Market participants commenced trading with firm footing on reports top officials from the world's biggest economies working on an agreement to end their long-running tariffs spat, which was a major drag on markets at the end of 2018. While there are few details on the talks as they stand - and a floated summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping looks to be later than expected - upbeat comments from both sides are keeping investors broadly happy for now.

The Fed's next meeting will be closely followed in hopes it will give an idea about its plans for interest rates, with some observers suggesting it will pare its pace of hikes in the face of a slowing global economy. With inflation still tame as US growth decelerates, economists also say the central bank will lower the number of hikes they expect this year, from the two projected in December, while there is even talk of a possible cut at some point.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is due to announce the second policy decision of the year on Wednesday by the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. The benchmark interest rates is now in a range of 2.25 to 2.5% and futures markets see no more rate hikes in 2019.

A slew of other central bank gatherings, including the Bank of England, will give further clues on monetary policy.

Shares of materials and resources inclined, buoyed by surge in base metal prices, with Fortescue Metals the biggest gainer, up 5.5%. Mining giant BHP was up 1.4%, while Rio Tinto was up 1.7%.

Financial stocks were mixed, with ANZ was up 0.2% and Westpac moved up 0.2%, while NAB lost 0.4%. Commonwealth Bank was down 0.7%, after the bank said it would end its long-running dispute with the Australian Taxation Office over a rejected application for a research and development rebate.

CURRENCY: The Australian dollar almost unchanged against the U.S. dollar on Monday. The Aussie dollar was quoted at $0.7082, down from $0.7084 on Friday.

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