Global investors bet big on US-China truce coming soon

Dubai: Global stocks breathed easy on Monday as investors bet on a trade pact between Washington and Beijing happening soon, aided by recent commentary from government officials of both economies.

China, late Sunday, through a report from the State Council and Communist Party’s Central Office, pledged a revamp to the way it protects international property rights. Also, US national security adviser Robert O’Brien told a conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia that it was still “possible” to reach a deal.

“China will crackdown more forcibly on intellectual property violations – a matter which has been a key bug bear for the Trump administration in its trade war negotiations,” said Daniel Marc Richards, MENA Economist at Emirates NBD. “However, the unrest in Hong Kong still has potential to throw negotiations off course.”

O’Brien also signaled that weekend elections in Hong Kong needed to go on without violence or interference. The local polls in Hong Kong, where anti-China protests escalated the past few months, delivered a decisive victory for pro-democracy candidates.

The relations between the world’s top two economies had become strained recently after US looked to legalise a bill warning China against the abuse of human rights as anti-government demonstrations in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory turned violent.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 recorded overnight gains of 0.8 per cent, while the region-wide MSCI ex-Japan index added 0.66 per cent. In Hong Kong, the city’s key Hang Seng index added 1.5 per cent.

Basic resource and automotive stocks pushed the Stoxx 600 in Europe to open up 0.7 per cent, helped partly by a 0.6 per cent rise in trade-sensitive DAX index in Frankfurt and the FTSE blue-chip index in London rising 0.7 per cent.