Monday 03:00 GMT. Most Asia-Pacific equities shrugged off jitters in the Chinese interbank market to echo gains in US markets on Friday, but stocks in Japan were kept in check by a rise in the yen against the US dollar.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.7 per cent while China's Shanghai Composite edged up 0.2 per cent. Other Asia Pacific markets rose in lockstep, with South Korea's Kospi Composite rising 0.7 per cent and Taiwan's Taiex advancing 0.7 per cent.
Equities in Japan underperformed the rest of the region slightly, with the Nikkei 225 flat and the Topix off 0.1 per cent as a rise in the yen prompted traders to lock in some profits. The yen rose 0.05 per cent to 104.04 per dollar after hitting a five-year low against the US currency on Friday.
Asia performance came despite short-term interbank borrowing rates in China hitting 9.8 per cent. That was only slightly below the 10 per cent the rate hit Friday, and came despite the People's Bank of China injecting Rmb300m of emergency money into the system on Friday evening.
Analysts have cited a range of reasons for Chinese lenders hoarding cash. They may be scrambling for funds to meet regulatory requirements to have loan-to-deposit ratios exceeding 75 per cent by year-end.
In the US on Friday the S&P 500 ended the trading week at another record high of 1818 points. On Monday, futures traded during the Asian session ticked up to 1820 points.
US stocks did well because of a robust gross domestic product reading that showed the world's largest economy expanded at a 4.1 per cent annualised rate in the third quarter. That was the quickest pace of growth in almost two years. The data came after the Federal Reserve announced a tapering of its monthly asset purchases from $85bn to $75bn, but sugared the pill with assurances that interest rates would stay low.
"Growth prospects are looking up" for Asian markets, analysts at London consultancy Capital Economics commented, "helped by continued loose monetary policy and signs of improvement in the global economy."
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