Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading in green in the early deals on Tuesday, with the fresh record highs on Wall Street and firm commodity prices boosting investors’ sentiments. Comments by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who reiterated her belief that additional gradual interest rate hikes are likely to be appropriate over the next few years, also supported stocks. Meanwhile, Hong Kong stocks traded higher, extending gains into a fourth straight session following yet more records across Wall Street's main indexes. Among the other Asian markets, Nikkei, Singapore, South Korea, and Shanghai are also higher. Bucking the trend, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia are lower.
Nikkei 225 added 72.74 points or 0.34% to 21,328.30, Straits Times gained 5.04 points or 0.15% to 3,328.10, Hang Seng rose 51.21 points or 0.18% to 28,744.01, KOSPI Index increased 3.78 points or 0.15% to 2,483.83, and Shanghai Composite was up by 1.91 points or 0.06% to 3,380.38.
On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted dropped 24.79 points or 0.23% to 10,749.42, Jakarta Composite slipped 11.1 points or 0.19% to 5,938.60, and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 1.05 points or 0.06% to 1,753.32.