Singapore — Asian stocks were mixed on Monday in thin trade, following Wall Street’s declines and the Group of 20’s (G-20’s) decision to drop a pledge to avoid trade protectionism, while the Federal Reserve’s less hawkish than expected comments continued to drag the dollar lower. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.1%. Chinese shares added 0.2%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.6%. But Australian shares lost 0.3% and South Korea slid 0.5%. Japan is closed for a holiday. The MSCI emerging markets index added 0.3% to hit its highest level in more than two years on Monday. Investor sentiment towards emerging markets, while cooling, still remains positive. Emerging-market equity funds had their sixth consecutive week of inflows in the week ending March 15, but the pace slowed sharply. They had net inflows of $215m, after inflows of nearly $1bn the previous week, according to Thomson Reuters data. On Friday, Wall Street was flat to negative, dragged l...
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