Punters dance on to Wall Street tune

ASIAN investors continued to dance to Wall Street's upbeat tune, but strong gains in the region failed to wipe out the full effects of a week's black trading. The Brazilian bail-out by the International Monetary Fund, which lifted US banks overnight and took US stocks up by 3%, also comforted regional investors, who feared another emerging market crisis would frighten off international investors.

In Tokyo the Nikkei 225 Average came to within a whisker of breaking through 10,000 in early trading, although it later slipped back for a net closing gain of 200.22 at 9999.79.

Investors ignored IMF warnings that the economy was set to shrink again this year. The Bank of Japan also turned a deaf ear to exhortations in the IMF's latest survey of Japan to kick-start reflation, announcing that it intended to leave monetary policy unchanged. The IMF predicted that gross domestic product would fall 0.5% for the current year, matching last year's drop, and predicted that there would be no cyclical recovery in business investment before late this year.

The sharp increases in private consumption and public investment in the first quarter were unlikely to be sustained owing to the uncertain employment outlook, said the IMF, although it expected exports to remain robust.

Export stocks led the 2.04% gain in the Nikkei as investors took heart from a weakening in the yen, which had threatened to bloat itself to the point where it would stunt demand from overseas. Motor stocks were spurred on by recent good results from carmakers. Toyota's stock accelerated almost 3%, with Honda not far behind.

In Hong Kong, a big jump in the stock of HSBC Holdings on relief that a solution to Brazil's problems may be in sight was the biggest force behind a gain of 162.93 points to 10,125.17 on the Hang Seng index.

HSBC shares rose HK$1.75 to HK$88.75 as the US$30bn (£19.6bn) lifebelt handed out to Brazil reduced the risk to the bank's extensive South American operations. Property giant Cheung Kong stood firm after a negative rating on its credit from Standard & Poor's, which was concerned about the group's holding in conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa and its exposure to massive 3G mobile telephone costs.

Electronics stocks in Taiwan and South Korea were yanked up by the strong performance on Nasdaq overnight. As tensions between Taiwan and China begin to ease after sabre rattling over independence issues, the Weighted Average added 152.91 points to 4853.14.

The Kospi index in Seoul rose 14.14 points to 698.63, led up by technology stocks.

Three days of gains on Wall Street impressed Sydney investors, who moved in on local blue chips and took the All Ordinaries index up 28.6 points to 3052.8 at the close. Resource stocks continued their recent convalescence, BHP Billiton adding a further 3% as world copper prices showed signs of life.

Smaller regional markets also followed the US lead, Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur Composite up 0.68 point at 723.18.and Thailand's SET 7.04 better at 367.07. In Jakarta, Indonesia's Composite index was up 3.77 points at 450.23. The Singapore market was closed for a public holiday.

Prices and indices in this section are supplied from various sources and calculated at different times and may not always match those listed in the tables.