Asian investors gave a cool welcome Monday to the much-hyped China-US trade agreement, with observers saying they were still waiting for details, while the pound held gains after last week’s general election win for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, reports BSS/AFP.
The world’s two economic superpowers on Friday said they had finally 3 reached a partial deal that will cool down their long-running tariffs row, cancelling the imposition of fresh measures and winding back some others. Anticipation that a pact was near helped fire global markets towards the end of last week, but selling began soon after the announcement was made with Wall Street finishing flat.
Under the agreement Donald Trump agreed to cancel tariffs due on Sunday and lower levies already in place, while China committed to purchases of US manufactured merchandise, energy goods and farm exports, with the text due to be signed early next month. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer hailed Trump’s “remarkable” achievement but Asian markets, which enjoyed huge gains Friday, struggled to gain traction at the start of the week as investors await specifics on the pact.
“There is a lot to be seen in the weeks and months ahead whether we are going to be able to actually deliver on the phase one deal that we just went through,” Ephie Coumanakos, Concord Financial Group managing partner, told Bloomberg TV. “We don’t know all of the specifics.” Tokyo ended the morning barely moved, while Shanghai and Hong Kong each dipped 0.1 percent with dealers unmoved by forecast-beating economic data out of China.