Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed as investors assessed the phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump and Xi spoke on Thursday and agreed that officials from the U.S. and China will meet soon to continue negotiations aimed at ending the ongoing trade war.
The call, which Trump described as “very good,” lasted for about 90 minutes, focusing “almost entirely” on trade and yielded a “very positive conclusion for both countries,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225
rose 0.5% to close at 37,741.61 and the Topix gained 0.47% to close at 2,769.33.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
was 0.27% lower to end the trading day at 8,515.7. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.51%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 traded flat to close at 3,873.98.
India’s Nifty 50 climbed 0.96% after the country’s central bank delivered an outsized cut to its benchmark policy rate to 5.5% from 6%. This also marks a third straight rate cut since February, and comes below the median estimates of 5.75% in a Reuters poll.
