Investing.com - Asian shares gained on Tuesday with the regional mood upbeat on earnings and a so far scripted visit by President Donald Trump to the region with South Korea his next stop after Japan.
Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.31% to a record high and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.81%.
The Reserve Bank of Australia released its latest interest rate decision and held its benchmark cash rate at 1.50% as expected, signaling it is watching the housing market closely and that a higher Australian dollar is restraining price pressures. Earlier in Japan, average cash earnings rose 0.9%, compared to a 0.6% gain expected for September.
In Greater China, the Shanghai Composite gained 0.58%, while the Hang Seng index rose 1.18%. China Evergrande Group will raise 60 billion yuan ($9.04 billion) from selling shares in subsidiary Hengda Real Estate before a planned backdoor listing of the unit on the Shenzhen Exchange. Evergrande shares jumped 6.37% in early trade.
Overnight, U.S. stocks closed higher on Monday as optimism on equities remained elevated on signs of a resurgence in dealmaking.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher at 23,548.42. The S&P 500 closed 0.13% higher while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6786.44, up 0.33%.
In what was quiet day on economic calendar for top-tier data, corporate specific events dominated flows after Broadcom (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:AVGO) announced an offer to buy fellow chip maker Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) for $103 billion while Fox was reported to have held talks with Disney in recent weeks over a possible sale.
Shares of Qualcomm rose more than 5% in early morning New York trade before pairing gains to close more than 1% while shares of Fox closed 9% higher.
In the tech sector, shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:AMD) surged more than 6% after the company said it will team up with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) to compete with NVidia in the laptop gaming chip market. The move higher in AMD helped reverse some of its recent losses following an earnings report last week that fell short of Wall Street estimates.
The flurry of dealmaking activity comes amid third quarter earnings as Michael Kors reported earnings that beat expectations on the top and bottom lines.
Following the upbeat earnings report from Michael Kors, Jefferies raised its price target to $62 on shares of high-end retailer on signs that the turnaround plan was starting to take shape.
An uptick in Middle East political turmoil, however, capped gains after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman led an anti-corruption drive over the weekend which resulted in a series of arrests of prominent Saudi Arabians.