year highs set last week. Investors chewed over results from a number of global leaders in their field, including telecom equipment maker Ericsson and business software firm SAP. Shares in Germany's SAP fell 1.6 percent on disappointment that it did not raise its full-year outlook despite beating the average forecasts for licence sales and earnings in its second quarter. However Ericsson rose 2.3 percent after it reported second quarter earnings and sales that beat analysts' forecasts and it upgraded its outlook for the mobile systems market for 2005.. Tech heavyweight Nokia posts its results at 1000 GMT. The MSCI index of Asian shares ex-Japan touched its highest since August 1997, although Tokyo's Nikkei ended flat. U.S. stock futures were pointing to a flat to firmer start on Wall Street on Thursday after both the Nasdaq Composite Index and the S&P 500 reached four-year highs on Wednesday. --more 1305 Local Time 1005 GMT
