Shares up slightly, dollar struggles as investors consider tariff truce

Rocky Swift

Tue, May 13, 2025, 7:31 PM 3 min read

By Rocky Swift

TOKYO (Reuters) - Stocks edged up successful Asia connected Wednesday portion the dollar wobbled arsenic comparatively benign U.S. ostentation information fed into prospects of complaint cuts by the Federal Reserve aboriginal this twelvemonth adjacent arsenic investors were inactive gauging if the worst of the commercialized conflicts was over.

As U.S. President Donald Trump's planetary commercialized warfare appeared to deed pause, led by a truce successful the tariff spat betwixt China and the United States, fiscal markets remained tense astir the outlook.

"I'm conscionable a small spot cautious present astir chasing the rally successful stocks astatine this level," said IG expert Tony Sycamore. "We've got to hold to spot what happens with regards to headlines and the model astir further tariff negotiations with different countries, but you cognize astatine this constituent of clip the worst-case script has been priced out."

MSCI's broadest scale of Asia-Pacific shares extracurricular Japan was up 0.9% successful aboriginal commercialized aft U.S. stocks climbed backmost into affirmative territory for the year, erasing losses triggered by Trump's chaotic rollout of sweeping tariffs.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng scale roseate successful aboriginal trading lifted by tech stocks aft Chinese e-commerce retailer JD.com posted beardown results. Investor absorption this week volition beryllium connected net from Tencent and Alibaba.

Equity futures pointed to retreats successful some European and U.S. markets.

Data overnight showing softer-than-expected U.S. user ostentation besides provided immoderate alleviation to investors disquieted astir the inflationary interaction of U.S. tariff policies, which had severely undercut expectations of adjacent word Fed complaint cuts.

Though traders expect ostentation to prime up arsenic tariffs assistance import costs, the uncertainty implicit the outlook remains arsenic Washington moves up to onslaught deals with its trading partners.

Global sentiment turned up aft a commercialized woody with the U.S. and Britain past week, and improved further erstwhile U.S. and China said connected Monday they would intermission their commercialized warfare for 90 days, bringing down reciprocal duties and removing different measures portion they negociate a much imperishable arrangement.

Trump has besides touted "potential deals" with India, Japan and South Korea.

The Fed has warned of rising economical uncertainty, signalling it's prepared to hold for immoderate clip to measure the interaction of U.S. tariffs earlier moving to chopped involvement rates again.

The U.S. dollar, which has taken a beating precocious connected the backmost of the economical and argumentation uncertainty, dropped 0.2% against the yen to 147.13, and was small changed astatine $1.1186 against the euro. The dollar scale was small changed aft a 0.8% descent successful the erstwhile session.