- Asian stocks tarde mixed with China reporting inflation at 15-month highs.
- The US-China trade tensions linger.
The stock markets in Asia are lacking a clear directional bias this Wednesday morning with China reporting the consumer price inflation at 15-month highs.
As of writing, Japan’s Nikkei is trading flat at 21,200, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 is adding 0.16% at 6,557.
Stocks in New Zealand are also reporting moderate gains, while those in South Korea are flashing red, despite the dovish comments by the Governor of South Korea’s central bank earlier today.
The Shanghai Composite index is currently down 0.46% at 2,910 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down 1.62% at 27,336.
China’s consumer price index (CPI) in May rose 2.7% from a year ago, the highest since February 2018. Meanwhile the producer price inflation (PPI) rose 0.6% in May as expected by economists.
A sustained rise in the CPI may make it hard for the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to imitate stimulus measures in a bid to counter the downside pressures on the economy arising from the trade war with the US.
So far, the US has imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods while Beijing has slapped duties on $110 billion on American goods.
President Trump said on Tuesday he was holding up a trade deal with China and is not interested to negotiate unless Beijing agrees to four or five “major points”.
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