AFP, Hong Kong :
Asian markets mostly rose Friday, with investors treading carefully as China-US trade talks ended with no deal but with both sides sounding notes of optimism and setting up more high-level meetings later this month.
After the much-anticipated gathering, Donald Trump hailed “tremendous progress” between the world’s top two economies but warned the “hard deadline” of March 1 remained in place, after which US tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods will be imposed.
For its part, Beijing said they held “candid, specific and fruitful” discussions and had agreed to increase cooperation on intellectual property –
Trump’s top two economic officials will visit Beijing later this month, after which he said he will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping to hammer out the final deal.
While the negotiations ended with no agreement, Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, said: “For the markets, which are clearly in ‘risk-on’ mood, it was a case of no news is good news.”
However, an early surge across the region petered out to leave markets mixed.
Tokyo ended 0.1 percent higher and Hong Kong was marginally lower, while Shanghai jumped 1.3 percent as traders welcomed news that authorities had relaxed certain rules to make investing easier.
Sydney and Singapore were both flat and Seoul dipped 0.1 percent, though Manila, Mumbai, Bangkok and Jakarta were all up.
In early trade London rose 0.3 percent, while Frankfurt and Paris each added 0.2 percent.
“The statement certainly signals progress, but at best limited progress on the core long-term structural issues that separate the two sides,” Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University, told Bloomberg News.
“The statement ends with a not-so-veiled threat that China will need to offer more substantive concessions to enable a deal that would take further tariffs off the table.”
Asian markets mostly rose Friday, with investors treading carefully as China-US trade talks ended with no deal but with both sides sounding notes of optimism and setting up more high-level meetings later this month.
After the much-anticipated gathering, Donald Trump hailed “tremendous progress” between the world’s top two economies but warned the “hard deadline” of March 1 remained in place, after which US tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods will be imposed.
For its part, Beijing said they held “candid, specific and fruitful” discussions and had agreed to increase cooperation on intellectual property –
Trump’s top two economic officials will visit Beijing later this month, after which he said he will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping to hammer out the final deal.
While the negotiations ended with no agreement, Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, said: “For the markets, which are clearly in ‘risk-on’ mood, it was a case of no news is good news.”
However, an early surge across the region petered out to leave markets mixed.
Tokyo ended 0.1 percent higher and Hong Kong was marginally lower, while Shanghai jumped 1.3 percent as traders welcomed news that authorities had relaxed certain rules to make investing easier.
Sydney and Singapore were both flat and Seoul dipped 0.1 percent, though Manila, Mumbai, Bangkok and Jakarta were all up.
In early trade London rose 0.3 percent, while Frankfurt and Paris each added 0.2 percent.
“The statement certainly signals progress, but at best limited progress on the core long-term structural issues that separate the two sides,” Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University, told Bloomberg News.
“The statement ends with a not-so-veiled threat that China will need to offer more substantive concessions to enable a deal that would take further tariffs off the table.”
