Most of the Asian indices surged on Thursday buoyed by gains in Chinese resource and automobile shares which helped offset sharp decline in property developers.
Chinese shares advanced for a second day, with Shanghai's key stock index, Shanghai Composite 1.5% but fresh measures to cool China's real estate market knocked property stocks lower.
Hong Kong's Heng Seng was down 0.3% as Chinese developers tumbled; however telecom and resource shares lend support.
Japan's Nikkei average rose 0.7 percent supported by strong earnings expectations and a firm Yen against the Euro. Taiwan Weighted was up 0.5%, Straits Times, Singapore's benchmark index ended flat, 3219 and Seoul Composite was up marginally by 0.2%.
Investor sentiment in Asia was underpinned by marginal overnight gains on Wall Street. Policymakers at the U.S. central bank unanimously agreed to continue with the bond purchases, the first time there was no dissent since December 2009.
The Fed, concerned about high unemployment, also said underlying U.S. inflation was trending downwards, despite higher commodity prices, contrasting in tone to other central banks, particularly those in emerging markets.
Rising price pressures have already forced the likes of India and South Korea to lift rates this year and more action is expected in the months ahead, fuelling worries that tighter policy could derail growth.
Those concerns have dealt a heavy blow to several Southeast Asian stock markets in the past few weeks, with investors locking in profits on last year's stellar gains. But a bounce back in these markets this week suggested some investors consider the sell-down was overdone.
In Europe, markets were trading lower on back lower than expected earnings. Financials were also leading the losses after Standard & Poor’s cut Japan's long-term sovereign-credit rating. U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.2%, the French CAC 40 index fell 0.3% and the German DAX 30 was trading flat.
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