May 15th, 2025
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Asian stock markets had mixed results on Tuesday. The first excitement about the 90-day break in the trade conflict between the US and China disappeared because experts warned that President Donald Trump’s policies could still change quickly.
The United States and China have agreed to lower the taxes they put on each other's products. The U.S. will reduce its taxes on Chinese products to 30%, from a high of up to 145%. China will also reduce its taxes on U.S. products to 10%, from 125%. This gives them more time for further discussions after their recent meeting in Switzerland, which the U.S. said was successful.
The result was better than most people expected, making investors feel more confident, according to Stephen Innes from SPI Asset Management.
He said in his comments, "This diplomacy was clearly planned. But it looks good and has real importance. It shows that even this government understands that having taxes on imports all the time slows down the economy."
However, there are still big problems in the talks between China and the US, and many Asian countries still need to make their own deals to lower taxes on imports.
It is clear that Beijing is still angry about the trade war. On Tuesday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke to officials from China and Latin America and repeated Beijing's view that a trade war helps nobody. He added that "Acting aggressively or trying to control others will only make you alone."
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index went up by 1.6%, reaching 38,232.21. Car companies did very well, with Toyota Motor Corp. increasing by 3.7% and Suzuki Motor Corp. by 4.3%.
Nissan Motor Co.'s stock went up by 3.4% after the Japanese TV station NHK said the company plans to cut over 10,000 jobs. This will bring the total number of job cuts to 20,000, as the company tries to reorganize. Nissan was also going to share its financial results for the past year later on Tuesday.
The Kospi index in South Korea stayed almost the same, ending at 2,606.46.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng stock index went down by 1.5% to 23,189.15 because many people sold technology shares. The day before, it had risen by 3% after China and the U.S. agreed to stop and lower tariffs.
The Shanghai stock index rose slightly by 0.2% to 3,376.22, and Taiwan’s Taiex increased by 1%.
Australia’s main stock market index, the S&P/ASX 200, went up by 0.5% and reached 8,274.70.
On Monday, the two biggest economies in the world decided to remove most of their taxes on goods from each other.
This made the S&P 500 index go up by 3.3%, almost reaching its highest point ever from February. It had fallen nearly 20% but got better last month. This happened because people hoped President Donald Trump would lower taxes on goods from other countries after making trade deals.
The main stock index in many retirement plans is now higher than it was on April 2nd. President Trump called this day "Liberation Day." On that day, he announced high taxes on goods from other countries. This made people worry about a possible economic problem caused by his own actions.
The stock market went up a lot, with the Dow Jones growing by 2.8% and the Nasdaq by 4.3%.
Oil prices went down after increasing on Monday.
On Monday, the U.S. dollar became stronger compared to currencies like the euro and the Japanese yen. By Tuesday morning, the dollar was a little weaker against the yen, trading at 147.98 yen instead of 148.47. But it got stronger against the euro, going up from $1.1088 to $1.1113.
After the US and China stopped their trade talks, the US made a deal with the UK last week. This deal will reduce taxes on many UK products to 10%, but it will still take a few weeks to start.
Economic reports later this week, like ones about inflation and how US consumers feel, could show how much the economy has been hurt by the uncertainty over tariffs.
Many shops had higher sales because they sell many products made in China and other Asian countries. For example, Best Buy's sales increased by 6.6%, and Amazon's sales increased by 8.1%.
Smaller American companies, which depend more on the U.S. economy than larger companies, had strong gains, and the Russell 2000 index jumped 3.4%.
Clothing companies that buy many of their materials from China also saw their value increase.
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