SHANGHAI — Markets in Asia rallied for a second day on Friday, as upbeat United States growth data helped calm investors after the hammering that shares across the region took earlier in the week.
European stocks, though, opened slightly down.
The Chinese government continued to take measures to shore up stocks and its currency, the renminbi.
China's local pension funds will start investing as much as $ 313 billion as soon as possible in stocks and other assets, senior government officials said on Friday. And the Chinese central bank was seen intervening for a second day to stabilize the renminbi, to reduce market expectations of further depreciation, traders said.
Chinese stocks surged, with the Shanghai composite index gaining 4.9 percent on Friday.
"The Asian session took news from U.S. equities and commodity markets well today, although the pace of the gains looks to have slowed later in the session," Angus Nicholson, a market analyst at the trading services provider IG in Melbourne, Australia, wrote in a note for clients.
"Positive noises on the U.S. economy are likely to help markets into the start of next week," he added.
In early trading, the momentum did not carry over to European stocks, however, which opened on Friday slightly down after rising on Thursday.
And oil prices were giving back some of their gains after rising about 10 percent on Thursday, their biggest single-day gain since 2008.
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