Records fell across Asia on Friday, buoyed by a strong overnight rally on Wall Street, with indexes in Australia, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan hitting intraday highs. Japan's Nikkei advanced 1.4% to 18,238.41 on exporters such as Honda Motor Co. and Canon Inc. The broader Topix index advanced 1.3% to 1,785.11.

In Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.8% to 6,414.20, coming off an intraday high of 6,436.70. But shares of Rio Tinto fell 1.4% after it Thursday announced reaching an agreement to buy Canadian aluminum producer Alcan Inc for $ 38.1 billion in cash, topping a hostile offer from Alcoa Inc.

South Korea's Kospi climbed 2% to 1,948.80, after it touched a high of 1,954.24 earlier in the session. The Kospi had risen in eight of the previous nine sessions. Singapore's Straits Times Index rose 1.4% to 3,675.35, off an intraday record of 3,685.01 and Taiwan's Weighted index rose 1.2% to 9,464.29, after touching 9,540.35 earlier in the session. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up more than 300 points.

Elsewhere, New Zealand's NZX 50 index rose 0.6% to 4,264.37, China's Shanghai Composite was little changed at 3,916.94 and Malaysia's KLSE Composite gained 1.3% at 1,383.68.

Crude oil for August delivery rose 15 cents to $ 72.65 a barrel, after it Thursday fell 6 cents to $ 72.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where it traded as high as $ 73.80 earlier in the session.

US stocks rose sharply Thursday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 283 points to new record highs, as traders cheered Rio Tinto PLC's $ 38.1 billion offer for aluminum producer Alcan Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s better-than-expected June sales.

The rally, which gave the Dow its biggest one-day percentage gain in nearly four years, was perhaps surprising given that there was no extraordinary announcement or other catalyst often seen with such a huge gain, and that it came before most companies have announced their second-quarter earnings. The rise also marked a sharp contrast to the start of the week, when stocks fell sharply amid concerns that some hedge funds could succumb to ill-placed bets on the housing sector. A fast weakening dollar, which boosts demand for U.S. made goods, while reducing the value of holding cash, also boosted the market, especially the Dow industrials.

But analysts say that given the nearly 400-point swing the Dow has shown this week and the big gains Thursday, a profit-taking session Friday wouldn't come as a surprise. The S&P 500 rose 28.94, or 1.91%, to 1,547.70, above its record close of 1,539.18, set June 4.

The Dow shot up 283.86, or 2.09%, to 13,861.73; its previous record close, which also came June 4, was 13,676.32. Thursday's jump was the biggest one-day percentage gain for the blue chip index since October 2003 and the biggest single-session point gain since October 2002. The Dow also reached a new trading high of 13,869.94 and saw its 50th record close since the start of October.

The Nasdaq composite index rose 49.94, or 1.88%, to 2,701.73; the rise Thursday marked the biggest one-day percentage increase since March. The last time the Nasdaq closed at such levels was in February 2001. Still, the index, bloated by the late 1990s tech boom, is nowhere near its closing record of 5,048.62, set in March 2000.