Asian stocks tainted by commercial concerns, oil keeps gains

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian stocks started the week on a cautious note on Monday, as worries persisted over the intensification of trade tensions as US oil prices maintained significant gains after a modest production.

The S & P500 ESc1's mini futures contracts fell 0.5% at the start of the month while the MSCI's broader Asia-Pacific index outside of Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 0.2%. Japan's Nikkei .N225 lost 0.4 percent.

The falls were sparked by a Wall Street Journal report that US President Donald Trump intends to prevent many Chinese companies from investing in US technology companies and blocking exports. additional technologies to China.

The MSCI index of stocks around the world .MIWD00000PUS has fallen five of the last six weeks, including last week, when it fell 1% – its biggest weekly decline in three months as the threat of trade wars have become more real.

Chinese stocks .MICN00000PUS were among the biggest losers, tumbling 3.7% last week, as Trump set fire to Beijing, threatening to hit $ 200 billion of Chinese imports with tariffs from 10%.

Policymakers in China have acted quickly to temper any potential economic tension in a trade dispute with the United States, the Chinese central bank having announced Sunday that it would reduce by 50 basis points the amount of liquidity that some banks must hold as reserves.

The reduction in reserves, the third by the central bank this year, has been widely anticipated by investors and aims to accelerate the pace of debt-for-equity swaps and encourage small businesses.

Another big victim was the auto stocks .MIWO0AC00PUS, which lost 4.7 percent last week.

Trump has threatened to impose a 20% rate Friday on all car imports assembled at the EU, a month after his administration launched an investigation into whether auto imports accounted for a threat to national security.

A senior European Commission official said Saturday that the European Union would react to any US initiative to raise tariffs on cars made in the bloc.

Investors and traders worry that the threat of higher US tariffs and retaliation by others could derail a rare period of synchronized global growth.

Oil prices were supported after OPEC and non-OPEC producers agreed on a modest increase in oil production next month without announcing oil prices. Precise objective for the increase of production.

OPEC and non-OPEC countries said in their statement that they would increase supply by returning to 100 percent compliance with previously agreed production cuts, after months of underproduction.

"In reality, there are not many countries that can increase yields, only Saudi Arabia having the capacity to increase production in a flexible way." But if the Saudis alone are strongly increasing their production, they could be hurt by some other countries, "said Tatsufumi Okoshi, Senior Commodity Economist at Nomura Securities.

"So the markets seem skeptical of what Saudi Arabia can do, we may see profit taking after last week's gains, but the market will be sustained." The focus will then be on the market. increase in production of Saudis in July, "he added.

US crude oil futures traded at $ 68.57 a barrel, which changed little for the day after Friday's 4.6% rise.

The international benchmark Brent LCOc1, however, lost 2.0% to 74.08 dollars a barrel, dropping more than half of its gains on Friday.

On the forex market, the euro remained at EUR 1.1668 =, rebounding after hitting its lowest level in 11 months, to USD 1.1508 on Thursday.

The euro climbed Friday as traders were encouraged by improved data on regional economic growth and new assurances given by Italian politicians that their country would not leave the single currency.

Activity in Germany and France, the first two economies in the euro area, recovered in June despite trade tensions between Europe and the United States, according to data from the US. IHS Markit.

The dollar was little moved at JPY 109.93 yen, staying above last week's low of 109.55 yen.

The Turkish lira gained more than one percent on the expectations of a stable government after Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AKP party won the presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday. .

But his victory has kept worries about inflation and the independence of the central bank, given recent comments from Erdogan suggesting he wants to take greater control of monetary policy. .

The read is exchanged at $ 4.6050 to the TRYTOM = D3 dollar, compared to 4.6625 at the end of last week.

Bitcoin has stabilized after reaching a seven-month low over the weekend while the security of cryptocurrency trading operators has been subjected to more scrutiny.

Digital money fell to $ 5,780 and rose to $ 6,155 BTC = BTSP.