Investing.com - Asian shares rose on upbeat economic data overnight from the U.S. and the conclusion of talks on Greece's debt which reached agreement in principle.
The S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.78% and the Nikkei 225 rose 1.59%.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.27% by the break. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was last up 2.56%.
The Chinese yuan fell against the dollar Wednesday morning after the People's Bank of China set a weaker fixing for a second consecutive day at 6.5693, compared with Tuesday's mid point of 6.5468.
Overnight, U.S. stocks rose sharply on Tuesday, erasing all of their losses from the previous two sessions, as robust new homes sales last month lifted homebuilder and supplier stocks, while a surge in tech stocks helped trigger one of the strongest one-day rallies in the NASDAQ Composite index on the calendar year.
The U.S. Commerce Department said that new home sales in April soared 16.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000, the highest monthly gain in nearly 25 years. With the sharp gains, new home sales surged to their highest level since January, 2008, topping the next closest reading by more than 70,000.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 213.12 or 1.22% to 213.12, while the S&P 500 Composite index gained 28.02 or 1.37% to 2,076.06 as both indices closed near session-highs. The NASDAQ, meanwhile, surged 95.28 or 2.00% to 4,861.06, rising to its highest level in nearly a month.