SHANGHAI: China stocks edged down on Friday and looked set to end the week flat, as the market took a breather following US President Donald Trump’s indication of a possible end to the tit-for-tat trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Hong Kong stocks drop on trade war anxiety, China inches higher
China’s blue-chip CSI300 Index and the Shanghai Composite Index both dipped 0.4% each. For the week, the CSI300 Index was on track to end up 0.2%.
Trump on Thursday signalled a potential end to the tit-for-tat tariff hikes between the US and China that shocked markets, and that a deal over the fate of social media platform TikTok may have to wait.
The CSI300 Index has only dropped 3% since April 2 when Trump announced reciprocal tariffs that upended global stock markets, as state-backed investors stepped in to support markets and local bourses set daily restrictions on net share sales.
The Hong Kong market is closed for local holidays and will resume trading next Tuesday. For the short week, Hang Seng Index rose 2.3%.
Consumer staple shares declined 1.2%, dragging performance onshore, while financial shares edged up 0.4%.
One of the few bright spots is the BSE 50 Index , a gauge for start-ups listed in Beijing, was up 1.5%.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Thursday that China was a very important market for Nvidia after the US imposed a ban on sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to the country.
The CSI All Share Semiconductor Index dropped 1.6%.
Investors are awaiting a press conference scheduled for Monday, where regulators are expected to outline their plan for “expanding opening-up of the service-sector”.