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China Market surges after Trump delays China tariff hike

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Capital Market
Last Updated : Feb 25 2019 | 1:50 PM IST
Headline indices of the Mainland China equity market spurted on Monday, 25 February 2019, as investors cheered optimism about a potential US-China trade deal. The US-China optimism came after President Donald Trump tweeted that talks between US and Chinese negotiators had progressed and he was delaying an increase on US tariffs on China scheduled for Friday. At closing bell, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index spurted 5.6%, or 157.06 points, to 2,961.28. The Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, surged 5.42%, or 80.02 points, to 1,557.27. The blue-chip CSI300 index added 5.95%, or 209.36 points, to 3,729.48.

After falling more than 11% in the fourth quarter of 2018 due to concerns about slowing domestic growth and the trade war, the Shanghai Composite index has staged a rebound in 2019, adding more than 14% so far this year.

Markets globally took note of Trump's latest announcement, adding to earlier gains at the end of last week on signs of progress in trade talks between the United States and China. Mr. Trump on Sunday tweeted that there was "substantial progress" in trade talks and he would push back the March 1 deadline for higher tariffs, and looked forward to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to seal a deal.

Trump had planned to raise tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports if a deal between the world's two largest economies was not reached by March 1. Mr. Trump said progress had been made on a host of divisive areas including intellectual property protection, technology transfers, agriculture, services and currency.

CURRENCY NEWS: China's yuan strengthened against the U.S. dollar on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods thanks to "productive" trade talks. Prior to the market opening on Friday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the midpoint rate at 6.7131 per dollar, firmer by 20 basis points than the previous fix of 6.7151. The onshore unit was trading as firm as 6.6738 per dollar, its strongest level since July, before easing to 6.6883 by 0402 GMT. Its offshore counterpart strengthened to 6.6742 per dollar, its firmest since July 13, and was last changing hands at 6.6872 per dollar.

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First Published: Feb 25 2019 | 1:24 PM IST

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