Hong Kong--Shanghai stocks recovered from a huge plunge to end higher Thursday while Tokyo's early gains wilted to almost nothing but the euro ticked up after Greece and its creditors held debt reform talks.
The dollar edged up following a broadly upbeat round of reports on the US economy as investors look ahead to the release Friday of key US jobs data.
Shanghai slumped 5.2 percent at one point after a brokerage imposed restrictions on margin borrowing, limiting a crucial avenue of cash that has helped fuel a surge in mainland markets of the past year.
However, it clawed back the majority of those losses to end 0.76 percent higher, adding 37.12 points to 4,947.10 -- its highest since January 2008.
However, Hong Kong ended down 0.38 percent, or 105.58 points, at 27,551.89. Sydney tumbled 1.42 percent, or 79.30 points, to 5,504.30 for a fourth straight loss.
Tokyo was marginally higher, adding 14.68 points to 20,488.19 and Seoul edged up 0.47 percent, or 9.70 points, to 2,072.86.
US shares ended Wednesday on a high note after following figures showing solid growth in private-sector job hiring and a healthy outlook on the economy in the Federal Reserve's latest update.
In its closely watched Beige Book, the Fed said the world's number one economy returned to modest-to-moderate growth in April and May after stalling in the first three months of the year, partly because of severe winter weather.
On Wall Street the Dow added 0.36 percent, the S&P 500 rose 0.21 percent and the Nasdaq put on 0.45 percent.
In Japanese currency trade Thursday the dollar was at 124.33 yen compared with 124.23 yen in New York, and well up from 123.90 yen in Tokyo earlier Wednesday.
Equity buying was also supported by comments from European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, who said its new stimulus programme of bond-purchasing had began to kick and there were no plans to end it early.
The ECB also projected eurozone inflation would reach 0.3 percent in 2015, up from its previous forecast of flat prices, while it kept its 2016 forecast at 1.5 percent and its 2017 forecast at 1.8 percent.
AFP
