Investing.com - Shares in Asia were mostly higher on Tuesday with Sydney up after the Reserve Bank of Australia holding rates steady at a record low 1.75%.
The S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.35%, while the Nikkei 225 rose 0.65%. The Shanghai Composite eased 0.15% at the lunch break.
The yuan fell against the dollar Tuesday morning after the People's Bank of China weakened the fixing at 6.5618 compared with Monday's mid point of 6.5497 following foreign exchange reserve data that showed a slight drop in May.
Overnight, U.S. stocks rose considerably on Monday, ticking up steadily in the afternoon session even as Janet Yellen provided few hints on the Federal Reserve's long-term interest rate outlook in the wake of shockingly weak domestic employment data last week.
Addressing a crowd at a World Affairs Council event in Philadelphia, Yellen declined to set a specific timetable for the U.S. central bank's next interest rate hike. It marked a stark contrast from Yellen's stance less than two weeks ago when the chair of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) sent strong indications that it could raise rates in the coming months if inflationary and labor market gains continued to meet the FOMC's expectations.
Last Friday, though, the U.S. Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by only 38,000 in May, representing its slowest pace of gains in nearly six years. While Yellen expressed concern at the rapid deceleration in labor market growth, she cautioned economists not to "attach too much significance," to a single report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 112.93 or 0.63% to 17,919.99, while the NASDAQ Composite index added 26.19 or 0.53% to 4,968.71, closing near session-highs. The S&P 500 Composite index, meanwhile, gained 10.28 or 0.49% to 2,109.41, as eight of 10 sectors closed in the green. At session-highs, the S&P 500 reached their strongest intraday levels of the year.