Asian stocks retreat, Shanghai Composite trades flat

Stock markets Asia retreated while the oil benchmarks rallied on signs the US oil glut is easing.

MSCI Asia Pacific index dropped for the first time this week. At the time of writing, Japan’s Nikkei index was down 0.24%. Stocks in Australia and New Zealand were down at least 0.6% each. South Korea’s Kospi traded 0.25% lower.

Shanghai Composite index traded flat even though data in China showed rise in exports and imports in Yuan terms and rise in imports in USD terms.

Stock markets were buoyed by a sharp drop in the Fed rate hike bets Friday’s US ISM non-manufacturing figure beat estimates by a wide margin.

The focus today is on the European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy review. Markets do not see an expansion in the QE program, however, a significant majority believes the bank may extend the maturity to September 2017.