Most Asian stock markets advance

Asian markets were mostly higher Tuesday after Wall Street shrugged off trade tensions between the U.S. and China to end at its highest point in nearly a year. European markets were mixed.

The dollar clawed back some losses against the yen, while oil prices hovered below $69 a barrel.

The modest gains followed Wall Street, where major benchmarks bounced back after sliding early in the day as investors eyed a brewing trade dispute between the U.S. and China. But analysts said a full-out trade war was highly unlikely given how much is at stake for the two increasingly intertwined economies.

Global markets have recovered much of their losses since the failure of Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. a year ago froze the financial system and deepened the world economic downturn.

With little in the way of economic data, company announcements and government policy changes to drive the markets, many investors were waiting for reasons to buy in the short term, said Andrew Orchard, Asian strategist for Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong.

"Liquidity is still strong, and until they remove the excess liquidity, there's a good chance of the markets will keep rising," Orchard said.

As trading got underway in Europe, Britain's FTSE was down 0.1 percent, Germany's DAX was 0.2 percent while France's CAC 40 rose 0.2 percent.