Frankfurt - The Frankfurt Stock Exchanged altered its rules Friday to prevent its three main indexes ever being distorted again by a crisis like this week's short squeeze on Volkswagen.

Stock in the German carmaker tripled on Monday and Tuesday to 1,000 euros a share after luxury car company Porsche revealed it owned or had options on 74 per cent of the stock. In August the stock had hovered near 200 euros.

Riga - The three Baltic stock exchanges ended the week quietly Friday, with relatively small movements recorded at the close of trading.

The NASDAQ OMX Tallinn exchange in Estonia was up 0.31 per cent, the Vilnius exchange in Lithuania was down 1.35 per cent and the Riga exchange in Latvia dipped by 
0.59 per cent.

The Baltic Benchmark Index (BBI), which includes data from all three exchanges, closed down 0.26 per cent at 273.18.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong stocks fell back 2.52 per cent Friday at the end of one of the most turbulent weeks in the history of the Hang Seng Index.

The blue-chip index lost 361.18 points, slipping back below the 14,000 point barrier to 13,968.67 points. Turnover was 58.47 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.54 billion US dollars).

Analysts blamed the fall on profit-taking after three consecutive days of gains which has seen the index bounce back by 23 per cent after recording one of its biggest day losses Monday.

New Delhi - Indian equities soared over 5 per cent on Friday tailing positive cues from global markets after rate cuts in the United States and Japan.

The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange was trading at 9,651.12 around noon, about 6.71 per cent above its previous close.

The broader 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also showed strong positive signals, trading 5.35 per cent up at 2,841.30.

Indian share markets opened Friday after being closed the previous day for a festival holiday.

Seoul - Shares continued their rebound Friday on the Seoul stock exchange, tracking overnight gains in the US market, after suffering heavy losses earlier this week.

However, South Korea's currency, the won, fell again, after it posted its largest gain versus the dollar in a decade Thursday on a currency swap deal between the country's central bank and the US Federal Reserve.

The benchmark Kospi index soared 28.34 points, or 2.6 per cent, to close at 1,113.06.

Advancing issues outpaced decliners 643 to 218.

Tokyo - Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average plunged 5 per cent Friday and fell below 9,000 despite the Bank of Japan's announcement of an interest-rate cut as investors turned bearish over lowered corporate earnings forecasts.

The Nikkei index dropped 452.78 points to close at 8,576.98.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues also fell 32.25 points, or 3.59 per cent, to 867.12.