Asian Shares End Mostly Higher; Energy Plays Advance

Asian stock markets ended modestly higher after a choppy session on Friday, with some energy shares supported as oil prices continued to rise, while recent strength limited sharper gains.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index gained 0.5% and China's Shanghai Composite rose 1.3%, while South Korea's Kospi ended up 0.6% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.1%.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.5%.

"Asian markets have performed quite strongly over the past few weeks," said Conita Hung, head of equity markets at Delta Asian Financial Group in Hong Kong. "It's hard to enter into the markets at these levels," she said, adding selected stocks in "energy and raw materials were still gaining some support."

The performance in Asia comes after U.S. shares had advanced on Thursday, with the S&P 500 near 10-month highs, as better-than-expected jobs and home-price data buoyed sentiment.

A key index of German business confidence also beat expectations, shedding positive light on Europe's largest economy.

"Optimism keeps going with solid data in Europe and the US," Kintai Cheung, a strategist at Credit Agricole said. "As Greek crisis appears to be easing, more attention may shift to the tensions in Iran, which had pushed up oil prices sharply."

Surging oil prices helped boost some Asian energy shares. Benchmark crude-oil futures broke through $108 a barrel in electronic trading, after hitting a nine-month high in New York trading.

Tokyo-listed Inpex rose 5.1% and Japan Petroleum Exploration added 3.0%.

In Sydney, AGL Energy traded down 4.7% after the firm posted a drop in first-half net profit and said it will raise A$1.5 billion from share issues to help buy Tokyo Electric Power's interest in the Loy Yang power station. Shares of Tokyo Electric Power, better known as Tepco, lost 2.4% in Japan trading.

Newcrest Mining dropped 4.3% in Sydney after the gold miner said difficulties at its Lihir mine were expected to impair quarterly production.

But metals shares moved higher in Tokyo, with Nippon Steel gaining 3.5% and Sumitomo Metal Industries up 3.7%.

Among exporters making ground in Tokyo, Sony got a 3% bounce, Pioneer rose 2.5% and Mazda Motor climbed 0.7%.

J. Front Retailing rose 1.5% on a Nikkei business daily report that it would buy shopping-mall firm Parco Co., paying a sharp premium for some of the shares. Shares of Parco remained bid-only at the end of the morning trading session in Tokyo.

In Hong Kong, Esprit Holdings recovered from an earlier slump to end fractionally higher. Several brokers, including UBS and Citigroup downgraded the stock after the fashion retailer posted a 74% drop in first-half net profit on Thursday.

Property developers dragged in Hong Kong. Sino Land dropped 1.1% and Hang Lung Properties fell 1.0%.

"Most Hong Kong investors are waiting to see HBSC's result on Monday, they are sidelined ahead of the result which may have a major impact on the market," Delta Asian Financial Group's Hung said.