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(Bloomberg) — A global equity rally stumbled as Asian gauges swung between gains and losses, while U.S. index futures dropped. Crude slumped, the yuan weakened and the yen climbed.

Benchmark equity indexes in Japan, China and South Korea turned lower, while contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 0.3 percent. Japan’s currency appreciated against all 16 major peers. The yuan declined after the People’s Bank of China lowered its daily reference rate by the most in six weeks. New York oil dropped after surging above $33 a barrel on Monday.

“About the one thing you can say about market trends since the start of the year has been the lack of them,” Mark Smith, a senior economist in Auckland at ANZ Bank New Zealand Ltd., said in a client note. “Recent market action has been a case in point. With no immediate circuit breaker on the horizon to provide clearer trends, and the potential for headlines to continue to drive overall sentiment, the risk is that we could be stuck in the same holding pattern in six to 12 months’ time from now.”

Stocks

The Topix index dropped 0.2 percent in Tokyo as of 11:06 a.m. Tokyo time. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index slid 0.3 percent, the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5 percent and the Kospi index fell 0.3 percent in Seoul. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.3 percent.

The MSCI All-Country World Index rebounded 6 percent from this year’s Feb. 11 low to close at its highest level in three weeks on Monday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma O’Brien in Wellington at eobrien6@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Richard Frost at rfrost4@bloomberg.net