(Reuters) - Aussie shares edged up on Tuesday, helped by financial stocks and by resources shares, which were buoyed by a further jump in Chinese steel futures prices.
The S&P/ASX 200 index <.AXJO> rose 0.3 percent or 17.829 points to 5,963.500. The benchmark fell 0.2 percent on Monday.
The Australian financial index <.AXFJ> rose 0.2 percent with Macquarie Group <MQG.AX> leading the gains, rising 1.06 percent. Australia’s second largest lender Westpac Banking Corp <WBC.AX> rose 0.3 percent.
The Reserve Bank of Australia released minutes of its November meeting which showed policymakers warned of "considerable uncertainty" about how quickly wages growth and inflation might pick up, thereby leaving the interest rates at record lows for more than a year.
The metals and mining index <.AXMM> rose 0.3 percent, with 0.4 percent gains for both BHP <BHP.AX> and Rio Tinto Ltd.
Chinese iron ore futures <DCIOcv1> continued rising on Tuesday, gaining 1.3 percent, despite stockpiles of the steelmaking commodity continuing to rise in China.[IRONORE/]
BHP shares were also helped after it and Vale SA <VALE5.SA> announced a 150-day extension authorized by a Brazilian court to negotiate a settlement of a $48 billion claim stemming from the Samarco mine disaster in 2015.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index <.NZ50> slipped 0.02 percent or 10.32 points to 8,088.48.
Health care stocks weighed as Fisher & Paykel Healthcare <FPH.NZ> plunged 4.5 percent, dragging the index to its first loss in three sessions, despite posting a 4 percent and 8 percent rise in half-year profit and revenue, respectively.
But consumer staples offset some of the losses as dairy farm operator A2 Milk <ATM.NZ> jumped 5.4 percent to a more than 2-1/2 week high after it reported a 137.7 percent rise in its netprofit after tax in the four months to October.
Rival Fonterra Co-Operative Group Ltd <FCG.NZ> rose 0.5 percent after it said its milk production in New Zealand rose 3 percent during the peak production month of October due to the return of favourable weather after a wet spring.
(Reporting by Syed Saif Hussain Naqvi in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill)
