SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Asian markets ended mostly higher Thursday as upbeat economic data from China, Japan and Australia as well as commodity price gains helped investors overlook losses on Wall Street and the euro zone's fiscal troubles. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.1% each, while South Korea's Kospi rose 0.3% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index inched up 0.1%. Taiwan's Taiex jumped 1.6%, though China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.8%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 42 points in screen trade. The gains in Japan came after the nation's revised gross domestic product growth came in at a faster-than-expected rate of 1.2% in the first quarter over the year-earlier period. Machinery stocks performed especially well after data released late Wednesday showed core machinery orders for April increased 4.0% over the previous month. Fanuc surged 6.2% and Makita Corp. advanced 1.7%, while Tokyo Electron climbed 2.5%. Pharmaceutical plays also contributed to the gains with Astellas Pharma up 1.0% and Eisai 0.7% higher. Mitsui & Co. tumbled 5.8% on concerns about the earnings impact from BP's troubled oil drilling operations, in which the Japanese trading company has a 10% stake. The stock was hit as BP's American Depository Receipts fell 16% Wednesday, after the U.S. government's point man on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill sharply criticized the company in a letter released Wednesday, and said BP was taking too long to process compensation claims. Australian stocks advanced after stronger-than-expected job creation data for May bolstered confidence. The data showed 5.2% of eligible Australians were out of work, a relatively meager figure by global standards and below an expected 5.4% rate. BHP Billiton climbed 1.4% and Rio Tinto rose 2.2%, while Woodside Petroleum rose 2.2%. Overnight gains for crude-oil prices also helped energy producers elsewhere in the region, with Cnooc up 2.6% in Hong Kong, Inpex Corp. 3.9% higher in Tokyo and Cairn India up 1.2% in Mumbai afternoon trade. China's shares lost ground despite data showing that the country's exports surged 48.5% in May from a year earlier, boosting the monthly trade surplus to $19.5 billion, as investors focused on property price data. Figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that property prices in China's biggest cities rose for a 12th straight month in May, climbing 12.4% from a year earlier. "We believe the government will persist in efforts with the objective of cooling the property market, with possibly more measures to be introduced down the road. We expect significant price declines in the next few quarters, as the effect of the measure-particularly a rise in the supply of public housing-kicks in," Barclays economist Wensheng Peng wrote in a note. Among developers, China Vanke shed 2.1% in Shenzhen, Gemdale Corp. dropped 3.3% in Shanghai and China Overseas Land & Investment declined 0.7% in Hong Kong. Banking shares traded on the mainland also came off on concerns tightening may affect loan-book quality. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China fell 1.4% and Bank of Nanjing lost 4.1%. The Seoul market was supported by gains in technology and auto stocks, though banks were down, tracking their U.S. peers. Samsung Electronics rose 0.4% and Hynix Semiconductor rose 2.6%, while among financials, KB Financial slipped 0.2%. Bank of Korea kept its key policy rate steady at 2.00%. BOK Governor Kim Choong-soo said that while the euro-zone crisis poses downside risks to the country's economy, it would only have a limited impact on domestic growth. Woori Finance Holdings dropped 3.6% after South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service said it is investigating one of its units, Kyongnam Bank, after the discovery of improper issuance of loan payment guarantee certificates. Woori Finance said it doesn't yet know the financial scale of the case. Elsewhere, New Zealand's NZX 50 rose 0.1% and Philippine stocks declined 0.9%. In afternoon trade, India's Sensex and Singapore's Straits Times Index added 0.6%, while Indonesian shares fell 0.8% and Thailand's SET Index was up 0.3%. In foreign exchange markets, the euro reversed early declines against the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen. Traders said the euro was riding on the coat-tails of gains in the Australian dollar after that country's better-than-expected employment data for May. But some caution persisted ahead of policy decisions from the European Central Bank and the Bank of England later Thursday. The euro was at $1.2070 compared with $1.1988 in late New York trade Wednesday, and at Y110.22 from Y109.28. The dollar was at Y91.30 compared with Y91.15 yen. The Aussie dollar jumped to $0.8375, compared with $0.8280 before the data's release. The New Zealand dollar was stronger against the greenback after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised its official cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.75% as widely expected. The kiwi was at $0.6772, compared with $0.6672 before the decision. Lead September Japanese government bond futures fell 0.16 to 140.61 points, while the 10-year cash JGB yield was flat at 1.200%. Spot gold was at $1,226.70 per troy ounce, down $6.40 from the New York close Wednesday. Nymex July crude-oil futures rose 19 cents at $74.57 per barrel on Globex.

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