Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Tuesday, tracking the modest gains overnight on Wall Street. Investors are awaiting a speech by US President Donald Trump to a joint session of Congress later in the day and will look for details on Trump's promises of tax reform, deregulation and infrastructure. Japan's Nikkei share average gained after US stocks rose and the dollar gained on hopes that US President Donald Trump will speak about infrastructure spending in an address to Congress later in the day. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, South Korea, and Indonesia are modestly higher. Bucking the trend, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia are lower. The markets in Taiwan remains closed for the Peace Memorial Day holiday.
Nikkei 225 added 125.27 points or 0.66% to 19,232.74, KOSPI Index gained 6.70 points or 0.32% to 2,092.22, Shanghai Composite rose 9.08 points or 0.28% to 3,237.74, and Jakarta Composite was up by 20.43 points or 0.38% to 5,403.30.
On the flip side, Straits Times dropped 8.02 points or 0.26% to 3,100.60, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI slipped 0.14 points or 0.01% to 1,693.70, and Hang Seng was down by 14.55 points or 0.06% to 23,910.50.