News reports that President Donald Trump has ordered staff to prepared a potential trade offer ahead of his talks with China’s president Xi Jinping on November 30-December 1 sent Asia markets and currencies soaring in the overnight session. U.S. stocks and bonds not so much. Here markets are down on disappointing earnings from Apple and stronger than projected job gains and wage inflation in October.
Overnight the Shanghai Composite index climbed 2.7%; Japan’s Nikkei 225 was higher by 2.56%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 4.27%.
Currencies were up against the dollar from South Korea to Australia.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was up as much as 5.2% in the best rally since March 2016.
In the United States, however, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down 1.22% as of 2:15 p.m. New York time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.10%. The NASDAQ Composite was lower by 1.58%. The small cap Russell 2000 index was also lower but it continued its recent string of outperformance by dropping just 0.23%
