Al Jazeera :
Fears of a global banking crisis have eased following the rollout of multi-billion-dollar lifelines for troubled lenders in Europe and the United States, with Asia’s stock markets rebounding from earlier lows.
Stocks rose in China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, the Philippines and Hong Kong on Friday, following gains on Wall Street after the largest US banks unveiled a $30bn lifeline for troubled regional lender First Republic Bank.
MSCI’s most representative index of Asia-Pacific shares excluding Japan climbed 0.9 percent, reversing earlier losses, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose by 0.5 percent.
China’s blue-chip index gained 0.8 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1.2 percent.
Asian bank shares joined the gains, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Financials index climbing as much as 0.4 percent after earlier losses, Bloomberg reported.
Japanese banks including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group were among the big gainers, rising by as much as 2 percent, Bloomberg said.