Euro slips

TOKYO: The euro slipped on Monday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a fourth term but faced a fractured parliament as support for the far-right surged, while Asian shares pulled back, weighed by concerns about China´s economy.

The New Zealand dollar also took a hit as the Pacific country´s ruling National Party won the largest number votes in a weekend election but failed to secure a ruling majority, with a protracted period of coalition building now a possibility.

The euro was down 0.2 percent at $1.1930, putting more distance between a 2-1/2-year high of $1.2092 reached on Sept. 8, when a European Central Bank policy meeting left currency bulls optimistic the ECB would begin tapering its big stimulus programme.

MSCI´s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan handed back earlier modest gains and was last down 0.35 percent with losses across the regions weighing. Two years after Merkel left German borders open to more than 1 million migrants, the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) stunned the establishment by becoming the first far-right party to enter parliament in more than half a century.