Stock market today: Asian shares power higher following slight gains on Wall Street

Asian shares powered higher on Thursday, with Chinese benchmarks up more than 1%, after Wall Street logged modest gains in this holiday-shortened week. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index was an outlier in the region, shedding 0.4% to 33,539.62. Speculation over whether and when the Bank of Japan might ease its longstanding lax monetary policy and raise its key interest rate from minus 0.1% has kept stocks wobbling in the world's third-largest economy.