Asia stocks were mixed on Friday amid muted volumes, as investors awaited further details on US-China trade discussions.
Japanese shares steadied after three days of declines, although volumes were below average. Stocks climbed in South Korea and Hong Kong, and slipped in China.
It has been a mixed picture on the trade front this week. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) has invited US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to Beijing for talks later this month, people familiar with the matter have said, and Washington is likely to postpone new tariffs scheduled for next month even if there is no deal by then, the South China Morning Post reported.
However, US President Donald Trump might soon sign into law a bill supporting Hong Kong’s protesters, a decision Beijing has criticized.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said that his nation wants to work toward a phase-one trade agreement with the US on the “basis of mutual respect and equality,“ his first comments on a partial deal that he could potentially sign with Trump.
“The market is looking for some bullish signal that things aren’t going to get worse and that we’re not going to see further deterioration in trade talks between the US and China,” Erin Browne, a portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co, told Bloomberg TV. “They just don’t want to see further escalation.”
Japan’s TOPIX rose 0.12 percent to 1,691.34, but fell 0.31 percent for the week. The Shanghai Composite slid 0.63 percent to 2,885.29, dropping 0.21 percent for the week, and South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.26 percent to 2,101.96, but lost 2.79 percent over the week.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong stocks rebounded on Friday as the Asian financial hub took a breather from political unrest ahead of key local elections today.
At the close of trade, the Hang Seng index was up 0.48 percent at 26,595.08, posting a weekly gain of 1.02 percent.
Shares in Taiwan closed little changed on Friday after late-session buying helped the market rebound from a decline earlier in the day, dealers said.
However, turnover was relatively low as investors were concerned about ongoing trade friction between the US and China and the possibility that they would not sign the phase one agreement by the end of the year, dealers said.
The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the TAIEX, closed up 8.53 points, or 0.07 percent, at 11,566.80, after moving between 11,534.15 and 11,577.02, on turnover of NT$107.248 billion (US$3.51 billion). It gained 0.36 percent from last week’s 11,525.60 points.
The market opened down 1.52 points and soon returned to positive territory on a technical rebound from a session earlier, when the TAIEX closed down 0.63 percent, dealers said.
However, with the TAIEX moving closer to the nearest technical resistance ahead of 11,600 points at about 9:30am, selling set in again as investors reacted to the 0.2 percent decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average overnight, they said.
In the final minutes of the session, buying emerged in big-cap stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and defensive telecom stocks, including Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), to help the TAIEX finish above its previous closing level.
“International media reports said the US and China are expected to delay the signing of a phase-one trade agreement to 2020 instead of later this year, which raised anxiety over global trade,” Hua Nan Securities Co (華南永昌證券) analyst Kevin Su (蘇俊宏) said.
“Amid renewed uncertainty over global trade, it was no surprise that Taiwan’s stock market was in consolidation mode throughout the session today [Friday] and turnover was limited,” Su said.
“The silver lining was that some bargain hunters were willing to buy and support the TAIEX by the end of the session,” Su added.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained