Despite uncertainty still looming over efforts to raise the debt ceiling, the Asian markets and U.S. futures were up slightly...

Despite uncertainty still looming over efforts to raise the debt ceiling, the Asian markets and U.S. futures were up slightly on Tuesday and U.S. stocks are expected to open higher later in the morning.

Asian stock markets were mostly higher Tuesday, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 1.5 percent and Japan’s Nikkei adding 0.5 percent, on positive earnings news, though investors were still being cautious because of the stalemate in negotiations between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders.

“While we continue to keep our eyes on developments in Greece and the United States, corporate earnings are also becoming a key theme for the markets,” Masayoshi Yano, a senior market analyst at Meiwa Securities in Japan, told the Wall Street Journal.

As Obama spoke Monday night in a primetime address to the nation about the urgency of raising the debt ceiling to avoid default on U.S. bonds and rising interest rates, the dollar fell to a record low against the Swiss franc and to a four-month low against the yen.

Even so, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other U.S. exchanges were up in early morning trading.