Asia markets mostly rise while China stocks falter; investors assess Japan inflation, Singapore GDP data

This is CNBC's live blog covering Asia-Pacific markets.

Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Friday, tracking a rally on Wall Street that saw the S&P log gains for a fourth straight day.

The exceptions were Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, which fell 2.2% in its last hour of trade, and mainland China's CSI 300, which widened losses to 3.1% to close at 3,865.7.

Investors might be taking a wait-and-see approach while awaiting clarity on U.S.-China tariffs, said Eugene Hsiao, head of China equity strategy at Macquarie Capital, who believed additional stimulus announcements from Beijing may not come until the next parliament meeting in March.

Investors in Asia also assessed Japan's October consumer price index data. The core inflation, excluding volatile fresh food prices, rose 2.3% from a year ago, slightly above the estimated 2.2%, according to analysts polled by Reuters. That's cooler than 2.4% in the previous month.

The overall CPI came in at 2.3%, versus 2.5% in September.

Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 0.68% to close at 38,283.85, while the broad-based Topix rose 0.51% to end at 2,696.53.

South Korean blue-chip Kospi index added 0.83% to 2,501.24 while small-cap Kosdaq lost 0.54% to finish at 677.01.

Elsewhere, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 eked out gains of 0.85% to close at 8,393.8.

Singapore third-quarter gross domestic product expanded 5.4% from a year ago, notably outpacing the revised 3.0% in the prior quarter. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy grew by 3.2%, accelerating from the 0.5% in the second quarter, according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Singapore also raised its projection of this year's economic growth to "around 3.5%," from "2.0 to 3.0%"

Overnight stateside, the three major indexes rose, on track to close the