29/07/2025
29/07/2025

TOKYO, July 29, (AP): Asian shares were mixed Tuesday ahead of a second day of trade talks between Chinese and US officials, while US futures and oil prices rose. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.8% to 40,674.55 on broad selling of major companies including automakers and big banks. Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.6% to 25,398.83, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.3% to 3,607.41. Analysts said investors were watching for the latest from US President Donald Trump and US trade talks with talks with China in Stockholm.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng were meeting in the Swedish capital. "Aside from addressing economic imbalances, tariffs are also now well entrenched in the geo-political arena,” Tan Boon Heng of the Asia & Oceania Treasury Department at Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% higher to 8,704.60. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.3% to 3,230.57. US stock indexes drifted through a quiet Monday after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming from the European Union at a 15% rate, lower than Trump had threatened. Many details of the trade deal are still to be worked out, and Wall Street is heading into a week full of potential flashpoints that could shake markets, including an interest rate decision Wednesday by the Federal Reserve.
The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that Fed officials will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates, though a couple of Trump’s appointees could dissent in the vote. The Fed has been on hold with interest rates this year since cutting them several times at the end of 2024. The S&P 500 was nearly flat, edging up by less than 0.1% to 6,389.77 and setting an all-time high for a sixth straight day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1% to 44,837.56, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.3% to its own record, closing at 21,178.58. Tesla rose 3% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it had signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide computer chips for the electric-vehicle company. Samsung’s stock in South Korea jumped 6.8% on Monday, but only 0.3% on Tuesday.