Japan's Nikkei soars to 4-year highs on BoJ Shirakawa's resignation, Asia mostly higher

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Wednesday, although two of the major equity indexes – China's Shanghai Composite (-0.09%) and South Korea's Kospi (-0.10%) edged lower. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average stole the show, with a +3.77% move to 11,463, marking its biggest one-day gain since the post-quake volatile trade in March 2011 and reaching its October-2008 high. Key for the move was BoJ Governor Shirakawa's early resignation. “The big sell off in the yen has pushed the Nikkei up by 4% today despite renewed tensions with China over a maritime incident surrounding the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands”, wrote TD Securities analysts.

Futures for the German DAX 30 and the French CAC 40 are signaling a higher opening by +0.17% ahead of a mostly empty economic calendar, with German Factory Orders data, though.