SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific largely rose in Friday trade following gains overnight on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 closing at a new record.

Hong Kong Hang Seng indexAdvanced 0.48% Stocks in mainland China were also positive, as was the Shanghai compositeFractionally more than the Shenzhen componentIt hovered over the flatline.

Japan is home to the Nikkei 225The Topix index lost earlier gains and fell fractionally to 0.133%, while it climbed by 0.13% during early trade. South Korea KospiReceived 0.56 percent

Australia is home to the S&P/ASX 200The increase was 0.62%

MSCI’s Asia-Pacific stock index outside Japan was 0.4% lower.

Some Asian-Pacific markets, such as Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Singapore will be closing early Friday because of Christmas Eve.

Major averages rose overnight in the US as investors ignored earlier concerns about the spread and impact of the omicron Covid variation. The S&P 500 rose 0.62% to close at a new record of 4,725.79. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 196.67 points, to 35.950.56. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.85%, to 15.653.37.

The Christmas holiday will see the U.S. market close on Friday.

It U.S. dollar indexFollowing its decline earlier in the week,, which measures the greenback’s performance against a basket its peers, stood at 96.019.

It Japanese yenIt traded at 114.38 dollars, an increase of 1% from the previous week’s levels below 113.5. The Australian dollarThe price was $0.7231. This is an increase from the $0.714 levels earlier in this week.

With international benchmarks, oil prices dropped in the morning Asia trading hours Brent crude futuresBarrel price dropped by 0.29% to $76.63