Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading higher in the early deals on Tuesday, though gains are muted in the absence of fresh cues as the US and European markets were closed overnight for Christmas holidays. Japan's Nikkei share average edged higher in thin trade while Toshiba Corp plummeted on news that it was considering booking a goodwill impairment loss of several hundreds of billion yen. Though, China’s stock market edged lower despite the positive economic data and a rally of infrastructure-related sectors after Chinese regulators announced policies to encourage the financing of public private partnership (PPP) projects. China's National Bureau of Statistics said that profits earned by large industrial firms rose 14.5 percent in November from a year earlier, and a big jump from a 9.8 percent increase in October, on the back of a strong rebound in raw material prices and a low base last year, the statistics bureau said. Among the other Asian markets, South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia are edging higher. Bucking the trend, Singapore and Taiwan are modestly lower. The markets in Hong Kong remains closed for Christmas.
Nikkei 225 added 31.13 points or 0.16% to 19,427.77, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 1.11 points or 0.07% to 1,618.26, KOSPI Index gained 3.81 points or 0.19% to 2,041.56, and Jakarta Composite was up by 48.35 points or 0.96% to 5,076.06.
On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted declined 1.87 points or 0.02% to 9,108.67, Straits Times dropped 0.63 points or 0.02% to 2,870.42, and Shanghai Composite was down by 0.9 points or 0.03% to 3,121.67.