LOCAL shares, along with other stock markets in Asia, took their cue from advances on Wall Street, and closed higher on Tuesday.

All Wall Street Indices had closed in the black on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.8 per cent; the S&P 500 added 1.6 per cent, and the Nasdaq rose 2.6 per cent.

In Singapore, the benchmark Straits Times Index advanced 0.7 per cent or 20.97 points to finish the day at 2,917.29. Across the broader market, advancers outnumbered decliners 300 to 175, with 2.71 billion securities worth some S$1.38 billion having changed hands.

Elsewhere in Asia, lifts in investor sentiment were evident in Tuesday's trading session. The Nikkei 225 was up 1 per cent; the Hang Seng Index gained 1.2 per cent, while the Kospi rose 1.3 per cent. The KLCI, too, rose 0.9 per cent despite the country's announcement of an extension of its movement control order (MCO) by a fortnight to Feb 18.

Chief global markets strategist at Axi Stephen Innes said: "There could be upside risks to the markets' US fiscal stimulus assumptions - indeed the ingredients for a rapid global recovery from Q2 onwards are getting sweetly baked into the cake.

"The most comforting blanket for investors is that the macro outlook has not changed materially in recent weeks."

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The biggest loser for the day was Great Eastern Holdings. The counter closed 0.8 per cent or S$0.16 lower at S$20.72. Other top decliners included UOB, which fell 0.4 per cent or S$0.10 to S$23.45, and tech play Spindex Industries, which slipped 5.6 per cent or 5.5 Singapore cents to S$0.93.

On the other end of the spectrum, Jardine Matheson Holdings was the biggest advancer for the day. The counter closed at US$58.83 on Tuesday, up 2.1 per cent or US$1.23.

iFast Corporation extended its gains by another 6.4 per cent or S$0.41 to finish the day at S$6.78, after having emerged as the biggest advancer on the bourse on Monday.

Tech names such as Venture Corporation, AEM Holdings and Nanofilm Technologies were also among the day's top advancers.

Of the 30 constituent stocks, only four finished the day in the red. The constituent losers were Mapletree Industrial Trust, Mapletree Logistics Trust, OCBC and UOB.

Oceanus was the most heavily traded stock for the second consecutive day, with some 550.8 million shares changing hands over the course of the day. The counter closed at 6.6 Singapore cents, up 6.5 per cent or 0.4 cent.

Other heavily traded stocks included Jiutian Chemical, AusGroup and Sembcorp Marine.