Overnight

Monday in Japan was a public holiday, but the Nikkei 225 struggled a bit to trade 0.5% higher Tuesday as most Asian shares fell on weaker oil prices that toned down some of the hoopla attached to the Dow and the S&P 500 run-ups and many on Wall Street touted the market was on a path to further highs.

Just last week the MSCI's broadest index outside Japan made a new nine-month high, but couldn't sustain the upward trend as it fell 0.6%. In China both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Indexes were off as the Chinese yuan firmed against the U.S. dollar after falling below a psychologically support level of 6.7 for the first time in six years. More than a few hedge fund managers have been predicting a weaker yuan for some time now. apart of the pressure on oil prices stemmed from fear about rising stockpiles. U.S. crude was down 0.4% at $45.07 and Brent was off 0.3% trading at $46.82 a barrel.

The dollar softened against the yen after recently registering a three-week high, trading at 105.90 yen after touching 106.33 earlier in the day. Up later in the week is the ECB meeting on Thursday, it's last one before an eight-week summer break. Brexit is still on the minds of many in the EU and only  time will tell what course they will decide to take to support the EU economy given the vote caught many off guard. The Euro held firm at $1.1076. Gold traded down a bit at $1,327.87 an ounce following its down move Monday when it lost 1%.

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