“For today the focus is likely to be on the preliminary flash manufacturing and services PMI data from Germany and France for March, particularly in light of the weak Chinese HSBC manufacturing PMI number,” Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said in a note. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up about 0.2 percent in choppy trade, pulling higher in the late afternoon after the Chinese figure knocked it off its early highs. Japan’s Nikkei stock average (.N225) slipped 0.2 percent, pulling away from the previous session’s 15-year highs.