Asian markets were mixed in early trading Tuesday, as investors grew wary as they waited for more details about last week’s agreement for a partial trade deal between the U.S. and China.
Doubts emerged Monday amid reports that Chinese officials wanted more talks before signing the so-called “phase one” deal. U.S. tariff hikes on about $160 billion in Chinese goods, scheduled to take effect in December, are apparently still on track, although tariff hikes on $250 billion of Chinese goods that were to take effect this week were postponed. A more comprehensive trade deal will come in three phases, President Donald Trump said, with the mode divisive issues to be tackled at a later date.
Japan’s Nikkei
NIK, +1.72%
surged 1.7% as traders returned from a holiday Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
HSI, -0.08%
was about flat, while the Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, -0.48%
slipped 0.5% and the Shenzhen Composite
399106, -0.98%
dipped 1%. South Korea’s Kospi
180721, +0.13%
edged up 0.2%, and benchmark indexes in Taiwan
Y9999, +0.50%
, Singapore
STI, -0.02%
, Malaysia
FBMKLCI, -0.15%
and Indonesia
JAKIDX, -0.12%
were mostly up. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO, +0.00%
inched down 0.1%.
Among individual stocks, SoftBank
9984, +3.01%
gained in Tokyo trading, along with Toyota
7203, +1.11%
and Fast Retailing
9983, +1.99%
. In Hong Kong, China Resources Land
1109, +0.57%
rose while CNOOC
883, -1.17%
and WH Group
288, -1.81%
declined. Taiwan Semiconductor
2330, +2.07%
rose in Taiwan, while Beach Energy
BPT, -2.07%
and BHP
BHP, -1.37%
fell in Australia.
Source : MTV