Asian stocks rise after Wall Street record on trade truce

02/07/2019 AP

 

Most Asian stock markets rose Tuesday after Wall Street's benchmark hit a new high following the latest truce in the costly US-China trade war.

 

Tokyo and Sydney rose, while Shanghai was unchanged. Hong Kong advanced despite protests over a proposed extradition law that prompted police to use tear gas to clear streets.

 

Investors were encouraged by the agreement between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China at a weekend meeting of the Group of 20 major economies to resume trade negotiations. Forecasters warned, however, the two sides still face the same differences that caused talks to break down in May.

 

Also Monday, the Trump administration ratcheted up tensions with the European Union by proposing additional tariffs on $4 billion of European imports in a dispute over subsidies to aircraft manufacturers.

 

Investors "may find this optimism cooling," Jingyi Pan of IG said in a report. "The sustainability of this upward movement remains in question with the uncertainty continuing for geopolitical tensions."

 

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.2 percent to 21,764.28 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.3 percent to 28,929.19. Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 advanced 0.4 percent to 6,677.80.

 

The Shanghai Composite Index was off 2 points at 3,043.11 and Seoul's Kospi shed 0.2 percent to 2,124.32. India's Sensex was off 0.3 percent at 39,581.11. New Zealand and the Philippines advanced, while Taiwan and Singapore declined.

 

On Wall Street, the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.8 percent after Trump's agreement to hold off imposing new tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports put investors in a buying mood.

 

Investors worry the fight over Beijing's technology ambitions will drag on global economic growth. Those concerns prompted the Federal Reserve last month to declare its willingness to cut interest rates if the dispute hurts the U.S. economy.

 

The S&P 500 index rose to 2,964.33. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4 percent to 26,717.43. The Nasdaq composite rose 1.1 percent to 8,091.16.

 

The trade truce leaves 25 percent import taxes imposed by the US on $250 billon of Chinese imports in place. And China maintains the tariffs it placed on $110 billion in American goods, primarily agricultural products.

 

Trump also said he would allow US companies to sell some components to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which last month was placed on an American blacklist as a national security threat.

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