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Stocks in Asia up following positive data from the US

Stocks in Asia were mostly up on Thursday, following Wall Street's lead and buoyed by a positive jobs survey in the US, together with hopes of further stimulus measures in the eurozone.

Japan's Nikkei 225 was up more than 1% in early morning trade on the news.

Oil prices rebounded slightly, too, from fresh lows seen earlier this week, giving a boost to investor confidence.

The latest US jobs report found that private payrolls rose by 241,000 in December, up from 227,000 in November.

Further fresh figures from the US showed the country's trade deficit narrowed to an 11-month low in November, with the drop in oil prices cutting the cost of imports.

The price of oil traded in the United States, known as West Texas Intermediate crude, has fallen below $50.

While the price of Brent crude had dipped below $50 a barrel for the first time since May 2009, hitting $49.66 a barrel, it later recovered to $51.20.

More good news

Other good news for investors in Asia came from Europe.

The latest eurozone inflation figures showed inflation turned negative in December, with prices down 0.2% from a year earlier, but the data means the European Central Bank may be forced to try fresh stimulus measures to kick-start the economy.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng was up 0.78% in morning trade, while the Shanghai Composite was bucking the trend, down 0.48% despite the good economic news from the US.

Australia's share market, the S&P/ASX 200, was up 0.77% after remaining in negative territory all day on Wednesday on oil price worries.

In South Korea, the benchmark Kospi was up 1.12% in line with the majority of regional indexes.