Shares are mostly higher in Asia after U.S. stocks capped a mostly dismal week with a broad rally. Markets saw strong gains in Tokyo, China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Markets that began the year with investors expecting a global stock rally to fizzle, swift U.S. interest rate cuts to boost Treasuries and soften the dollar and emerging market currencies to strengthen have firmly defied that consensus.

Wall Street is making history in more ways than one. This has been nothing short of a banner year for Wall Street. Whereas the stock market has historically delivered average annual gains of around 10%,