singapore asiapacific markets were to set to trade higher on friday following a volatile session on wall street overnight where investors reacted to comments from the federal reserve and us gdp data nikkei futures in chicago and osaka were at 26580 and 26560 higher than the benchmark indexs previous close of 2617030 australias asx 200 rose almost 1 in early trade after closing 177 down on thursday the taiwan market is closed for a holiday on friday hong kong is slated to release its gdp report for the fourth quarter on friday afternoon stocks continued to be volatile overnight on wall street as investors reacted to news from the fed as well as the newest gdp figures and corporate earnings us gross domestic product grew 69 in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the year before beating analyst expectations despite a surge in omicron cases both the sp 500 and nasdaq retraced earlier gains to close lower the sp 500 ended the session down 05 at 432651 and the techfocused nasdaq composite lost 14 to 1335278 the dow jones industrial average was up over 600 points at during intraday trade but closed almost flat at 3416078 all three indexes are firmly in negative territory so far this month spot gold slid to a twoweek low of 179020 on thursday as the us dollar rallied following signs that the fed will hike interest rates soon reuters reported it has since recovered and was last trading at 1797 in asia elsewhere the kremlin said russias views were not taken into account in us security proposals tensions between the two sides have increased over russias growing military presence along its border with ukraine oil prices pulled back from sevenyear highs this week but remain elevated over fears that energy supplies in europe from russia could be disrupted the us dollar index which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers last traded at 97204 rising from 95948 meanwhile the japanese yen traded at 11537 per dollar while the australian dollar changed hands at 07036 up slightly from 07031 earlier cnbcs saheli roy choudhury hannah miao tanaya macheel jeff cox and holly ellyatt contributed to this report