NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks were higher on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia advised its oil producing capacity should be fully restored by the end of September.

It had earlier been understood the production cuts caused by Saturday's attacks on the Saudi Aramco facilities would stay in place until the end of the year.

"People were thinking it would be months until we got that production back on line, and now it seems more like weeks. Putting that production back on line alleviates the risk of a higher disruption," Keith Buchanan, a portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments in Atlanta was quoted by Reuters Thomson as saying on Tuesday.

At the close of trading Tuesday the Dow Jones industrials were ahead 33.77 points or 0.12% at 27,110.59.

The Standard and Poor's 500 advanced 7.72 points or 0.26% to 3,005.68.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 32.47 points or 0.40% to 8,186.02.

On foreign exchange markets the dollar fell, sending the euro and British pound sharply higher. Commodity currencies too came off their bottoms.

Around the New York close Tuesday the euro had recovered to 1.1067, after dipping below the 1.1000 level in Asia.

The British pound, which had fallen below 1.2400 in the Asian session, was being robustly bid at 1.2497 by the New York close.

The Japanese yen was only a fraction higher at 108.17 while the Swiss franc was little changed at 0.9934.

The Canadian dollar was steady at 1.3250. The Australian dollar rose to 0.6865, while the New Zealand dollar bounced up to 0.6355.

Stocks in Europe were little changed. The German Dax closed down 0.06%. London's FTSE 100 was off 0.01%. The Paris-based CAC 40 was ahead 0.24%.

In Asia on Tuesday, Japan's Nikkei 225 was ahead 13.03 points or 0.06% at 22,001.32.

The Australian All Ordinaries rose 19.70 points or 0.29% to 6,801.70.

In China, the Shanghai Composite fell sharply, losing 52.64 points or 1.74% to 2,978.12.