By Jamie Robertson BBC World business presenter

Junichiro Koizumi's victory boosted confidence in Japan

In a month when Katrina and Rita pushed the oil price to new highs, the stock markets failed to be downhearted.

The BBC Global 30 index put on an impressive 250 points, with 85 of those points added by BP and Exxon alone.

More significant is that six of the top 10 performers on the index were Asian: Mizuho Financial (+21.3%), Toyota (+18.4%) NTT Docomo (+17.3%), Seven- Eleven (+13.1%), now restructured to include its holding company, Ito-Yokado, Takeda Pharmaceutical (+13.1%) and Samsung (+11.8%).

Much of that follows the exuberance following Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's election victory.

"It's not just the election," says James Stewart of Weavering Capital.

"What you are seeing is an improved equity market, a deteriorating bond market and the currency under control. The government is very aware that it mustn't loose this advantageous combination."

A modest rise of 0.5% for residential land prices and 0.6% for commercial land added to the excitement over financial stocks, which have been animated by the idea of a revitalised mortgage industry.

It is the first upward movement in prices since the bursting of the property bubble 15 years ago.

Takeda Pharmaceutical, Japan's biggest drug company made a return to the US market this week with its insomnia treatment Rozerem.

It is something of a milestone for the company. It is the first drug it has developed on its own in five years and the first in six years that it is marketing without the help of a partner in the US.

Upmarket mobiles

Away from Japan, Samsung Electronics has been instrumental in pushing the South Korean Kospi index up to fresh highs.

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The group said it had developed the world's first 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chips using 50-nanometer technology.

This can store the equivalent of 200 years of a 40-page broadsheet daily newspaper on 16.4 billion functional transistors.

It virtually doubles the data storage capacity on digital cameras and music players.

It also announced it will be launching a mobile phone with Danish up-market electronics firm Bang & Olufsen this year.

On top of this, Samsung is forecasting flash memory chip sales to rise to $6.4bn this year from $4.1bn last year, and like Nokia (up 6.9% this last month), it said third quarter mobile phone shipments would beat previous forecasts.

Microsoft's problems

Now for the bad news, and much of it centres on the US which has only two stocks, Exxon and Procter & Gamble, in the top half of the index.

BP and Exxon helped lift the index

"Partly this is a feature of Europe playing catch up," says Mr Stewart.

"Stocks in Europe have been bombed out for so long, investors are concentrating more on them than the US.

"But, more important, they are also increasingly sceptical about the long term durability of the US recovery."

Microsoft is the index's second worst performer, down 3.3% on the month.

Its shares looked for a while as if they might break out above $30, but simply failed to lift off.

Investors seem increasingly doubtful about its ability to grow beyond its existing (albeit massive) size.

It was not helped by a court tussle with Google over the alleged poaching of its Chinese internet expert Lee Kai-Fu.

Earlier in the year, Microsoft managed to get a block on Mr Lee starting work at Google's China research centre.

Microsoft has now filed a suit against Mr Lee and Google, claiming he violated confidentiality and non-competition agreements with Microsoft when he jumped ship in July.

The court heard salacious tales of some colourful language uttered by Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer on the subject of what they would like to do with Google, and company founder Bill Gates's views on China.

All the same, Microsoft soldiers on.

It launched a paid search service for the web for advertisers to better hone in on target audiences, again to take on Google's own service.

And it announced it was restructuring, cutting seven divisions down into three to "enhance decision-making and speed of execution".

Global expansion plans

The retailers have also been in a trough in recent weeks as the oil price hikes whittle away business.

Tesco is the worst performer on the index, down 4.8%.

It was forced to admit that its energy costs had gone up by about �60m in the first half of the year and that petrol costs would reduce the amount its customers would spend in its stores.

Wal-Mart has had a similarly wearing time and fell 1.1% this month, but it is continuing to build its global empire.

In Central America it has bought a 33% stake in Ahold's operation, while in Hungary it has bought the Cora hypermarket chain to go head to head with Tesco, which to date is the biggest retailer in the country with plans to increase its operation by more than 20%.

It seems though that hurricanes and oil prices will not deter Procter and Gamble's customers.

It has said it is still on track to hit its first quarter profit targets, and that any downside from Katrina (coffee production in the Gulf and, rather bizarrely, health and beauty sales at Estee Lauder) had been offset by stronger sales all round.

This last week it said its Folgers coffee production unit in New Orleans, thought to be the world's biggest, was back in production.

P&G was one of the best US performers on the index, and rose 7.0%.

Among other US stocks Citigroup also fared well, rising 6.5% as the highly profitable consumer business unit continues to be reorganised a month after the departure of its boss Marjorie Magner.

German recovery

In Germany the market has ignored the furore over the political hiatus , after some initial volatility.

Hans Redeker, head of global foreign exchange strategy at BNP Paribas believes the economy has turned the corner.

"Regardless of the political situation, all the information shows the economic side has been switched to a green light," he says.

"One example of Germany's potential is a comparison of unit costs. They have grown in Germany by 8% since 1998. In the US unit cost growth has been 28%. There is a huge advantage there. The German corporate sector realised it was uncompetitive and it has restructured."

Siemens (+3.0%) is a good example of this.

Chief executive Klaus Kleinfeld announced that another 2,400 jobs would go at its IT services unit SBS, as he continued the restructuring that he hopes will boost profitability.

However E.ON is down 1.5%.

It had been hoping a new government would give a fillip to its nuclear power programme.

It has also been hampered by the news of its possible bid for the UK's Scottish Power, a deal that would make it the biggest power supplier in the UK. E.ON was also on stage this last month at Chancellor Schroeder and President Putin's German jamboree signing a deal to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic from Russia to Germany.

BASF is part of the agreement too, and its shares were up 7.8%.

It also got a boost from the German chemical industry body VCI which confirmed its forecasts for the sector's growth this week - sales up 4.5%, production up 2.5%.