Asian Stocks rise as Wall Street gains, dollar eases amid tariff concerns

February 14, 2025 (MLN): Asian stocks tracked Wall Street higher on Friday, while the dollar eased as investors contended with U.S. President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs that were not immediately imposed as well as U.S. data allaying investor worries on inflation.

Trump's plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on every country taxing U.S. imports have stoked concerns of a global trade war, pushing gold prices to a record high earlier this week, according to Reuters.

The directive from Trump on Thursday stopped short of imposing fresh tariffs, instead kicking off what could be weeks or months of investigation into the levies imposed on U.S. goods by other trading partners and then devising a response.

"While global financial markets may be inclined to take some relief from the delay in the immediate imposition of reciprocal tariffs, it is not clear to us whether the delay necessarily reflects a lower likelihood that they will eventually be imposed," Barclays analysts said in a note.

"Given the recent rollercoaster ride in global financial markets on news of the proposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, it is difficult to assert with certainty that the reciprocal tariffs will indeed be implemented after April 1."

Trump last week kicked off a trade war, first by imposing tariffs on Mexico and Canada and then pausing them, but sticking with duties on Chinese goods, Reuters added.

In Asia, the spotlight has been on a rally in Chinese tech stocks, with the Hang Seng Tech Index hitting its highest level in three years on Thursday spurred by home-grown start-up DeepSeek's breakthrough.

Stocks gained after parts of January’s producer price report pointed to lower inflation, Reuters further noted.

On Friday, Hong Kong's benchmark index rose 1.6%, taking its weekly gains to about 5%, its fifth straight week of gains and the strongest weekly performance in four months.

That left the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan up 0.54%, hovering near the two-month high it touched on Thursday. Japan's Nikkei fell 0.55% but was on track to eke out gains for the week.

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