Oil prices fall on simmering trade tensions between U.S. and China
Oil prices fell Thursday on the back of simmering trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
Brent Crude fell 1.41% to trade at $64.61 per barrel as of 12.40 p.m. Singapore time, after booking its largest one-day gain since October 2024 in the previous session.
Meanwhile, the West Texas Intermediate had fallen 1.19% to $61.62.
The latest moves come as China is the world’s largest importer of oil and the higher U.S. tariffs may put pressure on its fuels and petrochemicals sectors.
— Amala Balakrishner
Asian tech giants log massive gains
Tech stocks in Asia-Pacific posted massive gains on Thursday, reversing course from losses earlier in the week.
Gains in Japan were led by Renesas Electron which had surged 14.31% as of 12 p.m. Singapore time.
Strong increases were also seen in SoftBank Group which was up 10.97%, Lasertec which advanced 14.06% and Advantest Corp which added 13.78%
Over in South Korea, SK Hynix was last seen up 9.27% while Samsung Electronics rose 5.57%.
Gains among tech names in Hong Kong were mostly in the low single digits.
The best performers were Xpeng which advanced 4.55%, Kuaishou Technology which rose 4.08%, Li Auto added 3.93% while SenseTime increased 3.68%.
Meanwhile, shares of Meituan slid 1.16%.
— Amala Balakrishner
Ray Dalio urges Trump to make a deal with China after U.S. pauses tariffs on other countries
Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio on Wednesday implored U.S. President Donald Trump to make a deal with Beijing after Trump announced to pause steep tariffs on all countries barring China.
“There are better and worse ways of handling our problems with unsustainable debt and imbalances, and President Trump’s decision to step back from a worse way and negotiate how to deal with these imbalances is a much better way. I hope and expect that he will do the same with the Chinese,” Dalio said in a post on social media platform X.
Trump’s decision to pause tariffs sent Wall Street soaring overnight, with Asian markets also jumping Thursday.
— Vinay Dwivedi
Australian mining stocks surge as gold prices tick up
Australian mining stocks saw substantial gains on Monday, as gold prices ticked up after U.S. President Donald Trump paused tariffs on all nations save China for 90 days.
Gold miners were among the worst performers in the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark index.
Sharp rises were seen in Evolution Mining, which advanced 7.16% and Kingsgate Consolidated, which added 8.15%.
Meanwhile, Newmont Corporation rose 4.52% while Perseus Mining increased by 6.41%.
Shares of major miners also rose, with Rio Tinto increasing 6.29%, Fortescue adding 5.81% and BHP Group advancing 6.09% as of 1.43 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time.
— Amala Balakrishner
Spot gold rises above $3,100 as investors scoop up bullion in market rally
Spot gold continued to rise past the $3,100 threshold Thursday as investors sought relief in the safe-haven bullion after the U.S. President Donald Trump hiked tariffs on China.
The precious metal was trading at $3,123.72 per ounce as at 11.30 a.m. Singapore time, after recording its best day since October 2023 in its previous session.
Spot gold
SK Hynix rebounds over 10% following tariff and AI demand news
SK Hynix shares were trading over 10% higher after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a pause on some of his “reciprocal tariffs,” and a report showed that the company has overtaken rival Samsung Electronics in an important market.
The South Korean semiconductor company was among the best performers amid a broad-based jump in the Kospi index. Its competitor Samsung Electronics was up 5.8%.
A report from Counterpoint Research on Wednesday said that SK Hynix, for the first time, overtook Samsung in the DRAM market according to its first-quarter revenue share. SK Hynix claimed a 36% global market share as compared to Samsung’s 34%. DRAM is a type of semiconductor memory used to store data and program code that can be found in PCs, workstations and servers.
A key driver of SK Hynix’s ascension was its dominance in HBM, or high bandwidth memory, a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers. The South Korean semiconductor company has a 70% market share of the HBM market, according to Counterpoint.
“This is a milestone for SK Hynix which is successfully delivering on DRAM to a market that continues to show unfettered demand for HBM memory,” said Jeongku Choi, senior analyst at Counterpoint.
— Dylan Butts
China consumer prices decline for a second straight month; producer deflation deepens
China’s consumer prices contracted for a second straight month, while producer price deflation got further entrenched, as Chinese exporters brace for more pain amid an escalating trade war with the U.S.
Consumer price index slid 0.1% year on year in March, remaining in deflationary territory after having contracted 0.7% in February, according to data released by the National Statistics Bureau Thursday.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a flat reading compared to the same period last year.
