Wednesday, 20 June 2018
- Asian stocks rose on Wednesday, with Australia leading gains in the morning.
- Markets worldwide fell on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs against China.
Asian stocks edged higher on Wednesday, with major regional markets stemming sharp losses made in the previous session that were caused by elevated fears of a trade war between the U.S. and China.
Concerns over a looming trade war between the world’s two largest economies continued to linger after U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had asked the U.S. Trade Representative to identify $200 billion in Chinese goods that could be subject to additional tariffs. China said in response that it would take counter measures against the U.S. if the latter went ahead with issuing the list of extra tariffs.
U.S. stocks finished lower, but those declines were slighter than the sharp falls seen during the Asian session on Tuesday: The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.15 percent, or 287.26 points, to close at 24,700.21, erasing all its gains made this year.
Concerns over the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies also saw investors turn to safe haven assets. U.S. Treasury prices rose in the previous session, with the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note last standing at 2.897 percent from above 2.9 percent on Monday.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, stood at 94.971. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set the Yuan reference rate at 6.4586 vs. previous day’s fix of 6.4235.
Source : Reuters
