· European stocks opened higher Tuesday morning, as overnight strength on Wall Street underpinned appetite for riskier assets.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up around 0.1 percent shortly after the opening bell, with most sectors and major bourses in positive territory.
Market focus is largely attuned to the latest batch of corporate results, after fourth-quarter earnings helped to push the S&P 500 slightly higher on Monday.
· Asian stocks extended gains on Tuesday as overnight strength on Wall Street and the Federal Reserve’s cautious turn underpinned appetite for riskier assets, while the dollar held firm on last week’s upbeat U.S. data.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.5 percent and hovered near its four-month high marked on Friday.
Elsewhere in Asia, trade was light, with markets in greater China, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia all closed for the Lunar New Year.
· Japan’s Nikkei index surrendered modest gains to end lower on Tuesday, snapping a three-day rally as the market digested a slew of corporate earnings.
The Nikkei ended 0.19 percent lower at 20,844.45 after briefly touching 20,981.23, its highest mark since Dec. 19.
“Truly bearish factors are absent, but the market is tackling a series of earnings and that has slowed the recent advance,” said Soichiro Monji, senior economist at Daiwa SB Investments.
“Japanese corporate earnings have been quite good on the whole, but they tend to pale in comparison with some of the more bullish results witnessed on Wall Street,” he added.
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