The US dollar is sporting a softer profile against most of the major and emerging market currencies to start the new week. It already seemed to be tiring in the second half of last week. With today's mild losses, Dollar Index is off for a fourth consecutive session, the longest losing streak in over a month.

The US and China appear to have taken measure to diffuse the trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. The US is reversing itself on sanctions imposed on China's ZTE that had appeared to threaten its future. China indicated it will launch a review of Qualcomm's application to acquire NXP Semiconductor. This is ahead of the Chinese trade delegation coming to Washington for talks starting tomorrow.

Malaysian markets re-opened for the first time since last week's election surprise. The NDFs had sold off, but when the onshore market resumed business, the ringgit recovered and managed to close fractionally higher. The stock market rose 0.2%, recovering fully from the slide suggested by offshore ETF trading. It benefited from the regional advance. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose nearly 0.5%, its third consecutive gain and five of the past six sessions. The index of H-shares that trade in Hong Kong led the regional advance with a 1.6% gain, followed by the Hang Seng itself (1.35%). The Nikkei matched the regional index performance and reached its best level since early February. Separately, note that the MSCI Emerging Markets Index is up 0.25% to extend its advance for a sixth session. It is the longest streak since the 11-day run in January.  

European shares are trading a little heavier. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is off nearly 0.2%. After a sharp run-up since the end of March, the index hit a fall last week just above 390.00. It has been trading in a narrow range a little above there. Today is the fourth such session. As the market appears to have largely shrugged off the outcome of the Malaysian election, so too it is the market largely ignoring the likelihood of a new Italian government composed of the Five Star Movement and the League.