Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Tuesday, despite the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street. However, gains are muted as investors treaded cautiously ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's testimony before the House and Senate. Moreover, the Japanese stock market rose into positive territory, after opening lower on profit-taking following the recent strong gains. Among the other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan are trading marginally higher. Hong Kong is down with modest losses. The stock markets in China continue to remain closed on Tuesday for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Nikkei 225 surged 85.01 points or 0.46% to 18,551.93, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI added 5.05 points or 0.28% to 1,814.44, Taiwan Weighted jumped 100.47 points or 1.05% to 9,629.98, KOSPI Index strengthen 11.00 points or 0.56% to 1,979.39, Jakarta Composite rose 8.17 points or 0.15% to 5,411.44 and Straits Times was up by 3.01 points or 0.09% to 3,424.31.
On the flip side, Hang Seng was down by 142.73 points or 0.57% to 24,694.03 .