Asian stocks show mixed reaction to US-China trade truce

• Sluggish China data, doubts over global economic health/monetary policies keep a tab on market recovery after agreed for a trade ceasefire.
• Month-start PMI data is in the focus for fresh impulse.

After an initial jump to portray the market happiness over the US-China trade truce, agreed over the weekend, Asian stocks pare earlier gains as sluggish China data and doubts over the future roadmap of a trade agreement between the world’s two biggest economies keep a lid on market optimism.

Even after announcing a temporary halt to tariff hike and likely relief to China’s Huawei, the differences between the US and China are far from solution as the key issues concerning the technology transfer and intellectual property rights are yet to be discussed.

Also, China’s headline Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data raised an additional question for the economic health of the dragon nation and also supported the likelihood for further monetary easing by the leading global central banks.

With this, MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan added 0.4% whereas Japan’s Nikkei registers 2.0% gain by the press time.

Elsewhere, China’s Hang Seng declines to -0.28% while Australia’s ASX 200 gains +0.40%. Further, New Zealand’s NZX50 loses -0.11% but India’s BSE Sensex is on the run-up to +0.55% gain.

Looking forward, investors will keep an eye over the month-start purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data from top-tier global economies while also following news/headlines concerning the US-China trade negotiations