Most Southeast Asian stock markets soared on Friday, with Indonesia setting a record a day after its central bank held key policy rate unchanged, while Singapore and the Philippines posted strong gains on the back of upbeat regional economic data.
Asian shares also drew support from Wall Street, which rose sharply overnight after a broad package of tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump passed its first hurdle.
"There was a positive handover from the US markets. The US House of Representatives passed the tax reform bill. So that is one hurdle down," said Joel Ng, an analyst from Singapore-based KGI Securities.
Indonesian shares rose as much as 0.8%, with the index of the 45 most liquid stocks surging 1.1% to a record high.
Indonesia's central bank on Thursday kept its key policy rate unchanged, as expected and in line with a goal of maintaining financial stability at a time the market anticipates a US interest rate hike next month.
Singapore shares climbed as much as 1.1% in their biggest intraday gain since Oct 2, and were on track to snap five sessions of losses.
The city-state's non-oil domestic exports in October rose at a much stronger pace than expected as both electronics and non-electronic sectors expanded, data showed, underpinning the market sentiment.
"I think the past two days were mainly due to profit-taking going to the year-end. So, it was the fundamentals from Singapore that gave a more optimistic outlook for equities," said Joel Ng.
Financials boosted the index, with lender DBS Group Holdings up as much as 1.6%, and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp climbing 1.7%.
Malaysian stocks edged 0.2% higher, after five consecutive sessions of declines, as investors cheered data that showed the economy expanded 6.2% annually in the third quarter, recording its highest quarterly growth in more than three years. Lender CIMB Group Holdings inched 1.4% higher, while conglomerate Genting Berhad was up 1.4%.
The Philippine index climbed more than 1%, owing to gains in real estate and industrial stocks. Property developer SM Prime Holdings was up 2%, while Ayala Land jumped 2.2%.
Meanwhile, Vietnam inched down 0.1 percent, trimming earlier gains that lifted the index to a fresh near-decade high.