Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading up in the early deals on Tuesday despite a cautious trade following the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street, while the US dollar continued to slide on waning expectations of the US Federal Reserve stepping up interest rate hikes. Japan's Nikkei share average fell to a 1-1/2-week low as financial stocks were battered after US yields fell, while index-heavyweight SoftBank tumbled and weighed on the index. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan are all modestly higher. Bucking the trend, Singapore is lower.
Hang Seng strengthen 56.83 points or 0.23% to 24,558.82, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 3.36 points or 0.19% to 1,752.77, KOSPI Index added 21.09 points or 0.98% to 2,178.10, Shanghai Composite increased 7.31 points or 0.22% to 3,258.12, Taiwan Weighted spurt 47.79 points or 0.48% to 9,960.76, and Jakarta Composite was up by 10.19 points or 0.18% to 5,544.18.
On the flip side, Nikkei 225 declined 63.14 points or 0.32% to 19,458.45, and Straits Times was down by 2.55 points or 0.08% to 3,163.15.