Asian markets gained slightly in muted early trading Tuesday, after stocks closed higher on Wall Street to kick off a busy earnings week.
Investors were also encouraged by trade developments, after the South China Morning Post reported U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would travel to Beijing next week for renewed trade negotiations with China. Later Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported President Donald Trump had agreed to make “timely” licensing decisions for U.S. tech companies seeking to renew sales with Huawei Technologies Co.
Japan’s Nikkei
NIK, +1.17%
rose 0.9% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
HSI, +0.16%
edged up 0.2%. The Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, +0.03%
was up 0.1% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite
399106, +0.22%
advanced 0.4%. Shanghai’s new STAR market declined following a big pop in its debut Monday. South Korea’s Kospi
180721, +0.46%
rose 0.5%, while benchmark indexes in Taiwan
Y9999, +0.00%
, Singapore
STI, +0.34%
and Indonesia
JAKIDX, -0.42%
barely moved. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO, +0.47%
advanced 0.4%.
Among individual stocks, SoftBank
9984, +4.18%
surged in Tokyo trading, along with oil-and-gas engineering company Chiyoda
6366, +6.49%
and chip maker Tokyo Electron
8035, +2.95%
. In Hong Kong, tech-component makers Sunny Optical
2382, +2.51%
and AAC
2018, +2.55%
rose, while property company Country Garden
2007, -2.33%
fell. Chip maker SK Hynix
000660, +1.53%
jumped in South Korea after an endorsement by Goldman Sachs over the weekend, while, Hyundai Motor
005380, -1.13%
sank after missing quarterly earnings expectations despite a big jump in profit. In Australia, Oil Search
OSH, +2.65%
gained while Fortescue Metals
FMG, -1.18%
fell.
Source : MTV
