The 7.3 percent plunge in Japanese stocks during the week injected needed sobriety into US markets, but they showed a resilience that cheered investors worried about protecting the year's gains. The drop in Tokyo Thursday -- a modest correction in the context of the Nikkei 225's 21 percent climb in five weeks -- sent other Asian and European markets sinking by more than two percent. But US stocks fended off the selling pressure, the S&P 500 finishing just 0.28 percent lower for the day, sending a sigh of relief around the world.

Tokyo stocks surged Friday morning, staging a rebound from the previous day's plunge, the worst one-day drop for the benchmark Nikkei index since Japan's March 2011 quake-tsunami disaster. The Nikkei, which on Thursday tumbled 7.3 percent, was 2.97 percent, or 429.74 points, higher to 14,916.77 by 10:15 am local time (0115 GMT), after jumping more than three percent in the first few minutes of trading. The broader Topix index of all first-section shares was up 2.47 percent, or 29.31 points, to 1,217.90.

Indian search engine Just Dial's initial public offer to raise $174 million was oversubscribed nearly 12 times in what marked the country's biggest IPO this year, stock exchange data showed Thursday. The figures were released after the share offer, one of the largest to date by an Indian Internet firm, closed Wednesday. The Mumbai-based firm, which launched in the mid-1990s as a telephone-based directory and later expanded its operations to the Internet, got bids for 157.7 million shares -- close to 12 times the 13.5 million shares available.

VANCOUVER - The British Columbia Securities Commission is alleging two sisters committed fraud by misappropriating funds from a joint venture and by transferring shares of the venture without consideration to the benefit of their adult children. The commission says it will seek to set a hearing date June 25 on the allegations against Siu Mui (Debbie) Wong and Siu Kon (Bonnie) Soo. The allegations, which have not been proven, involve a joint venture with an Alberta company the sisters co-founded called Wheatland Industrial Park Inc.