Trump and Xi hit pause

The moves in Asia came after Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to a momentary pause on escalating the ongoing trade war between the two economic powerhouses. "This is probably the best case scenario that markets were hoping for from the meeting of Trump and Xi and we've seen that anticipated 'risk on' rally this morning," said Rakuten Securities Australia in a morning note. They did, however, add that "analysts are already looking at the details and it doesn't take long for doubts to come through on the strength of the agreement." "A simple look at the two press statements from either side shows some quite glaring differences of opinion and this could lead to a relatively short lived lift in investor confidence," said the note. A White House statement about the leaders' dinner at the G-20 summit in Argentina said Xi and Trump discussed a range of nettlesome issues — among them the trade dispute that has left over $200 billion worth of goods hanging in the balance. "President Trump has agreed that on January 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of product at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time," the statement read. Over the next 90 days, American and Chinese officials will continue to negotiate lingering disagreements on technology transfer, intellectual property and agriculture. "The avoidance of a 25 percent tax is the good news, so that's really what the markets (are) reacting to," David Sokulsky, CEO and CIO of the Concentrated Leaders Fund, told CNBC's "Street Signs" on Monday. "The markets (have) been very concerned that these trade wars would escalate even more into a potential Cold War and what this does, it takes that significant risk, it doesn't eliminate it, but it certainly reduces it," Sokulsky said. On the back of the developments between the U.S. and China, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures jumped 400 points shortly after the start of trading at 6 p.m. in New York on Sunday. As of 2:07 a.m. ET Monday, futures pointed to an implied gain of 477.54 at the open for the Dow.

Oil prices surge after November slump

Oil prices saw strong gains Monday afternoon during Asian trading hours, but pared some of their earlier gains on the back of Qatar announcing its plans to pull out of OPEC days before an anticipated meeting between the cartel and its allies. The international benchmark Brent surged 4.42 percent to $62.09 per barrel. U.S. crude futures leaped 4.81 percent to $53.38 per barrel after earlier seeing gains of more than 5 percent. The crude markets saw their worst month in a decade during November, amid concerns of oversupply and global politics. West Texas Intermediate, or U.S. crude, lost 21 percent in November, tumbling to its lowest level in a year and logging its worst performance since October 2008.

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