Asian markets up, despite Nasdaq slump

Tokyo managed to stay afloat buoyed by the victory of Junichiro Koizumi

HONG KONG, China -- Japan, Korea and Hong Kong were in positive territory by midday Wednesday, after Wall Street's slump dragged down some tech shares in early trade.

Tokyo's stock market avoided a fall on hopes that leader-in-waiting Junichiro Koizumi will improve the economy.

AUDIO CNN's Dalton Tanonaka with the Asian midday market report. 1.36 MB/2:09mins AIFF or WAV sound

Japanese investors ignored Wall Street's drop and snapped up tech and "old economy" shares amid cautious optimism over Koizumi, who will become prime minister on Thursday.

The Nikkei average rose 0.93 percent to 13,870.37. The capital-weighed TOPIX index ticked up 0.94 percent to 1,340.48.

Electronics giant Sony Corp firmed 2.46 percent to 9,150 yen, underlining broad strength in major technology shares despite a 2.07 percent slip in the U.S. Nasdaq.

U.S. slump hits telecom shares

In Hong Kong, the market opened opened lower led by a decline in key telecom stocks. But by midday, the Hang Seng Index was up almost 70 points at 13,345.94.

Blue chips HSBC, Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong were all down, as was tech stock China Unicom. China Mobile was up 40c to HK$37.30

Shares of some of the territory's smaller banks also succumbed to profit taking following sharp gains in recent sessions on speculation that they could be takeover targets.

In Seoul, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index was up slightly, at 559.19 in early afternoon trade. LG Chem Investment, a spin-off from the former LG Chemical, made a strong debut, surging almost 99 percent to 25,250 won.

Hynix Semiconductor slid 2.4 percent to 3,005, after news broke that Samsung Electronics and LG rebuffed its plan to sell its flat panel operations. Memory giant Samsung dropped 0.23 percent to 219,500 won. SK Telecom was down 1.38 percent at 215,000 won.

In Australia and New Zealand, markets were closed for the Anzac Day holiday.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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