American depositary receipts of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. (8316), Japan’s second-biggest publicly traded lender, rose 0.3 percent from the closing price in Tokyo yesterday. Those of Sony Corp. (6758), which depends on Europe for about 20 percent of its sales, climbed 0.2 percent. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), Australia’s No. 1 oil producer, gained 1.2 percent after crude prices climbed to a three-week high yesterday.

“There is an expectation in the market that Europe will advance measures to overcome the debt issues,” said Hiroichi Nishi, an equities manager in Tokyo at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. “While there’s a sense of expectation in the market, investors still want to see the results of meetings this week of the European Union and European Central Bank.”

Futures (TPX) on Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average (NKY) expiring in December closed at 8,590 in Chicago yesterday, compared with 8,580 in Osaka, Japan. The contracts were bid in the pre-market at 8,590 in Osaka at 8:05 a.m. local time. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index gained 0.9 percent today. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index was little changed in Wellington.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPXL1) added 0.1 percent today. The S&P 500 Index gained 0.1 percent in New York yesterday after drifting between gains and losses for most of the day.

Brussels Summit

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said S&P’s move yesterday to place 15 euro nations, including Germany and France, on review for possible downgrades will help force European leaders to ratchet up efforts to resolve the debt crisis at their summit in Brussels on Dec. 8-9.

S&P also said yesterday the European Financial Stability Facility may lose its top credit rating if any of its guarantors have their own debt grade cut.

U.S. stocks rose as the Financial Times reported that officials are negotiating a bigger rescue effort to present at the summit, including running two separate bailout funds simultaneously.

Negotiators are considering allowing the euro zone’s existing 440 billion euro ($590 billion) bail-out fund to continue running when a new 500 billion euro facility comes into force in mid-2012, the report said.

Crude oil for January delivery advanced 0.3 percent to $101.28 a barrel in New York yesterday, the highest settlement since Nov. 16.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 15 percent this year through yesterday, compared with a gain of 0.1 percent by the S&P 500 and a 12 percent slump by the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Stocks in the Asian benchmark are valued at 12.8 times estimated earnings on average, compared with 12.7 times for the S&P 500 and 10.6 times for the Stoxx 600.

To contact the reporters on this story: Norie Kuboyama in Tokyo at nkuboyama@bloomberg.net; Toshiro Hasegawa in Tokyo at thasegawa6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Gentle at ngentle2@bloomberg.net

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