Asian shares steadied on Friday and the dollar took breather after its recent broad rally spurred some profit taking, but fresh batch of data suggesting the US economy may be picking up momentum underpinned investor sentiment.

The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index was barely changed and Japan's Nikkei opened down 0.1 per cent after rising to an 8-month high on Thursday.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index on Thursday closed above 1,400 for the first time since June 2008, having risen about 11.5 per cent this year without a major pullback. Some analysts have called for a consolidation while others see ongoing momentum.

The Sensex could see much more foreign inflows this year as most foreign institutional investors, or FIIs, are still underweight on India, said a senior official of Deutsche Bank's India equities team.

FIIs have pumped in over $5 billion into Indian equities so far this year, as central banks in the West eased liquidity in a bid to protect their economies from recession.

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The Parliamentary standing committee on finance has recommended an increase in basic tax exemption limit to Rs 3 lakh and another Rs 3.20 lakh rebate for eligible investments and spending in its report on the direct taxes code, or DTC. The panel is not for any relief for corporate tax payers and has recommended retaining the corporate tax rate at 30% as against 25% proposed.

MUMBAI: Banks and stock broking firms are beginning to carry out business on Facebook, an important step as they try to build deeper customer relationships through social media platforms. With nearly 45 million users in India and growing rapidly, Facebook's popularity is making banks test the waters with a few basic services to discover how comfortable customers are carrying out transactions on the social networking site.

ICICI Bank, India's largest private bank, is one of the early movers. Its application lets customers check the balance in accounts; request statements and cheque books; or even upgrade debit cards right from their Facebook home page. "Social media is not a fringe channel and has become an important tool to interact with consumers," said Sujit Ganguly, a general manager at the bank.

A decline in arbitrage activity and a falling equity market have widened the premium between the Nifty spot index and futures to record highs.

Arbitrageurs, who crack deals on borrowed money to profit from such price differences, have kept away this time as they find it difficult to access cheap money. In addition, funding of primary market issuances such as Multi Commodity Exchange has temporarily sucked out cash from the system.