Europe has taken a step back from the brink.

Three weeks into the year, borrowing rates for debt-saddled countries have fallen to more manageable levels. Auctions of government debt have gone better, a sign of increased investor confidence.

Oil prices were higher in Asian trade Friday as a weaker U.S. currency encouraged buying of the dollar-priced commodity.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in February, was up 26 cents to $100.65 a barrel in the afternoon.

Asian markets rose for a fourth straight day Friday on strong French and Spanish bond sales, the lowest U.S. jobs claims for almost four years and hopes Greece will agree a debt deal with its creditors.

The euro also strengthened against the dollar and the yen as fears over the Eurozone crisis abated while financial plays were lifted by more upbeat earnings reports from U.S. banks.

Moody's on Friday downgraded Japanese electronics titans Sony and Panasonic, warning both companies faced a long struggle if they were to get back on a firm financial footing.

The agency lowered its assessment on debt issued by Sony from A3 to Baa1, citing "weak and volatile" earnings, while Panasonic slipped a notch from A1 to A2, on fears "the weakness in Panasonic's profile will continue".

Greece raced on Friday to clinch debt-saving deals in parallel negotiations with private creditors and its EU-IMF bailout partners ahead of a looming default in March.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was scheduled to meet again with global bank group representatives after late-night talks on Thursday as his finance minister held talks with senior EU-IMF auditors on a new Eurozone rescue loan.

Syria has lost more than $2 billion in revenues since September 1 as a result of European and U.S. bans on importing its oil, Oil Minister Sufian Allaw said on Thursday.

"We have suffered important losses as a result of our inability to export crude oil and petroleum products," Allaw told a news conference in Damascus.

Financial markets were subdued Thursday as investors awaited developments in Greece's debt-reduction talks with private creditors, a day after the International Monetary Fund revealed it was looking to get its hands on another half a trillion dollars to help it shore up a fragile global economy.

Another successful bond auction from Spain and relief that Germany's second-largest bank, Commerzbank AG, won't need to help from shareholders or the government to boost its capital base helped ease concerns over Europe's debt crisis in the run-up to a raft of U.S. corporate earnings.

Japan said Thursday it was ready to answer an International Monetary Fund call for extra cash to help Europe steer a course through its sovereign debt crisis, a report said.

"Japan is prepared to support European efforts to stabilize the market, including through lending to the IMF, based on strong efforts by European countries," Dow Jones Newswires quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying.

France and Spain gingerly return to the bond markets Thursday, testing appetite for their debt after a raft of Eurozone credit downgrades, as world powers debated boosting the IMF bail-out fund.

The key test for two of the single currency bloc's biggest economies came as its weakest, Greece, was trying to negotiate a deal with private creditors to slash 100 billion euros ($128 billion) from its debt.

Chinese ratings agency Dagong has warned that Europe's debt problems would cause a collapse of confidence in the euro, and predicted a worsening of the global financial crisis this year.

The agency said the world's economic woes would grow more severe in 2012, with the sovereign debt crisis developing into a "currency crisis" as investor confidence in the euro continued to suffer.