Asian stocks were mixed on Monday in thin trade, following Wall Street's declines and the G20'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 per cent.
Chinese shares added 0.2 per cent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.6 per cent.
But Australian shares lost 0.3 per cent and South Korea slid 0.5 per cent. Japan is closed for a holiday.
The MSCI emerging markets index added 0.3 per cent to hit its highest level in more than two years on Monday.
Emerging market funds
Investor sentiment towards emerging markets, while cooling, still remains positive. Emerging market equity funds had their sixth straight week of inflows in the week ending March 15, but the pace slowed sharply. They had net inflows of $215 million, after inflows of nearly $1 billion the previous week, according to Thomson Reuters data.
On Friday, Wall Street was flat to negative, dragged lower by bank shares that fell along with Treasury yields.
Financial leaders from the world's biggest economies reiterated their warnings against competitive devaluations and disorderly foreign exchange markets at the meeting in the German town of Baden-Baden over the weekend.
Trade and protectionism
But they failed to agree on a commitment to keep global trade free and open, highlighting a global shift towards protectionism.
On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe defended free trade, calling for a trade deal to be reached quickly between Japan and the European Union and distancing themselves from protectionist rhetoric coming from the Trump administration.
“Essentially (the G20 outcome was) a result of the US protectionist stance, something Trump has been very clear on and the market is well aware of this,” James Woods, global investment analyst at Rivkin Securities in Sydney, said.
“Importantly we saw other leaders such as Shinzo Abe and Angela Merkel come out publicly supporting free trade, and for now the protectionist stance remains constrained to the US It would be more concerning if this began spreading to other countries.”
The dollar didn't react to the statements from the meeting, hovering close to its near-three-week low touched on Friday. It traded almost 0.1 per cent lower at 112.62 yen.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six trade-weighted peers, also slipped 0.1 per cent to 100.17, just a touch above Friday's 5 1/2-week low.
Fed officials speech
Markets are focused on a raft of speeches by Federal Reserve officials this week, including Chicago's Charles Evans on Tuesday and Friday, Chair Janet Yellen on Thursday, Dallas's Robert Kaplan and Minneapolis's Neel Kashkari on Friday and New York's William Dudley on Saturday.
The euro climbed 0.2 per cent to $1.0762, riding the investor relief over the Netherlands election defeat of anti-European Union candidate Geert Wilders to hit a near-six-week peak on Friday.
French election
Attention now turns to the French election, with the first Presidential debate set to take place on Monday. Opinion polls show independent centrist Emmanuel Macron would lead far-right leader Marine Le Pen by a hair in first-round voting, before beating her in the run-off.
In commodities, oil prices continued their downward trend as doubts grew about the effectiveness of OPEC cuts in containing a supply glut as US inventories continue to climb.
US crude dropped almost 0.8 per cent to $48.42 a barrel.
Global benchmark Brent fell 0.4 per cent to $51.51.
The weaker dollar boosted gold, which added 0.5 per cent to $1,234.14 an ounce.