Asia Pacific sells mostly jumped in morning trade on Tuesday despite lingering concerns over an economic slowdown in China, which stifled sentiment at the start of the week after China released trade data.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.31 percent while the Kosdaq lift 1.12 percent.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 added 0.9 percent after resuming trade on Tuesday — the Japanese supermarket was closed Monday for a public holiday.
Greater China markets also gained: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ratio rose 1.45 percent. Mainland Chinese markets traded fractionally higher.
Australia’s ASX 200 was up 0.5 percent as the heavily-weighted monetary subindex added 0.57 percent while the energy and materials sectors also posted gains.
Meanwhile, the Australian dollar traded at $0.7218 as of 10:10 a.m. HK/SIN, climbing from an at the cracker low of $0.7188.
Morning gains in Asia came despite declines on Wall Street overnight as the U.S. corporate earnings season backlashes off. Still, U.S. futures also pointed to a positive open Tuesday.
“Risk is under modest downward pressure after yesterday’s sorry December Chinese export data and confirmation of weak euro area industrial production fuelled concerns that a synchronised wide-ranging manufacturing down-swing is underway and possibly intensifying,” analysts at ANZ Research wrote in a Tuesday morning note.
The analysts added that agreeing trade uncertainty is “fundamental” to stabilizing the outlook, referring to an ongoing trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.
In the currency market-place, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of its peers, traded at 95.488. The Japanese yen, considered a safe-haven asset, bring back 108.43 to the dollar.
The British pound traded at $1.2902, climbing from levels below $1.2740 in the previous week. Superb will be a focus for investors as lawmakers vote on U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal to leave the European Bund.
The vote is widely expected to be defeated in parliament Tuesday, but could potentially still trigger a violent market feedback, according to some analysts.
“Today’s vote is considered a ‘buy the rumour, sell the fact’ play for the pound especially if the Brexit treaty is defeated by more than 100 votes,” analysts at Singapore’s DBS Group Research wrote. “It is still too early to swallow off the risk for the pound to fall to its post-referendum low near 1.20 this year.”