• The dollar wobbled against the yen on Tuesday, buckling against its safe-haven Japanese peer as a risk-averse mood spread through the broader markets. The dollar extended overnight losses and was down 0.15 percent at 110.685 yen, its lowest in a week.
The euro was steady at $1.0666 after rising only about 0.2 percent overnight against the dollar.
The dollar stalled Monday after data indicated that growth in U.S. factory sector cooled in March. The dollar index .DXY, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six trade-weighted peers, fell 0.1 percent to 100.46, although it touched a 2-1/2-week high earlier in the session after data showed U.S. construction spending grew 0.8 percent to $1.19 trillion - the highest since April 2006.
• Investor appetite for risk has been dulled this week by a number of factors, such as caution ahead of the upcoming meeting between U.S. President Donald trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping and a suspected suicide bombing in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• New York Fed President William Dudley, an influential monetary policymaker, did not comment on interest rates in his prepared remarks on Monday.
• The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity fell to a reading of 57.2last month from 57.7 in February, which was the highest since August 2014.
A measure of U.S. manufacturing activity retreated from a 2-1/2-year high in March amid a decline in production and an inventory drawdown, but a surge in factory jobs indicated that the sector's energy-led recovery was gaining momentum.
• Major U.S. automakers' sales figures for March came in below market expectations and gave early evidence that America's long, robust boom cycle for car sales may finally be losing steam.
General Motors Co (GM.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N) shares both fell almost 4percent, while Ford Motor Co (F.N) was off 3 percent.
Auto industry publication WardsAuto put the seasonally-adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) for light vehicle sales in March at 16.53 million units. Industry consultant Autodata put industry SAAR at 16.62 million units for March.
That was below the 17.3 million analysts polled by Reuters had expected, and the first time since August that the SAAR - a crucial industry metric - had fallen below 17 million.
• Far-right leader Le Pen has said that if she becomes president she would call a referendum on ditching the euro, dubbed "Frexit", finance state spending through central bank money-printing, force commercial banks to lend small firms and halve the maximum rates that banks can charge clients.
Opinion polls indicate she has a good chance of coming out on top of the first round of voting on April 23, with her share of the vote projected at 25-30 percent. But they see her losing to centrist Emmanuel Macron in a May7 runoff.
• Crude dropped as the reopening of Libya’s biggest oil field countered OPEC’s optimism about production cuts.
West Texas Intermediate for May delivery dropped 36 cents to close at $50.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices gained $2.63 last week to settle at $50.60. Total volume traded was about 23percent below the 100-day average.
Brent for June settlement dropped 41 cents to $53.12 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude closed at a $2.41 premium to June WTI.
Reference: Reuters, Bloomberg
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