Asian stocks seen getting a lift from S&P's record close

A record high finish on Wall Street will likely deliver a boost to Asian stocks on Friday.

Japan's Nikkei 225 is set to recover from Thursday's close at the lowest for this week. Chicago and Osaka futures traded at 19,700 and 19,650, both higher than the benchmark index's previous close of 19,570.

Australian shares are also expected to see a positive start after local futures notched up 0.6 percent to 5,723, a 27-point premium to the underlying S&P ASX 200 index.

Overnight, U.S. major indexes rallied one percent higher each on the back of calmer bond markets and a weaker dollar. The S&P 500 set a new closing record of 2121 after a 1.08 percent surge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.06 and 1.39 percent, respectively, to come within 50 points of their record highs.

Asia's calendar

In Asia, attention will likely turn to the Bank of Korea which is expected to hold policy rates steady at its May policy meeting.

Malaysia and Hong Kong are due to put out first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) on Friday.

The former's growth likely slowed to 5.5 percent in the first three months of 2015, according to economists polled by Reuters, from 5.8 percent in the previous quarter.

While the front-loading of purchases ahead of April's introduction of a good and services tax may have spurred domestic consumption, overall export growth remains soft due to falling oil prices and subdued demand from China, Moody's Analytics wrote in a note last week.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's economy may have expanded 2.0 percent in the January-March period, slower than the 2.2 percent in the previous quarter.