MUFG Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc

Asian stock markets were higher on Friday, helped by gains in Apple Inc.'s suppliers, while some uncertainty remained over the outcomes from central bank policy meetings in Japan and the U.S. next week.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average was up 0.5%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 1.1%. New Zealand's NZX-50 was 0.8% higher and Singapore's Straits Times Index was up 0.8%.

Markets in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia were closed for the mid-Autumn festival.

Gains in Asian markets followed a sharp rise in Apple shares overnight which boosted major U.S. indexes. Apple began shipping its new iPhone models Friday.

Tomoichiro Kubota, senior market analyst at Matsui Securities, said some are speculating it will see solid sales. "It's a hot topic and buying is spreading to Apple-linked stocks," he said.

The shares of electronics equipment makers that supply parts to Apple were higher. Murata Manufacturing Co. was up 4.1% and TDK Corp. was up 4.3%.

Still, many investors remained cautious and refrained from trading aggressively before monetary policy decisions from the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve next week.

A bright spot for Japanese banks came from comments from the head of the Japanese banking industry association Thursday that the BOJ's negative interest rates raised concerns about business sentiment among corporate executives rather than boost their loan demand.

Analysts said the comments helped reduce expectations that the BOJ will lower its rate on bank excess reserves further into negative territory, which would hurt banks' profits.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. is up 2.5%. Resona Holdings Inc. is up 3.1%.

"It's probably difficult to lower the negative rate further when there is this much criticism," said Soichiro Monji, general manager of economic research at Daiwa SB Investments.

Suryatapa Bhattacharya contributed to this article.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 15, 2016 23:55 ET (03:55 GMT)

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