World shares mostly higher on upbeat talk on China-U.S. trade

Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press</span>
Published Wednesday, February 20, 2019 12:10AM EST
Last Updated Wednesday, February 20, 2019 4:34AM EST

BANGKOK -- Shares were mostly higher in Europe and Asia on Wednesday after President Donald Trump suggested trade talks with China do not face a hard March 1 deadline for a deal.

Negotiators from both sides resumed talks Tuesday in Washington following discussions in Beijing last week that U.S. officials said have made some progress on difficult issues such as Beijing's blueprint for making its industries world leaders in advanced technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence.

"They are very complex talks. They're going very well," Trump told reporters Tuesday.

Trump has hiked tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of Chinese goods and the U.S. is due to increase them on March 2, following a 90-day truce to allow time for the negotiations now underway.

But Trump indicated there might not be a hard deadline for striking a deal, saying that March 1 is "not a magical date."

That lifted the mood of investors jittery over further potential disruptions to world markets and trade.

Germany's DAX jumped 0.5 per cent to 11,364.33 and the FTSE 100 in Britain added 0.3 per cent to 7,203.93. The CAC 40 in France picked up 0.2 per cent to 5,169.25.

Wall Street looked set for a flat open, with the future contract for the Dow unchanged at 25,886.00 and that for the S&P 500 up less than 0.1 per cent at 2,779.60.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.6 per cent to 21,431.49 despite news that Japan's exports sank 8.4 per cent in January from a year earlier, far more than forecast.

ELSEWHERE IN ASIA: Hong Kong's Hang Seng index jumped 1.0 per cent to 28,514.05 and the Shanghai Composite reversed early losses to gain 0.2 per cent, finishing at 2,761.22. South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.1 per cent to 2,229.76 and the S&P ASX 200 slipped 0.2 per cent to 6,096.50.

JAPAN TRADE: A 17 per cent drop in Japan's exports to China and 13 per cent decline in exports to the rest of Asia including China helped drag overall exports sharply lower. Japan's imports fell 0.6 per cent, leaving a deficit of 1.4 trillion yen ($12.8 billion), up 50 per cent from a year earlier and the biggest such gap since March 2014. The weak numbers suggest China's slowdown and trade tensions with the United States are hurting demand.

CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 110.85 yen from 110.63 yen on Tuesday. The euro rose to $1.1357 from $1.1343.

ENERGY: U.S. benchmark crude shed 11 cents to $56.34 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 0.8 per cent to settle at $56.45 a barrel on Tuesday. Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, lost 28 cents to $66.17 per barrel.

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