Asian markets enjoy fresh rally with focus on Trump-Xi meeting

June 11, 2019: Markets extended the previous day's gains in Asia on Tuesday, with investors turning their attention back to the China-US trade row and a planned meeting between the countries' leaders later this month.

Donald Trump's decision to drop threatened tariffs on Mexico after a last-minute immigration deal last week sparked relief across trading floors and led to hope that the row with Beijing could also end with some sort of agreement.

The gains, which follow another healthy Wall Street performance, are much needed since the US president shocked markets last month by hiking levies on $200 billion of Chinese imports, blaming backsliding over their long-running trade talks.

Support is also coming from expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates as soon as next month in response to a string of soft US economic data and concerns about the impact of the China stand-off.

"What continues to grease the wheels of US equity markets and the one constant that keeps the S&P (500) ticking is Federal Reserve free and cheap money, it's long been an established pattern," said Stephen Innes at Vanguard Markets.

But OANDA senior market analyst Edward Moya warned that while lower US central bank rates were a major boost, traders were ultimately keen to see the world's top two economies resolve their trade war.

"The recent global stock market rally has stemmed from expectations that the Fed will come to the rescue with a couple of rate cuts this year," he said in a note. "But that will not likely deliver fresh record highs with the US indexes unless we see a scaling back of tariffs between the US and China."

AFP/APP