BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mixed Wednesday after a rebound in technology stocks helped power an overnight rally on Wall Street.
After a day of modest gains in Asia, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4% to 7,360.41, while the DAX in Germany edged 0.1% higher to 12,152.04. The CAC 40 in France slipped 0.2% to 5,377.06. U.S. markets were set for a lower open, with the future contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.2% to 25,832.00. The S&P 500 future contract also shed 0.2%, to 2,861.00.
Investors snapped up technology shares Tuesday after the U.S. government opted to temporarily ease off on proposed restrictions on technology sales to Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies.
A 90-day grace period announced by the Department of Commerce brightened sentiment. But “the reality is that a resumption of the limitations after 90 days would most certainly still affect the global supply chain and hit hard at a touchy issue for China to potentially induce further retaliation,” Jingyi Pan of IG said in a commentary.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index added 0.1% to 21,283.37.
The government reported that Japan’s trade surplus dropped 90% from a year earlier in April as a 6% drop in shipments to China bit into its exports. Total exports fell 2.4% year-on-year while imports rose more than 6% thanks to higher oil prices. But that gloomy news was balanced by a rise in machinery orders.
In South Korea, the Kospi advanced 0.2% to 2,064.86. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.2% to 27,705.94, and the S&P ASX 200 in Sydney edged 0.2% higher to 6,510.70. The Shanghai Composite index lost 0.5% to 2,891.70. India’s Sensex climbed 0.6% to 39,183.37. Shares fell in Taiwan and Jakarta but rose in Singapore and Thailand.
The Trump administration’s sanctions against Huawei and other Chinese technology companies have begun to bite even though their dimensions remain unclear. U.S. companies such as Qualcomm and Broadcom that supply the Chinese tech powerhouse with computer chips face a drop in sales, and Huawei’s smartphone sales could get decimated with the anticipated loss of Google’s popular software and services.
The U.S. move escalates trade-war tensions with Beijing, but also risks making China more self-sufficient over time. About one-third of Huawei’s suppliers are American chipmakers.
The S&P 500 index rose 0.9% to 2,864.36. The Dow gained 0.8% to 25,877.33.
The technology heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 1.1%, to 7,785.72, erasing a good chunk of Monday’s losses. The Russell 2000 index of small companies picked up 1.3%, to 1,545.25.
Intel rose 2.1% and Texas Instruments added 2.2%. Broadcom, which gets about half of its revenue from China, gained 1%. Qualcomm, which gets more than half of its revenue from China, rose 1.5%. Apple rebounded 1.9% after falling a day earlier.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude slipped lost 58 cents to $62.55 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 8 cents on Tuesday to settle at $63.13 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 51 cents to $71.67 per barrel.
CURRENCIES: The dollar fell to 110.41 Japanese yen from 110.50 yen on Tuesday. The euro was flat at $1.1161.