Producer prices fell for the 29th straight month, dropping 2.5% in March from a year earlier and marked the largest contraction since November 2024. The Reuters poll had expected a 2.3% decline.
Read the full story here.
— Lim Hui Jie, Anniek Bao
Singapore shares surge nearly 6%; other Asean benchmarks also pick up
Singapore’s 30-stock benchmark Straits Times Index surged 5.87% to 3,592.77 as of 10.47 a.m. local time on Thursday, reversing course from eight-straight days of declines.
Straits Times Index
The increase was broad-based across industries, with gains led by the financials, industrials and consumer non-cyclicals sectors.
The four best performing stocks on the index were SATS which rose 8.54%, Jardine Matheson Holdings which added 7.09%, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation which advanced 6.80% and DBS Group Holdings which increased 6.78%.
Strong gains were seen in Vietnam’s VN Index, which gained 6.64% and Malaysia’s KLCI which advanced 5.05%. Meanwhile Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite increased by 4.88% while and the Philippines’ benchmark PSI rose 2.05%.
— Amala Balakrishner
Chinese onshore yuan weakens on simmering trade tensions; other Asian currencies fluctuate sharply
Simmering trade tensions between the U.S. and China pushed the onshore Chinese yuan to its lowest level in close to two decades.
China’s onshore yuan dropped to the weakest level in nearly two decades with no signs of let-up in trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
The onshore yuan rose marginally against the U.S. dollar to 7.3480 as of 10.11 a.m. Singapore time, after falling to its lowest level since December 2007 earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, the offshore Chinese yuan fell 0.27% against the dollar to 7.3629.
Other Asian currencies fluctuated sharply on Thursday.
Gains in the Japanese yen, moderated to 0.61% against the dollar to 146.82, after the currency, which is traditionally perceived as a haven during periods of market tumult, hit its strongest level since September 2024 the day before.
Hirofumi Suzuki, Chief FX Strategist & Head of Research Group in Treasury, at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation observes that the yen is being sold off while “stocks are being bought back heavily.”
However, he does not expect the continued selling of the Japanese yen to persist given how volatile markets are right now.
Elsewhere in the region, the Korean won fell 0.72% against the dollar to 1,455.82 while the Australian dollar slipped 0.18% to 0.6141 against the dollar.
— Amala Balakrishner
Taiwan shares surge over 9%, reversing course from three straight days of declines
Taiwan’s benchmark Taiex index surged 9.33% to 19,014.61 as of 9.50 a.m. local time, reversing course from three straight days of losses.
The rise was broad-based across industries, with gains led by the real estate, energy and industrials sectors.
The best performers include Lumax International Corp, Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corp and Asia Plastic Recycling Holding, which all increased by 10%.
The iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF shows the index’s moves:
iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF
South Korea shares gain over 5% to highest level in a week
South Korea’s share average rose sharply on Thursday.
The Kospi index pared gains to 5.03% to 2,409.04 as of 10.22 a.m. local time, to its highest level in a week. The index has risen 0.26% since the start of the year.
Kospi index
The rise was broad-based across industries, and was led by the autos, technology, defense and manufacturing sectors.
Among the best performers in the index were tech giants SK Hynix which was up 11.27%, LG Display which gained 10.8% and Samsung Electronics which rose 4.91%.
Other key movers were Samsung Heavy which advanced 6.21%, Hyundai Motor which added 6.29% and Hyundai-Rotem which increased 9.36%.
Meanwhile, the small-cap Kosdaq was last seen up 4.73%.
— Amala Balakrishner
Japan wholesale prices rise more than expected amid U.S. tariff policy uncertainty
Japan’s producer price rose 4.2% in the year to March, data released by the central bank showed on Thursday, underscoring pressure from rising raw material costs that add to corporate pain amid uncertainty over U.S. tariff policy.
The rise in the corporate goods price index (CGPI), a gauge of prices that companies charge each other for their goods and services, topped market forecast for a 3.9% increase and followed a 4.1% gain in February.
The whole prices edged 0.4% higher on a month-on-month basis, the data showed.
— Anniek Bao
Japan’s Nikkei surges over 8% in early trade as Trump tariff pause fuels stock rally in Asia
Japan’s Nikkei 225 share average rallied significantly on Thursday, leading gains in Asia-Pacific.
The benchmark surged 8.83% as at 9.25 a.m. local time to 34,508.62, crossing the 34,000 threshold after six days.
Nikkei 225
Stock market’s historic rally by the numbers
For the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average, it surged nearly 3,000 points, or 7.87%, scoring its biggest advance since March 2020. The 12.16% surge for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite marked its second-best day ever.
