HONG KONG: Asian markets were mixed in early trade on Friday after impressive rallies in the previous session while investors took heart from another strong performance on Wall Street.
Hong Kong added 0.22 percent by the break, Sydney was flat and Seoul rose 0.30 percent but Tokyo slipped 1.00 percent and Shanghai eased 0.42 percent.
Shares on Japan's Nikkei remained under pressure after the yen strengthened in New York against the greenback while it continued to stay strong against the euro.
Wall Street saw a third day of gains on Thursday thanks to another round of upbeat earnings figures from some of the country's biggest firms.
IBM posted better-than-expected quarterly profits and raised its full-year estimate, while online auction house eBay said its profit more than doubled in the April-June period.
While Washington reported weak jobs and housing data dealers seemed to be unfazed owing to expectations of more stimulus measures to prop up the world's biggest economy.
The Labor Department reported 386,000 initial jobless claims were filed in the week ending July 14, an almost 10 percent increase from the prior week's upwardly revised figure and well above expectations of a rise to 365,000.
And the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing, or previously occupied, homes fell 5.4 percent in June from May, instead of an expected rise.
The Dow climbed 0.27 percent, the S&P 500 added 0.27 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.79 percent.
On currency markets the dollar bought 78.63 yen, firming from 78.59 yen in New York Thursday, when it slipped 0.3 percent against the Japanese unit on the back of the weak economic data.
The euro was at $1.2263 and 96.41 yen in Tokyo, compared with $1.2282 and 96.43 yen in New York.