As the United States and China stayed engaged in deliberations for a possible finalisation of a trade deal, Asian shares were mixed on Tuesday even as US futures and oil prices rose.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.8 per cent to 40,674.55 on broad selling of automakers and big banks, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.6 per cent to 25,398.83. The Shanghai Composite gained 0.3 per cent to 3,607.41.
Analysts said investors were keeping an eye on the latest coming in from US President Donald Trump and US trade talks with China in Stockholm where US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, and Chinese Vice Premier, He Lifeng, were meeting.
Also Read: US-China trade talks keep world shares on shaky ground
“Aside from addressing economic imbalances, tariffs are also now well entrenched in the geo-political arena,” said Tan Boon Heng of the Asia & Oceania Treasury Department at Mizuho Bank.
The only other two gainers were Australia’s S&P/ASX 200, which edged 0.1 per cent higher to 8,704.60, and South Korea’s Kospi, which gained 0.3 per cent to 3,230.57.
The US stock indices were mixed on Monday, after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming in from the European Union at 15 per cent, lower than Trump had threatened.
Besides the interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve that investors are awaiting, Wall Street is expecting more headwinds in the week as trade deals with various nations are being worked upon by Trump’s administration.
The Fed officials have made it clear that they will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates despite Trump’s protests. The Fed has held back on cutting interest rates this year after having cut them several times during the end of 2024.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was nearly flat, edging up by less than 0.1 per cent to 6,389.77 and setting an all-time high for a sixth straight day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1 per cent to 44,837.56, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.3 per cent to its own record, closing at 21,178.58.
Tesla rose 3 per cent after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it had signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide computer chips for the electric-vehicle company.
Samsung’s stock in South Korea jumped 6.8 per cent on Monday, but only 0.3 per cent on Tuesday.
Other companies in the chip and artificial-intelligence industries were also going strong, continuing their run from last week after Alphabet said it was increasing its spending on AI chips and other investments to $85 billion this year. Chip company Advanced Micro Devices rose 4.3 per cent, and server-maker Super Micro Computer climbed 10.2 per cent.
But an 8.3 per cent drop for Revvity helped check further market rally. The company in the life sciences and diagnostics businesses reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected, but its forecast for full year profit disappointed analysts.
In energy trading, benchmark US crude gained 2 cents to $66.73 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 5 cents to $69.37 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 148.39 Japanese yen from 148.56 yen. The euro cost $1.1560, down from $1.1589.
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