Asian Equities Surge Higher Led By Japan, Europe Struggles To Hold Gains

Asian equities were mostly higher during Thursday's trading session, led by a 3.23 percent gain in Japan's Nikkei 225 index as traders and investors likely embraced the yen's recent weakness against the U.S. dollar.

The Nikkei index soared 3.23 percent on Thursday and outperformed other Asian indices by a noticeable margin. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.85 percent, China's Shanghai index gained 0.51 percent and Taiwan's TSEC index gained 0.18 percent.

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Australia's ASX 200 index gained 1.26 percent.

European equities were mostly trading flat to slightly negative with more than 4 hours of trading remaining. The broad Euro Stoxx 50 index was higher by just 0.06 percent.

Germany's DAX index was higher by 0.10 percent while France's CAC 40 index was lower by 0.07 percent.

The UK's FTSE 100 index was trading lower by 0.06 percent after the Bank of England maintained its interest rates unchanged, for the 85th straight month, at 0.5 percent - as was largely expected.

Gold futures for April delivery were trading lower by 0.48 percent. Crude Oil futures for delivery in May traded at around $41.70 a barrel.

U.S. index futures were trading lower by around 0.10 percent for as traders and investors anxiously await a slew of earnings data from many large banks.