Europe and Asia Stocks Brush Off Weak U.S. Finish -- 3rd Update

Stocks in Europe and Asia mostly inched higher Friday, brushing off a weak finish on Wall Street.

The Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.5% in morning trading, led by a 1.8% jump in shares of Nestlé SA. The Swiss-based consumer giant put its U.S. confectionery business up for sale, with analysts estimating the unit could be worth as much as $3 billion.

Markets in Europe and Asia also benefited from a recent climb in the dollar, higher oil prices and news of a long-sought Greek bailout deal.

Yields on 10-year Greek debt fell to 5.615% from 5.772% Thursday after Greece's creditors agreed to release the next tranche of its bailout, but put off a final decision on relieving its debt burden until August 2018.

Overall, this is "good news for investors, as the IMF involvement and the enhanced debt relief commitments increase the chances of a better macroeconomic outcome for Greece in the longer term," strategists at Barclays said in a note.

Government bonds elsewhere were mostly slightly higher, with 10-year German yields at 0.310% from 0.284% on Thursday and U.S. Treasurys at 2.175% from 2.160%. Yields move inversely to prices.

A recent climb in the dollar also boosted shares of exporters in Europe and Asia, particularly in Japan. The WSJ Dollar Index was down 0.1% Friday morning but remained higher on the week following the Federal Reserve's Wednesday meeting, where it signaled further interest rate rises ahead.

The dollar was last up 0.3% against the yen and Japan's Nikkei Stock Average climbed 0.6% after the Bank of Japan said it would maintain its aggressive monetary stimulus as expected.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda also pushed back against calls for details on how the bank might unwind its easing policy.

"We are still not in the condition in which we should be discussing normalization or exit," he said.

Markets in Hong Kong and Australia climbed 0.2% as stocks in the region largely brushed off modest declines on Wall Street on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended down 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% and the S&P 500 lost 0.2%.

A number of technology stocks in Asia posted gains Friday, including Japan's SoftBank and Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision, a key manufacturer of Apple's iPhones.

The Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.4%, however, even as China's central bank boosted market liquidity by making the largest single-day cash injection into the financial system since mid-January.

Investors' focus remained on Anbang Insurance Group, whose chairman was allegedly detained by Chinese authorities. Chinese banks are limiting their Anbang exposure and have slowed marketing of Anbang-branded investments to their customers, according to people familiar with the situation.

In commodities, Brent crude oil was up 0.8% at $47.29 a barrel, while gold inched up 0.1% to $1,256 an ounce.

--Nektaria Stamouli, Megumi Fujikawa and

Shen Hong

contributed to this article.

Write to Riva Gold at riva.gold@wsj.com and Lucy Craymer at Lucy.Craymer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 16, 2017 06:40 ET (10:40 GMT)