Markets in the Asia-Pacific traded higher, carrying on the optimism behind Wall Street's rally as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell confirmed smaller rate hikes could start in December.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.42%, with the Hang Seng Tech index trading 2.3% higher.

The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index for China came in at 49.4, higher than expectations while marking a fourth consecutive month of contraction.

The Japanese yen strengthened against the dollar, following Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments signaling smaller interest rate hikes could come as soon as the next meeting in December.

The FTX loss will not impact the net investment returns of Singapore's reserves, which are "tied to the overall expected long term returns of our investment entities and not to individual investments," he said.

China's Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index for November came in at 49.4, higher than expectations of 48.9 in a Reuters survey of economists.

The reading marks a fourth consecutive month of contraction, after a reading of 49.2 from October and dipping to 48.1 in September — below the 50-point mark which separates growth from contraction.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says he continues to believe in a path to a "soft-ish" landing — even if the path has narrowed over the past year.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments indicating the central bank will slow future interest rate hikes as soon as December put upward pressure on the three major indexes.

The lagged effect of higher rates already taken in 2022, plus the drawing down of the size of the Fed's balance sheet through quantitative tightening, mean "it makes sense to moderate the pace of our rate increases as we approach the level of restraint that will be sufficient to bring inflation down," Powell said

"The time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting," said the 69-year-old Fed chair