Asian equity markets ended mixed on Monday as investors digested a mixed US jobs report and kept an eye on intensifying trade tensions between the US and China. Chinese shares fell after Beijing's latest tariff threats escalated the tit-for-tat Sino-US trade war. The overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper said US President Donald Trump was ‘starring in his own carefully orchestrated street fighter-style deceitful drama’ in which diplomacy had been reduced to a ‘trading game in which everything should follow the rule of America first’. The yuan also weakened despite China's central bank late on Friday raising the reserve requirement on foreign exchange forward positions. Further, Japanese shares ended lower in cautious trade as investors looked forward to a raft of corporate earnings as well as this week's bilateral talks between Washington and Tokyo.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 2,705.84 | -34.60 | -1.28 |
Hang Seng | 27,819.56 | 143.24 | 0.51 |
Jakarta Composite | 6,101.13 | 93.59 | 1.53 |
KLSE Composite | 1,779.75 | -0.34 | -0.02 |
Nikkei 225 | 22,507.32 | -17.86 | -0.08 |
Straits Times | 3,285.34 | 19.61 | 0.60 |
KOSPI Composite | 2,286.50 | -1.18 | -0.05 |
Taiwan Weighted | 11,024.10 | 11.67 | 0.11 |
