* Technology sector shares rise to highest since August 2008
* China warns banks against end-of-month lending rush
* Australia dollar rises on bets for October rate hike
* Commodities rise, LME copper up 2.4 percent
By Kevin Plumberg
HONG KONG, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Most Asian share markets edged up on Friday, led by technology shares as confidence in a sustainable recovery grew, though stocks in Shanghai bucked the trend and dropped 3 percent on worries banks will cut lending.
Major European stock futures rose 0.7 percent indicating a higher open, after Wall Street gained and Japan's stocks ended higher. U.S. stock futures were largely unchanged on the day.
Data overnight showed the U.S. economic contraction in the second quarter was not as bad as expected, and gross domestic product actually grew if inventories were stripped out, raising hopes that pent-up demand for Asia's exports would return slowly. Bullish economic data in Australia drove dealers to move forward expectations to October for a rate increase from the Reserve Bank of Australia, lifting the Australian dollar a second day and knocking bond futures.
Stocks of companies involved in making parts for technology exports, such as Shin-Etsu Chemical in Japan and Taiwan Semiconductor, gave a boost to their domestic indices. Shin-Etsu rose more than 2 percent.
Japan's Nikkei share average finished up 0.6 percent, just below the highest intraday level since Oct 6, which was hit on Wednesday. Shares of Kyocera and Canon Inc were among the biggest supports to the index.
Japanese stock market gains came despite a record decline in core consumer prices and an all-time high in the domestic jobless rate. Some analysts looked towards this weekend's elections and a likely win by the opposition.
"All these negative trends can be turned around if DPJ does win Sunday elections, inspires confidence, and successfully implements its plans to boost domestic consumption," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief investment strategist with SJS Markets in Hong Kong in a note.
The MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan rose 0.8 percent, near the top of a range maintained in August. However, the technology sector index for the region rose 1.5 percent to the highest in 12 months.
Like many other major indexes, the MSCI ex-Japan has lost steam in recent weeks after a strong run-up from March lows, with investors taking profits on fears that markets have run too far ahead of economic funamentals and may be due for a correction.
Still, the MSCI ex-Japan index is up around 47 percent so far this year.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index underperformed the region, slipping 0.5 percent, dragged down by Shanghai stocks, which fell as much as 3 percent before paring some losses.
China's banking regulator has given Chinese banks verbal instructions that they must not rush into end-of-the-month lending as the close of August draws near, bankers at several Chinese banks told Reuters on Friday.
Banking sources told Reuters that Chinese banks had only lent around 200 billion yuan ($29 billion) so far this month, with the biggest four state-owned banks lending around 100 billion yuan.
China's banks lent more than 1 trillion yuan in the first half of the year, some of which was related to government-directed projects and some of which likely found its way into the equity market, adding fuel to Shanghai's rally.
Despite declines on Thursday in Asian and European stocks, Wall Street posted small gains, thanks to strength in the energy sector. That helped Asian markets gain momentum early in the session.
While the global equity rally has sputtered a bit in August, investors have been steadily putting their piles of cash to work.
Money market funds, a cash equivalent, saw a net outflow of $5.75 billion in the latest week, bringing year-to-date redemptions to around $250 billion, about half of what was committed in 2008 to these funds, fund tracker EPFR Global said in a note.
In the week to Wednesday, all equity funds tracked by EPFR took in a net $7.32 billion and fixed income funds saw net inflows of $4.59 billion.
CURRENCIES
The Australian dollar rose 0.2 percent to US$0.8396 after a 1.6 percent climb overnight, remaining around a cent from an 11-month high around US$0.8480 reached two weeks ago.
A steady flow of solid economic data has led dealers to price in at least one quarter percentage point rise in the Reserve Bank of Australia's base rate by November and speculate on a possible move in October
"The data from Australia has been pretty strong, suggesting the economy has a fair bit of momentum," said John Kyriakopoulos, currency strategist at National Australia Bank. "Interest rate markets are now bringing forward the prospects of a rate hike to as early as October and that is helping the Aussie."
The ICE Futures U.S. dollar index edged up 0.2 percent, though a 0.7 percent decline overnight kept it in a downward trend.
U.S. crude for October delivery rose 16 cents to $72.65 a barrel after jumping $1.06 on Thursday.
U.S. economic data released on Wednesday was a shot in the arm and helped confidence that energy demand will recover further, overshadowing reports showing an increase in inventories.
Metals prices also reflected optimism about the demand for raw materials. Three-month copper on the London Metals Exchange was up 2.4 percent to $6,420 a tonne on track for a seventh weekly increase. (Additional reporting by Anirban Nag in SYDNEY and Claire Zhang and Edmund Klamann in SHANGHAI) (Editing by Kim Coghill)