Investing.com-- Asian stock markets traded in mixed fashion on Thursday amid caution ahead of U.S. consumer inflation data, while Japan's Nikkei index scaled new record highs amid political unrest in the country.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite index hit their second consecutive record closing highs on Wednesday, buoyed by expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut next week.
U.S. stock index futures traded marginally higher in Asia hours on Thursday.
Japan's Nikkei hits new record high after PM exit
Japan's Nikkei 225 index jumped over 1% on Thursday to hit a fresh record high of 44,288.47 points, reaching peaks above 44,000 points for the second time this week.
The move comes after Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba stepped down on Sunday following heavy election losses and growing internal party dissent.
This sparked expectations that his successor may pursue more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.
Market sentiment was also supported this week by confirmation of a U.S.-Japan deal lowering tariffs on Japanese auto exports by mid-September.
Japan's broader TOPIX index edged 0.2% higher, remaining just below record highs reached earlier this week.
Markets await US CPI data amid Fed rate cut bets
Data on Wednesday showed an unexpected easing in U.S. producer price inflation for August, strengthening the case for the Fed to cut rates by a quarter-point at its September 17 meeting.
The more widely-watched U.S. consumer prices data is due later on Thursday, and is expected to provide further clarity on how far and how fast the Federal Reserve might ease monetary policy.
Back in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index slipped 1% after jumping to a four-year high with sharp gains in the past few sessions.
The Hang Seng TECH sub-index retreated 1.3% on Thursday after sharp gains earlier this week.
South Korea's KOSPI edged 0.2% higher, while Singapore's Straits Times Index was largely unchanged.
China's Shanghai Composite index gained 0.3%, while the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 advanced 0.6% on tech sector gains.
Elsewhere, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.4%, while futures for India's Nifty 50 rose marginally.