Something funny has been happening in Asian stock markets in the past week. Contrary to recent history they are ignoring US stock performance the day before and finding a mind of their own...

And the trend continued today with most major Asian indicies on he positive side after an almost 1% slide in the US DOW. Despite a downgrade from S&P today the Yen settled less the worse for wear while the Nikkei eurged upwards with major composite indicies in Taipei - Taiwan, Seoul - South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore up around 1%.

At the same time, according to a Reuters report -

"...The emerging debt market steamed ahead after China announced it would tap global markets for sovereign debt issues in 2002. The market had been wallowing a bit over the Japanese debt downgrade and uncertainties in the oil market.

Investors are likely to clamber aboard any sovereign offering from Beijing, given the scarcity of such assets in fast growing China, analysts said..."

It wasnt so long ago that economic sentiment in Japan tipped the scales for other smaller Asian markets, but since the continued Japanese recession, investors looked elsewhere for direction. Word is sifting through that the Japanese bank loans crisis was not as bad as anticipated, though Japan still faces a morass of economic and business reform problems.

Optimism is the keyword in investor's lexicon right now, as Asia well and truly establishes itself as a market worth more than a cursory glance within a global economic recovery. Certainly many Asian stocks are devalued, more so than Western and Eurpoean stocks, and some component of the very recent rise in stock prices could be due to that. But Asia, including Singapore and Malaysia, laggards in the first quarter, are well worth a look.