Hong Kong (AFP) – Asian stock markets fluctuated on Thursday after a high-stakes meeting between US and Chinese leaders that resulted in an agreement to alleviate frictions between the world’s two largest economies. US President Donald Trump described his meeting in South Korea with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping — their first since 2019, during Trump’s first term — as “amazing”. Xi said they had reached “consensus” on economic and trade issues, according to state media in Beijing.
Stock market reactions were subdued, with Japan’s main benchmark closing flat following a widely expected central bank decision to hold interest rates steady. Shanghai and Sydney closed with moderate drops, while Hong Kong rallied from an afternoon fall to finish just slightly lower on the day. Seoul finished slightly up, helped partly by tech giant Samsung Electronics posting a 32 percent rise in on-year third quarter profits and strong automotive gains. Taipei finished the day largely flat.
The meeting between Trump and Xi came after days of a tech-fuelled bull run in global markets, boosted further by an interest rate cut in the United States, confirmed on Wednesday by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. However, Powell’s announcement also cast doubt on an additional cut in December, jolting US markets and lifting the value of the dollar. The Nasdaq later recovered, finishing at a fourth straight record after another gain by artificial intelligence giant Nvidia, which became the first company to reach a $5 trillion market value.
Attention had been laser-focused on the Xi-Trump meeting in the South Korean city of Busan. Trump said the talks yielded an extendable one-year deal on China’s supply of crucial rare earths, materials that are essential for sophisticated electronic components across a range of industries. He said tariffs imposed over China’s export of chemicals used to make the deadly drug fentanyl would be reduced to 10 percent — bringing overall US tariffs on Chinese goods to 47 percent. Trump also said China had agreed to purchase “tremendous” amounts of soybeans, as well as other farm products.
Xi urged teams from the two countries to “finalise follow-up work as soon as possible”, calling for “tangible results to set minds at ease about the economies of China, the United States and the world”, state news agency Xinhua said. Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said: “The reversal of some US tariffs on China won’t have a big impact given that Chinese exporters had largely shrugged them off. But the de-escalation takes the immediate threat of large tariff hikes off the table, removing a key downside risk to the near-term outlook,” he wrote in a note.
London and Paris dropped at the start of trading in Europe, while Frankfurt’s main benchmark was up slightly.
– Key figures at around 0830 GMT –
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: FLAT at 51,325.61 (close)
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.2 percent at 26,282.69 (close)
Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.7 percent at 3,986.90 (close)
London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.4 percent at 9,718.65
West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.7 percent at $60.07 per barrel
Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.7 percent at $64.48 per barrel
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1613 from $1.1595 on Wednesday
Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3193 from $1.3187
Dollar/yen: UP at 153.82 yen from 152.82 yen
Euro/pound: UP at 88.02 from 87.94 pence
New York – Dow: DOWN 0.2 percent at 47,632.00 (close)
© 2024 AFP
