• Oil prices add to Monday’s gains
  • Asian shares drop on weak Chinese data
  • Middle East markets end Monday mixed
  • Dollar and gold prices drop

Oil prices

Oil prices rose early on Tuesday on hopes that OPEC and other countries may agree to extend production cuts in a bid to support prices.

Brent was up 42 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $63.01 a barrel by 0104 GMT, while US crude was 46 cents, or 0.8 percent, higher at $58.31 a barrel.

A meeting of OPEC and OPEC+ countries this week in Abu Dhabi “is stirring up hopes for additional supply cuts,” Stephen Innes, Asia Pacific market strategist at AxiTrader told Reuters.

US oil gained more than 2 percent on Monday, while Brent finished the day 1.7 percent higher as the market reacted to the appointment by Saudi Arabia’s king of his son, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, as energy minister on Sunday.

Global markets

Asian shares retreated early on Tuesday on weak Chinese data. China’s producer price index fell 0.8 percent in August year-on-year, official data showed on Tuesday, its sharpest decline since August 2016.

Blue chip shares in China .CSI300 dropped 0.76 percent, which in turn drove the MSCI index of Asian stocks outside of Japan 0.3 percent lower.

“Globally inflationary pressure remains subdued, so in that sense China is not an outlier,” Sean Darby, global equity strategist at Jefferies in Hong Kong, told Reuters.

“People are positioned very bearish, but I don’t think the market wants to be too bearish. Bond yields are reversing. Markets are a little more unsure about their expectations for central banks, because a lot of easing is already priced in.”

Middle East markets

Saudi Arabia’s index inched up 0.1 percent on Monday with Al Rajhi Bank rising 0.7 percent and Riyad Bank gaining 1.5 percent.

Dubai’s index gained 0.3 percent as Dubai Islamic Bank which rose 0.8 percent and Emaar Properties gained 0.4 percent.

Abu Dhabi's index was down 0.6 percent. Emirates Telecommunications Group dropped 1.2 percent and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank lost 1.9 percent.

The Qatari Index also gained 0.3 percent as telecom operator Ooredoo rose 3.6 percent and Mesaieed Petrochemical added 2.5 percent.

Egypt's blue-chip index was down 0.3 percent with the country's largest lender Commercial International Bank shedding 0.2 percent and cigarette maker Eastern Co losing 1 percent.

Kuwait’s premier market index fell 1.5 percent while Bahrain’s index was closed for a public holiday an Oman’s index edged down 0.2 percent.

Currencies

The dollar retreated overnight.

The dollar index .DXY, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.1 percent.

Precious metals

Gold prices fell early on Tuesday.

Spot gold was down 0.5 percent at $1,490.68 per ounce, as of 0152 GMT.

US gold futures were down 0.9 percent at $1,497.4 an ounce.

(Reporting by Gerard Aoun; Editing by Seban Scaria)

(gerard.aoun@refinitiv.com)

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