HONG KONG / NEW YORK (Reuters) – Asian equities rose on Tuesday as Sino-American tensions weighed on optimism generated by Wall Street’s technology drive as the dollar fell against almost every major currency.
A board display of stock prices is decorated with the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) logo in central Sydney, Australia, 13 February 2018. Image taken 13 February 2018. REUTERS / David Gray
The Trump administration announced Monday that it will continue to tighten restrictions on China’s Huawei Technologies Co., with the goal of cracking its access to commercially available chips.
MSCI’s broadest index of shares in Asia-Pacific outside Japan gained 0.19%, not to sit far from its pre-pandemic end of January high.
Japanese Nikkei dipped 0.52%, while most brands in a narrow band trade with Chinese blue chips dropped 0.25%. The Australian benchmark index rose 0.12%.
E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 were flat.
The Nasdaq climbed to a record high on Monday and the S&P 500 approached its own record level, with both indices raised by technology stocks.
“We saw again some power in tech with semiconductors driving the boat,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital about the U.S. rally.
The US dollar softened against most currencies after disappointing data on production and mortgages, wrote analyst Joseph Capurso of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in a note.
But moves were small ahead of Wednesday’s minutes of the Federal Reserve’s release, with speculation that the Fed will adopt an average inflation target, which sought to push inflation above 2% for a while.
Bitcoin hovered near the 13-month high it hit on Monday.
On the commodities front, oil prices were lower on Tuesday, but were still mostly held on overnight gains after OPEC + said the production group almost completely met export cuts.
Brent crude was up 6 cents, or 0.1%, at $ 45.31 a barrel after gaining 1.3% on Monday. US crude was down 0.2% at $ 42.81 a barrel after rising 2.1% in the previous session
Secure port gold closes higher after Berkshire Hathaway also discloses an interest in Barrick Gold Corp, Toronto, one of the largest mining companies in the world.
Spot gold added 0.4% to $ 1,995 an ounce.
Report by Chibuike Oguh in New York and Alun John in Hong Kong; Edited by Sam Holmes and Simon Cameron-Moore
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