Asian markets fell in early trading Thursday, following Wall Street’s lead as the U.S. and China appeared to brace for a prolonged trade standoff.
After last week’s escalation of tariffs, no new trade talks have been scheduled, and many analysts suspect a breakthrough will require an intervention at the top before the Group of 20 major economies meets next month in Osaka, Japan.
“For a deal, there needs to be a Trump-Xi call, which would enable a useful Lighthizer visit to Beijing,” said Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Then the two leaders could meet in Osaka and compromise on at least one major issue: reinvigorating the talks.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is talking to Walmart
WMT, +1.10%
and other companies about finding ways to ease the pain if President Donald Trump goes ahead with plans to extend import taxes to the $300 billion in Chinese products that haven’t already been hit with tariffs, the Associated Press reported.
President Xi Jinping said China must prepare for difficult times, Reuters reported Wednesday, describing a “new Long March,” in which “we must overcome various major risks and challenges from home and abroad.”
Japan’s Nikkei
NIK, -0.82%
fell 0.8%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
HSI, -1.26%
slid 1%. The Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, -0.77%
retreated 0.3% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite
399106, -1.26%
dropped 0.6%. South Korea’s Kospi
180721, -0.26%
slipped 0.2%, and benchmark indexes in Taiwan
Y9999, -1.49%
, Singapore
STI, -0.50%
and Indonesia
JAKIDX, +1.39%
were mixed. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO, -0.32%
fell 0.3%.
Among individual stocks, SoftBank
9984, -5.68%
tumbled in Tokyo trading after its U.K.-based ARM unit suspended business with Huawei. Sony
6758, -3.21%
and Mitsubishi UFJ
8306, -1.22%
also fell. In Hong Kong, Sunny Optical
2382, -4.62%
, Tencent
700, -2.36%
and Country Garden
2007, -2.40%
sank. SK Hynix
000660, -1.60%
declined in South Korea, but LG Electronics
066570, +2.74%
rose. Foxconn
2354, -1.15%
and Taiwan Semiconductor
2330, -3.15%
slid in Taiwan. In Australia, BHP
BHP, -1.44%
and Westpac
WBC, -2.57%
retreated.
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Source : MTV