Hong Kong piled on more than 2% at one point Wednesday, building on the previous day’s gains of over 2%

Most Asian markets rose Wednesday, with Hong Kong leading the pack for a second day following reports Alibaba’s co-founders had bought huge stakes in the company, a day after it emerged China was planning a huge boost for the country’s weak equities.

The gains followed another record for the S&P 500 on Wall Street that came on the back of optimism over the US economic outlook and a positive run of earnings.

That has helped offset waning expectations the Fed will cut interest rates several times this year starting in March.

Hong Kong piled on more than 2% at one point Wednesday, building on the previous day’s gains of over 2% – a much-needed advance after tanking nearly 10% from the start of the year to Monday.

The Hang Seng’s rise was fuelled by a 6% jump in Alibaba on news that Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai had bought around $200 million worth of shares between them, which Bloomberg said was seen as a positive signal to investors in the ecommerce titan.

Other Hong Kong-listed tech companies rallied, including Tencent, JD.com and Netease.

Alibaba’s New York-listed stock piled on nearly 8%.

However, the company is down more than 70% from its record high seen in 2020, when Beijing began a crackdown on China’s tech sector, which saw the cancellation of a planned IPO by subsidiary Ant Group worth $34 billion – a record at the time.

News of the purchases by Ma and Tsai came after Bloomberg reported that Premier Li Qiang had called for more “forceful” measures to support China’s tepid stocks, giving a shot in the arm to investor confidence.

Authorities were said to be looking at a raft of initiatives, and policymakers were seeking to mobilise around $280 billion, mainly from the offshore accounts of state-owned enterprises.

There were also advances in Shanghai, Wellington, Taipei and Manila.

However, Tokyo – which has rallied in January to three-decade highs thanks to growing hopes for the Japanese economy – plunged after central bank boss Kazuo Ueda ramped up expectations it will soon move away from its ultra-loose monetary policy.

Bets are now on a more hawkish shift to the long-running easing measures in the first half of the year.

Sydney, Seoul and Jakarta also eased.