Asian stock markets on Thursday ended up except South Korea's Kospi index which was reduced by 0.1 per cent. On the contrary, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.3 per cent, China's Shanghai Composite index rose 0.8 per cent, Singapore's Straits Times added 0.2 per cent and Japan's Nikkei-225 ended 0.1 per cent.

The European markets were trading down in intra-day trade. France's CAC-40 declined 0.9 per cent, London's FTSE-100 fell 0.8 per cent and Germany's DAX was trading 0.7 per cent down when reports last came in.