Most Southeast Asian stock markets recovered from early fall to close higher on Tuesday as investors started looking beyond the North Korea issues. Singapore shares led the gains in the region with a rise of 0.6 percent. Financials accounted for most of the gains with DBS Group Holdings, Singapore's biggest financial stock by market value, rising 2.1 percent and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp climbing 1.4 percent.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.3 percent as expectations that Beijing will maintain support for its economy ahead of a key congress supported Chinese stocks and metals prices. Philippine shares recovered from early falls to close slightly higher, extending gains into a fourth session. "Market was down all day long, however, on the pre-close there was some last-minute buying that pushed up the stocks of select companies such as SM Investments, Jollibee and Megaworld," said Lexter Azurin, a senior analyst with Manila-based AB Capital Securities.
Industrial and consumer discretionary stocks led the upward charge with Jollibee Foods Corp rising 2.5 percent and SM Investments climbing 0.9 percent. Indonesian shares snapped five consecutive sessions of falls to end the day up 0.28 percent with Bank Central Asia rising 0.7 percent. Vietnam shares extended gains into a fourth session and closed at their highest level in four weeks. Vietcombank rose as much as 3.2 percent to its highest since August 9.