Yahoo Finance Asian Equities Fall; Trade Talks, China Data and Brexit in Focus
Investing.com - Asian equities fell in morning trade on Thursday as traders digested the latest news on the Sino-U.S. trade front and Brexit.
China’s Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component fell 0.7% and 1.4% respectively by 10:30 PM ET (02:30 GMT). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slid 0.8%.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that China’s producer price index in March rose 0.4% from a year earlier, in line with expectations.
The consumer price index increased 2.3% from a year earlier, the NBS said, just lower than the 2.4% rise predicted by economists.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.1%, while South Korea’s KOSPI was unchanged at 2,224.04.
Down under, Australia’s ASX 200 was down 0.5%.
On the Sino-U.S. trade front, investors cheered news of progress on one of the key sticking points in trade talks.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC in an interview that the two sides have made progress on a trade deal, and that they have agreed on “an enforcement mechanism” to police any agreement they reach.
“We’ve agreed that both sides will establish enforcement offices that will deal with the ongoing matters,” Mnuchin said, adding that the meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Tuesday was “productive.”
“We went into late last night, and we have another call scheduled for tomorrow morning ... we still have some important issues to address, but both sides are working very hard on this agreement,” Mnuchin said.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders and the U.K. agreed to a “flexible extension ” of the Brexit deadline till Oct. 31, which Prime Minister Theresa May has accepted.
In a press conference after the agreement was reached, May said “the choices we now face are stark and the timetable is clear”. She acknowledged the “huge frustration” that the UK had not yet left the EU.
In other news, the U.S. Federal Reserve released the minutes from its March 19-20 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which voted not to hike its benchmark rate at the March 19-20 gathering.
However, Fed officials left the door open for more rate hikes by saying some policymakers under certain circumstances could “judge it appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate modestly later this year.”
“Several participants noted that their views of the appropriate range for the federal funds rate could shift in either direction,” the minutes say.
But the summary also says: “A majority of participants expected that the evolution of the economic outlook and risks to the outlook would likely warrant leaving the target range unchanged for the remainder of the year.”
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