Asia stocks bounce, yen ebbs amid Trump, Clinton challenge

Asian shares recouped early losses on Tuesday and the dollar edged away from a one-month trough against the yen, suggesting investors judged Democrat Hillary Clinton was winning her debate against Republican Donald Trump.

Markets have tended to see Clinton as the candidate of the status quo, while few are sure what a Trump presidency might mean for U.S. foreign policy, trade and the domestic economy.

Japan's Nikkei more than halved its losses to be down 0.4 percent, while the dollar edged up to 100.74 yen from a low of around 100.08.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan bounced to be down just 0.04 percent, while South Korea and Shanghai went flat.

EMini futures for the S&P 500 recouped all its losses to trade 0.35 percent firmer.

"Markets started to call the debate for Hillary within the first 15 minutes or so, with the Mexican peso surging in what is probably its busiest Asian session in years," said Sean Callow, a senior currency analyst at Westpac in Sydney.

"The bounce in S&P futures, AUD and USD/JPY all show that investors were watching closely and didn't hesitate to declare Trump the loser."

The peso climbed 0.7 percent and away from the all-time trough hit in recent days on concerns a Trump presidency would threaten Mexico's exports to the United States, its single biggest market.

"There's a thing called Trump thermometer," said David Bloom, London-based global head of forex strategy at HSBC.

"If you want to know who won the presidential debate, don't go to Twitter or Facebook. Just look at the dollar/Mexico peso."

Much the same goes for the Canadian dollar, which touched its lowest since March in early trade before rallying to $1.3203 on its U.S. counterpart.

Other safe-havens also ebbed, with yields on U.S. 10-year Treasuries rising a basis point to 1.60 percent.

In commodity markets, oil ran into profit-taking having bounced 3 percent on Monday as the world's largest producers gathered in Algeria to discuss ways to tackle a crude glut that has battered prices for two years now.