Asian shares took their cues from Wall Street and kicked off a holiday-shortened week on a strong footing on Monday, while the euro touched a fresh two-year low against the greenback on divergent monetary policy expectations, Reuters reported. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan extended gains and was up 1.1 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average erased early gains and was flat ahead of a Japanese public holiday on Tuesday, though Australian shares surged 1.6 percent. The euro edged up to $1.2241, after earlier dropping as low as $1.2220, its lowest level since August 2012. Against the yen, it edged slightly up to 146.09 yen , but remained a considerable distance from a six-year high of 149.79 touched earlier in December. Spot gold added about 0.2 percent to $1,198.16 an ounce, after losing about 2 percent last week on worries over a U.S. interest rate hike next year.
