Asian shares were mixed after an upbeat start Tuesday on optimism over U.S.-China trade talks, prompted by Beijing’s new guidelines for the protection of patents and copyrights.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225
advanced 0.6% in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
gained 0.7%. South Korea’s Kospi
added 0.4%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
retreated slightly and the Shanghai Composite
was about flat.
Among individual stocks, Sony
gained in Tokyo trading, along with Nintendo
and Rakuten
. In Hong Kong, Alibaba surged more than 6% after the opening bell, in a massive secondary offering. Geely Automobile
and Sunny Optical
also gained. Samsung
rose in South Korea, while Westpac
advanced in Australia after the bank’s CEO said he plans to resign following a money-laundering scandal.
Gains on Wall Street were led by technology companies after China’s announcement of new, stronger guidelines for protecting patents, copyrights and other intellectual property. Piracy is a sore point in U.S.-China trade tensions. Markets saw China’s latest move as an encouraging sign for negotiations on the first phase of a deal to end a punishing tariff war between the two biggest economies.
“There is renewed hope on some progress of U.S.-China trade talk after China’s state-backed news media Global Times said that both sides are ‘very close’ to phase one deal,” said Zhu Huani, at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.
An announcement by China’s Commerce Ministry early Tuesday that top trade negotiators from both sides spoke by phone and agreed to continue talks did not seem to spur significant gains. That might be because the vaguely worded notice did not mention specifics or indicated how much progress has been made.
The S&P 500
rose 23.35 points, or 0.8%, to 3,133.64. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
climbed 190.85, or 0.7%, to 28,066.47, and the Nasdaq
umped 112.60, or 1.3%, to 8,632.49. All three indexes set records.
In the U.S., stocks have been rallying for weeks as worries about a possible recession have faded. A resilient job market, which helps households continue to spend, and three interest-rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve have bolstered confidence.
Benchmark crude oil
fell 3 cents to $57.98 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 24 cents to $58.01 a barrel on Monday. Brent crude oil
, the international standard, lost 2 cents to $62.60 a barrel.
The dollar
rose to 108.99 Japanese yen from 108.93 yen on Monday.
