, while the broad-based Topix ended up 0.54% at 2,872.18.

South Korea's Kospi rose 0.47% to end at 2,794.01, while the Kosdaq Index rose 0.75% to 836.1.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 ended the day 0.28% higher at 7,739.9.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 1.14% in the final hour of trade, boosted by property stocks. Mainland China's CSI 300 ended down by 0.24% at 3463.41.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba announced Tuesday that it had repurchased a total of 613 million of its ordinary shares for a total of $5.8 billion in the quarter ending June. The company's stock rose 2.6% on Wednesday.

India's BSE Sensex briefly crossed the 80,000 mark, reaching an all-time high. The Nifty 50 also hit an all-time high of 24,307.25.

HSBC reported that India's private sector activity expanded much faster last month, with the composite PMI coming in at 60.9 in June, up from a five-month low of 60.5 in May. Manufacturing firms contributed more to the expansion than services companies, according to Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist at HSBC.

Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.41%, the S&P 500 gained 0.62%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.84%. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 hit record-high closes.

Tesla shares helped lift the S&P 500 after Elon Musk's electric vehicle company beat expected deliveries for the second quarter.