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 dispute between the US and China went away. This is because experts warned that President Trump's policies could still change quickly.
The United States and China have agreed to lower the taxes on products they buy from each other. The US will lower its taxes on Chinese products to 30% from as high as 145%. China will lower its taxes on US products to 10% from 125%. This gives them more time to talk after their meeting in Switzerland over the weekend. The US said these talks made "good progress."
The result was better than most people expected, making investors feel more confident, according to Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management.
He said in a comment that the diplomacy was clearly planned, but it looked good and had real effects. This shows that even this government understands that constant tariffs slow 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 reduce taxes on goods.
Beijing is still clearly angry about the trade war.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 stock index went up by 1.6%, reaching 38,232.21. Car companies saw good increases, with Toyota Motor Corp. going up by 3.7% and Suzuki Motor Corp. increasing by 4.3%.
Nissan Motor Co.'s shares increased by 3.4% after NHK, Japan's national TV station, announced that the company plans to reduce its workforce by over 10,000 employees. This means the total number of job cuts will reach 20,000 as the company reorganizes. Nissan was scheduled to release its financial results for the previous year later on Tuesday.
The Kospi in South Korea did not change much, ending at 2,606.46.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong went up by 3% the day before. This happened after officials from China and the U.S. agreed to stop and lower taxes on goods. But then, the index dropped by 1.5% to 23,189.15 because many technology shares were sold.
The Shanghai stock market index went up a little, by 0.2%, reaching 3,376.22. Also, Taiwan’s Taiex index went up a lot, by 1%.
The Australian 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 reduce most of the taxes on imports from each other.
This made the S&P 500 go up by 3.3%. Now it is only 5% away from its highest level ever, which it reached in February. It had fallen by almost 20% from that level, but it improved last month. This was because people hoped that President Donald Trump would lower taxes on goods from other countries after making trade deals with them.
The main stock index in many retirement accounts is now higher than it was on April 2nd. This was the day Trump called "Liberation Day." On that day, he announced big taxes on goods from other countries. This caused worries about a recession that the country might have caused itself.
The Dow Jones and Nasdaq stock markets increased significantly.
Oil prices went down slightly after rising on Monday. The price of U.S. oil fell by 22 cents to $61.73 for one barrel, while Brent crude, which is the main type of oil worldwide, dropped by 25 cents to $64.72 per barrel.
On Monday, the U.S. dollar became stronger against other currencies like the euro, Japanese yen, and Swiss franc. But by Tuesday morning, the dollar was weaker against the Japanese yen, trading at 147.98 yen instead of 148.47 yen. However, it became stronger against the euro, going up to $1.1113 from $1.1088.
The U.S. and China stopped their disagreement for a while. This happened after the U.S. made a deal with the UK last week. The deal will lower the taxes on many UK products to 10%, but it will still need several weeks to finish.
Economic reports later this week, including ones on inflation and how confident American consumers feel, could show how much the economy has been damaged by the uncertainty about tariffs.
Many shops saw their sales increase because they sell many products from China and other Asian countries. For example, Best Buy's sales went up by 6.6%, and Amazon's by 8.1%.
Smaller American companies, which rely more on the strength of the U.S. economy than larger companies, did well, and the Russell 2000 index increased by 3.4%.
Clothing companies that buy many of their materials from China also did well.
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