In Asian Equity Markets indices were broadly negative on Tuesday morning. In Australia, the ASX 200 suffered further losses to trade down by 0.25 percent as its major banks slid. Commonwealth Bank of Australia shares traded lower by 0.75 percent while Westpac Banking Corp fell by 1.1 percent.  The Nikkei 225, on the other hand, made a recovery from its earlier losses to trade up by 0.12 percent, with semiconductor manufacturer Tokyo Electron rising 2.26 percent. Mainland China markets also fell by around 0.5 percent following Monday’s public holiday.

In Currency Markets the US dollar was largely steady against its major peers on Tuesday as investors looked to policy clues from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is widely expected to hike rates this week, as financial markets fret over a heated Sino-U.S. trade dispute. The euro kept some of its gains made overnight when it hit a 3-1/2-month high after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi expressed confidence in eurozone inflation and wages growth. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six currencies, was about 0.1 percent higher at 94.274.

In Commodities Markets oil markets remained strong on Tuesday, with Brent crude near a four-year high reached the previous session. Oil markets have been driven up by looming U.S. sanctions against Iran and an unwillingness or inability by Middle East dominated producer cartel OPEC and Russia to raise output. Brent crude futures were at $81.32 per barrel, or 0.2 percent, and not far off the $81.48 a barrel peak reached the previous day, the highest since November 2014. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $72.10 a barrel, up 2 cents from their last settlement.

In US Equity Markets the S&P 500 and the Dow closed lower on Monday after a new round of U.S.-China trade tariffs kicked in, dampening last week’s hopes for talks between the two countries, and as investors awaited a widely expected interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Seven of the S&P’s 11 major sectors lost ground. The S&P 500 lost 0.35 percent, to 2,919.37, and the Nasdaq Composite closed flat at 7,993.25. The biggest boost to the index was Facebook Inc, which closed up 1.5 percent.

In Bond Markets U.S. Treasury yields across maturities were steady on Monday afternoon having mostly recovered from early losses on a flurry of conflicting reports about whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing a Justice Department probe into Russia’s role in the 2016 election, would leave his post. While yields at the short end of the curve only ticked up modestly, the 30-year bond yield was up from its open, last at 3.210 percent.