Stock gains limited by US fiscal cliff uncertainty

Wall Street was more cautious on the open, with the Dow up 0.2 percent to 13,047 and the S&P 500 0.1 percent higher at 1,417.

Earlier, in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.5 percent to close at 9,446.01 after the Japanese government released an 880.3 billion yen ($10.7 billion) stimulus package.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.5 percent to 22,030.39 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.6 percent to 4,506. South Korea's Kospi fell 0.1 percent to 1,932.90. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore, mainland China and New Zealand also rose. Indonesia fell.

Benchmark oil for January delivery was up 34 cents to $88.41 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.58 to close at $88.07 on Thursday on the Nymex.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3004 from $1.2972 Thursday in New York. The dollar rose to 82.50 yen from 82.15 yen.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.