Even though trading was thinned down because of the ongoing festive season, the Asian stock markets moved up. And further push was seen after the news of Tower Australia receiving higher bid from Dai-ichi Life.

The stock went up phenomenally on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Nikkei Stock Exchange of Japan was up by 0.4 per cent followed by Australia's S&P/ASX 200 and South Korea's Kospi Composite Both these rose by 0.2 per cent. South Korea's Kospi Composite was up by0.9 per cent while Indian BSE Sensex showed a rise of 0.2 per cent.

Least impressive was the performance of China's Shanghai Composite Index that went up by merely 0.1 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures showed an upward movement of 5 points.

Meanwhile, rising interest rates in China have shown their impact on the resource stocks of Australia as both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton went down by 1.3 and 1.5 per cents respectively. But the experts believe that these are going to have little impact on the overall market conditions.

It is not clear as to how the metal market will react to this rate hike.