On the New York Mercantile Exchange , light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February traded at $78.24 a barrel at 0741 GMT, up 19 cents in the Globex electronic session. February Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose 37 cents to $76.68 a barrel.

Toyota Motor Corp the world’s biggest carmaker, climbed 2.2 percent and Sony Corp., Japan’s largest exporter of televisions, gained 2.7 percent after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said the bank will “persistently”

In thin pre-holiday liquidity, the euro spun to its lowest against the dollar since early September, picking up pace after breaking strong support at $1.4500 and hitting stop-loss sell orders to take it below the $1.4400 mark.

The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC ended down 1.73 percent at 3,239.568 points, its lowest close in more than one week.The index has pulled back over the past two days after rallying to the top of a range between 3,100 and 3,350 points

Bullion slumped 2.6 percent yesterday as the dollar strengthened and after Lee Eung Baek, head of reserve management at the Bank of Korea , described gold as an “illusion” and said the bank is unlikely to raise holdings.