By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Asian stocks were up on Tuesday morning, with some recovering their earlier losses after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Monday that the U.S.’s trade deal with China is “over”.
Investors breathed a huge sigh of relief after both Navarro and U.S. President Donald Trump clarified that phase one of the U.S.-China deal, agreed upon earlier in the year, was still intact.
But some investors are keeping a wary eye on the simmering tensions.
“Geopolitics are coming to the fore now once again...we are seeing the switch flipped back to risk off,” Jingyi Pan, a market strategist at IG Asia Pte., told Bloomberg.
China’s Shanghai Composite gained 0.11% by 11:21 PM ET (4:21 AM GMT), and the Shenzhen Component was up 0.12%. Both indexes clawed back their earlier losses.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up by 0.86%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.11% and South Korea’s KOSPI gained 0.54%.
Down Under, the ASX 200 rose 0.21%.
Before Navarro’s comments, stocks had been set to gain in Asia as markets opened after Wall Street came off a stellar session on Monday. The Nasdaq Composite enjoyed its longest rally so far this year with a seventh straight advance.
Positive outlooks from some influential investors had also boosted investor sentiment. Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX) CEO Steve Schwarzman told Bloomberg that the U.S. economy will likely benefit from a V-type recovery over the next few months, although he warned that it would take “quite a while” to return to 2019 levels.