Asian stocks dominated by trade, tariff tensions

Trade war fears gripping China and emerging markets, but Japan and Australia holding steady.
Chinese CPI/PPI figures today inspired little confidence as traders await tariff headlines to break this week.

Joshua Gibson FXStreet

Asian equity markets are mixing for Monday, with Japanese and Australian indexes sitting pretty for the day while China and emerging markets continue to struggle.

Monday hits a cautiously optimistic tone in Japan, With the Nikkei 225 index sitting nearly unchanged on the day at 0.03%, while the Tokyo Topix index is looking for a little more, striking out for 0.30% so far. Australia is also sitting lean at 0.02%, and broader markets are awaiting trade headlines before picking a direction.

Emerging markets are on decidedly weaker footing for the day, with the broad Asia-Pacific excluding Japan MSCI index is contracting by -0.34%, but China is seeing the brunt of the day's weakness, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index retreating by -1.10% and Shanghai's CSI 300 index in the red by a comparable -0.95% for Monday.

Nikkei 225 levels to watch

Japan's leading equity index has been trading inside a rough range since mid-May, unable to successfully pierce the 23,000.00 level. The index is currently trading near 22,300.00, with support from the last swing low near 21,850.00.

Author

Joshua Gibson

FXStreet

Joshua joins the FXStreet team as an Economics and Finance double major from Vancouver Island University with twelve years' experience as an independent trader focusing on technical analysis.

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