Emerging market equities hit a new high for the year on Monday in a new bout of investor confidence.
The dollar weakened slightly and euro zone government bonds were mixed. Wall Street looked set for a flat open.
MSCI's benchmark emerging market share index rose to a new 2008 high of 1246.85, some 23 percent above a January 22 low, but still close to 8 percent below its all-time high from last November.
"You can make a strong case that emerging markets are well-placed in any scenario going forward -- many of them are enjoying a commodities boom and many of their companies are ridiculously cheap at current valuations," said Matthias Siller, an investment strategist at Baring Asset Management.
Equities in general have been recovering from sharp losses at the beginning of the year, but the MSCI emerging index is one of the first major benchmarks to recover all losses.
Elsewhere, stocks were generally stronger. European stocks were on a four-day winning streak with the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares up 0.1 percent.
"The market is holding onto gains we have seen over the past week," Achim Matzke, European stock indexes analyst at Commerzbank, in Frankfurt.
Earlier, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.4 percent to hit a four-month closing high. The benchmark is now up 22 percent from the year-low hit on March 17, but is still about 6 percent below this year's highest point touched in early January.
It rose 50.13 points to end at 14,269.61, the highest close since January 10. The broader Topix index added 0.6 percent or 8.38 points to 1,404.25.
On currency markets, the dollar was weaker versus the euro following last Friday's slide after a drop in US consumer confidence.
The euro was up slightly at $1.5592. The dollar was steady at 72.720 against a basket of currencies, but not far off a low since the start of the month of 72.687 set on Friday.
Euro zone government bond prices were mixed. The 10-year yield was up 2 basis points slightly at 4.194 percent while the two-year was flat at 3.995 percent. -Reuters