Asia stocks rose marginally Monday following a record-smashing lead from Wall Street. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was up 0.11 percent in afternoon trade, while Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed up by 0.71 percent. Friday’s gains on Wall Street, where the broad-based S&P 500 piled on more than 0.9 percent to finish at 4,712.02, eclipsed a record from last month and came despite the consumer price index jumping 6.8 percent in November. Such a rise in inflation would suggest a sooner-rather-than-later tapering in the US Federal Reserve’s ultra-loose monetary policy, a change that the market has been nervously waiting for months. Fed chair Jerome Powell had already signaled plans to accelerate the tapering of stimulus payments. Many analysts expect the central bank to hike interest rates at least twice in 2022. Powell will update the markets this week following a two-day policy meeting. But traders took the data in stride, in part because inflation was largely expected. In Asia, Singapore, Manila and Jakarta were marginally up, with Wellington rising more than one percent. Shanghai also jumped, while Seoul and Taipei dipped. Chinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime said it was postponing a planned $767 million initial public offering in Hong Kong after it was blacklisted by the US over human rights concerns in Xinjiang. It filed a statement with the Hong Kong stock exchange saying it would postpone its listing “to safeguard the interests of the potential investors” as they weigh the impact of being placed on the blacklist. In Tokyo, “the market is looking at the Bank of Japan’s Tankan” quarterly business survey, released 10 minutes before the opening bell, senior market analyst Toshiyuki Kanayama of Monex said. The latest survey showed Japan’s major manufacturers remain cautious about the economy’s trajectory, with business sentiment flat for the quarter as concerns about the pandemic linger. Some investors may take a wait-and-see attitude ahead of the Fed meeting, analysts added. “Global equities had a solid run last week and we’ll see if the goodwill lasts into what is a behemoth when it comes to event risk,” Chris Weston, head of research with Pepperstone Financial, wrote in a note. The Fed, along with the latest on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, should dictate sentiment, he added. Michael Hewson, a chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, added, “For now, equity markets appear to be adopting a glass half full approach to recent events, even as US inflation came in at its highest levels in 39 years on Friday, amidst a backdrop of increasing concern that central banks are massively behind the curve.” “Nonetheless as we look ahead to a new week, with the likes of the Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, and European Central Bank all due to deliberate on policy, European equity markets look set to start the week on the front foot.”