TOKYO (Reuters) - Asia stocks pulled back on Tuesday, after an uninspiring performance on Wall Street eclipsed support from U.S.-China trade optimism, while supply concerns kept crude oil prices near 3-1/2-year highs.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS dipped 0.16 percent after rising 0.6 percent the previous day to its highest since late March.
Australian stocks inched up 0.05 percent, South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 shed 0.05 percent and Japan's Nikkei .N225 was flat.
Wall Street scraped out gains on Monday after weakness in defensive stocks offset optimism following U.S. President Donald Trump’s conciliatory remarks toward China’s ZTE Corp that helped calm U.S.-China trade tensions. [.N]
Investors in Chinese equities will likely rejig their exposure after MSCI, the U.S. index publisher, published its latest index weighting.
MSCI said on Tuesday that 234 Chinese large caps will be partially included in its global and regional indexes on June 1, following an index review ahead of China’s inclusion in MSCI’s widely tracked equity benchmarks.
Brent crude LCOc1 added 0.2 percent to $78.38 a barrel and in close reach of $78.53, the 3-1/2-year high marked on Monday. U.S. crude oil futures CLc1 advanced 0.15 percent to $71.07 a barrel and in reach of $71.89, the highest since November 2014 scaled on Thursday.
Oil prices received their latest lift as OPEC reported that the global oil glut has been virtually eliminated. Tensions in the Middle East and uncertainty about output from Iran amid renewed U.S. sanctions have contributed to the recent rise in oil prices. [O/R]
“The recent rise in prices of crude oil won’t have a broadly negative impact
