Asian Stocks were dovish trade in yesterday’s session as the political state in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula added to uncertainty in the French vote which pushed edgy investors into safer assets like the yen and other treasuries.
Oil continued its steady climb on supply concerns in the wake of the U.S. strike that was concentrated on the Syrian Air base last week, and a shutdown at a Libyan oilfield.
MSCI’s widest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan, where swinging between gains and losses but later settled 0.4 percent lower.
"Most Asian markets could be seen with moderate changes this morning amid a mixed trend," said Jingyi Pan, market strategist at IG in Singapore. "Price movements here appear to be largely mirroring those in the U.S., with key corporate earnings due later in the week and could be the reason that investors are still holding onto equities."
The looming Heightened geopolitical risks came at a time when the global economy is showing a steady improvement, that is led by the United States and encouraging momentum in export-reliant Asia.
Tokyo's Nikkei .N225 slipped 0.5 percent, dragged lower by a stronger yen. While Chinese stocks fell about 0.1 percent .CSI300 and Hong Kong shares .HSI surrendered earlier gains to slide 0.7 percent.
The Australian stocks managed to turn away from their losses and was up by 0.5 percent, after a measure of business conditions hit the highest level in a decade.