(Reuters) – There is a rise in Asian shares on Tuesday after China moved to support its stock market by buying shares of major banks, and the euro held the previous session’s big gains on hopes that European leaders are finally taking action to protect the continent’s lenders but the dollar slid to a record low.

“I think it is significant that Germany and France came together to show they will not allow big banks to collapse,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex Securities in Tokyo. Shares in China’s big four banks leapt after the country’s sovereign wealth fund bought their shares in the secondary market on Monday, in Beijing’s first move to support stock prices since the 2008 financial crisis.

So far investors have shown few signs of panic. Some market players were taking no chances, shifting funds into safe-haven gold and the Swiss franc.

Commodities were steady after surging on Monday as money flowed back into riskier assets. Southeast Asian markets have fared the best.

Japanese shares also rose as its big automakers and manufacturers have recovered more quickly than expected from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

“There’s obviously political points to be made, who is going to blink first, but in the final analysis we’re confident that there will be a compromise and that they will raise the debt ceiling,” said Malcom Wood, head of Asia Pacific strategy at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Hong Kong.

Asian bonds, currencies and even shares have been one of the beneficiaries from all the debt trouble in Europe and the political gridlock in the United States, with investors viewing the region’s stronger growth and fundamentals as a relative safe-haven.