Asian markets were broadly higher Thursday as the third and final U.S. presidential debate played out, and as traders awaited policy news from the European Central Bank.

Japanese stocks rose ahead of the debate as some traders looked for some short-term gains, said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Asset Management. In the previous two debates, stocks rose when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was seen to prevail against Republican nominee Donald Trump, whose policies were seen as unfriendly to Asian markets.

The heated debate only lightly addressed Asian economic and market issues.

Japan's Nikkei was up 1%, Korea's Kospi was up 0.1% and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.2%. This followed an overnight rise in U.S. stocks triggered by an oil rally.

Oil prices were slightly lower in early Asia trade Thursday, but still remain near a one-year high, thanks to a larger-than-expected 5.2-million barrel decline in U.S. crude stockpiles in the week ended Oct. 14. Many analysts had expected an increase.

"Very good corporate earnings coming from Wall Street and crude oil prices surged 2.6%, so that…[led] to a positive opening in Hong Kong and across Asia," said Margaret Yang, a market analyst at CMC Markets.

In Australia, Woodside Petroleum was up about 1% and BHP Billiton was up 1.6%.

Australia's jobless rate fell in September from August as fewer people were looking for work. The unemployment rate fell to a lower-than-expected seasonally adjusted 5.6%. Economists had expected an unemployment rate of 5.7% in September.

Meanwhile, the number of people employed fell by 9,800, compared with an expected 15,000 rise, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

The market is looking to the ECB meeting later in the global day. The central bank is widely expected to leave its policies unchanged, confirming it will continue to buy €80 billion ($88 billion) a month of mainly government bonds until at least March. The market will be looking for signals about what will happen after that point.

"We…think there will be a dovish tone from the ECB," said Frank Benzimra, head of Asia equity strategy at Socié té Gé né rale.

Kosaku Narioka, James Glynn, Ese Erheriene and Kenan Machado contributed to this article.

Write to Willa Plank at willa.plank@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 19, 2016 23:55 ET (03:55 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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