•European stocks traded higher Tuesday morning as investors began to mitigate the sharp downturn caused by China’s announcement of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports.
The pan-European STOXX 600 rose 0.5% in the opening minutes of trade. Sector wise, autos made a strong start to trading, climbing 1.3%, with the vast majority of sectors starting the session in the black.
•Fresh U.S.-China tariff war volleys pressured Asian shares on Tuesday, but comments from U.S. President Donald Trump that he expects trade negotiations to be successful aided sentiment.
China on Monday announced it would impose higher tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods following Washington’s decision last week to hike its own levies on $200 billion in Chinese imports.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.9% as volatile Chinese markets paused for their midday break. The index had earlier fallen as much as 1.25% to its lowest since Jan. 30.
•Japan’s Nikkei stooped to a three-month low on Tuesday, as investor sentiment took a further hit after China defied Washington by announcing retaliatory tariffs, dragging most sectors into negative territory.
China said it would impose higher tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods despite President Donald Trump’s warnings not to retaliate against additional tariffs on Chinese imports announced by the White House on Friday.
The Nikkei share average ended the day down 0.59% at 21,067.23 after falling to as low as 20,751.45, the lowest since mid-February.
“Investors are concerned how much damage the trade war will cause on Japan’s real economy and financial market,” said Shusuke Yamada, vice president and chief Japan FX strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
•Chinese stocks closed weaker on Tuesday due to the escalating Sino-U.S. trade war, though prices recovered from early lows on suspected state-backed buying and comments from U.S. President Donald Trump that raised hopes of a deal between the two sides.
The Shanghai Composite ended 0.7% lower at 2,883.61 points, while the blue-chip CSI300 eased 0.6 %. Both indexes rebounded after opening down 1%, hovering in positive territory at times.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC, BBC
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