Asia stocks were mixed on Thursday. Japan was down, with the Nikkei falling 1.3 percent on growing worries about a slowing world economy.

Exporters such as Toyota fell as the yen rose versus the U.S. dollar. Toyota announced its plans to form a new alliance with Daihatsu Motor and Fuji Heavy Industries.

Other Asian indexes, meanwhile, rose...on hopes for healthy earnings.

Taiwan shares jumped to a near 3-week high. Taipei shares were boosted by big technology firms such as TSMC. Investors are hoping the chip sector will recover steadily from a weak first quarter.

In currency news, China's central bank has set the yuan at 6.992 against the U.S. dollar. It's the first time the currency has broken through the 7-yuan-per-dollar mark since it was unpegged from the dollar in 2005.

The yuan is not free-floating, however, and is still pegged to a "basket of currencies" determined by the central bank.