Asian stocks fluctuated as higher commodity prices boosted mining and energy producers. Healthcare companies declined. Rio Tinto Group, the world's third? largest mining company, gained 1.5 % after copper prices rose for a third day. Canon Inc., which got 28 % of its revenue last year from the Americas, rose 1.7 % in Tokyo as U. S. retailers posted greater? than? forecast sales. Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co., which offered to buy a U. S. drugmaker yesterday, sank 5.1 % in Tokyo after Merrill Lynch & Co. cut its rating.

US retailers reported August sales that showed some signs that the economic downturn was easing, Six of the first 10 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters missed analysts' same? store sales estimates for August. But results from Costco Wholesale Corp, the largest retailer that still reports monthly sales, beat analysts' estimates. It posted only a 2% decline in sales at stores open at least a year, rather than the 5.7% drop analysts expected, according to Thomson Reuters data. New jobless claims fell slightly last week while the number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose, a sign the job market's recovery will be long and bumpy. The Labor Department said the number of laid? off workers applying for benefits dipped to 570,000 last week from an upwardly revised 574,000. That was a weaker performance than the drop to 560,000 claims that economists expected. The number of people receiving jobless benefits totaled 6.23 mn, up 92,000 from the previous week, which had been the lowest level since early April. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected that number, which lags new claims by a week, to fall to 6.13 mn.

The global recession is coming to an end faster than thought a few months ago and may already be over, but recovery will rely on massive government spending and low interest rates for some time, the OECD said on Thursday. The OECD forecasts show a third? quarter return to annualized quarter? on? quarter growth in the United States of 1.6 %, 1.1 % in Japan, and 0.3 % in the 16? country euro zone, led by its two largest economies, Germany and France.

Japanese businesses cut spending for a ninth quarter as the global recession squeezed profits, underscoring the challenge for the incoming government to sustain a recovery from the country's worst postwar slump.

Gold traded near $1,000 and was set for its strongest weekly advance since April after the price broke through a technically important level, luring investors.