Investing.com - Shares in Asia were mixed with Tokyo down but Sydney and Shanghai up as investors looked ahead to U.S. jobs data at the end of the week.
The Nikkei 225 fell 0.85%, while the S&P/ASX 200 ended up 2.12% and the Shanghai Composite finished up 1.53%.
In Australia, tThe NAB Quarterly Business Confidence index in Australia came in at plus-4, up from flat in the previous quarter.
The quarterly NAB looks a little out of date but is a good sector indicator, surveying 910 companies across the nonfarm sector compared with between 300 and 600 in the monthly survey.
Earlier, a researcher with the People's Bank of China suggested in a quarterly review that there was not much room to easy monetary policy further. The PBOC set the yuan's central parity rate against the U.S. dollar at 6.5419 Thursday, stronger than Wednesday's
6.5521.
Overnight, U.S. stocks staged a late rally on Wednesday to finish with a mixed session, as an 8% surge in crude prices and further indications from the Federal Reserve of a delayed interest rate hike helped the major indices rebound from its worst day in two weeks.
In Wednesday's session, U.S. crude futures soared nearly $2.50 a barrel amid renewed hopes for an emergency OPEC meeting, which could result in global production cuts of as much as 5%. One day after WTI crude plunged below $30 a barrel, Ecuador president Rafael Correa triggered the reversal by telling the Wall Street Journal that such a meeting could occur as soon as this month. In recent weeks, U.S. equities have traded in lockstep with oil prices, virtually mirroring wild fluctuations on energy markets, which have seemingly occurred on a daily basis.
The Dow Jones Industrials Average added 183.05 or 1.13% to 16,336.59, while the NASDAQ Composite index fell 12.71 or 0.28% to 4,504.24, amid down sessions for Yahoo! Inc (O:O:YHOO), Alphabet Inc (O:GOOGL) and Amazon.com Inc (O:O:AMZN). At session low's, the Dow fell by as much as 193 points. The S&P 500 Composite index, meanwhile, gained 9.50 or 0.50% to 1,912.53, as seven of 10 sectors closed in the green. Stocks in Basic Materials and Energy sectors led, each gaining more than 3% on the session. Stocks in the Technology, Consumer Services and Consumer Goods industries lagged.