Asian shares were mostly lower on Monday after gains in technology stocks snapped Wall Street’s four-week losing streak.
U.S. stock futures advanced as investors awaited developments on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as reports suggested he may narrow his broad approach to focus on countries that run significant trade surpluses with the U.S. That includes many countries in Asia.
President Donald Trump has set an April 2 deadline to impose more tariffs on trading partners. It follows a series of other deadlines that have been set for tariffs only to be postponed, sometimes at the last minute.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang struck a conciliatory tone during a meeting with business leaders and U.S. Senator Steve Daines, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, who is the first member of Congress to visit Beijing since Trump took office in January.
Relations between the countries “have come to an important juncture,” Li said. “Our two sides need to choose dialogue over confrontation, win-win cooperation over zero-sum competition,” he said, adding that China hoped that the U.S. would work together to promote the steady and sustainable development of the China-U.S. relations.
The meeting also involved the leaders of several American businesses, including FedEx Corp. CEO Raj Subramaniam, Boeing Co.’s senior vice president Brendan Nelson, Qualcomm’s CEO Cristiano Amon and Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla.
“In recent days, Trump administration officials have signaled that the list of affected countries may not be universal, and existing tariffs — such as those on steel — may not necessarily be cumulative,” Junrong Yeap of IG said in a commentary, adding that , “optimism has surfaced that Trump’s tariff plans may once again be more bark than bite.”
Still, Chinese markets continued to lose steam. Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng dropped 0.3% to 23,613.50, and the Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.3% to 3,356.50.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 was nearly unchanged at 37,676.97 after a preliminary report on manufacturing showed output falling at its fastest pace in a year, while new orders fell more quickly.
Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.1%.
On Friday, the S&P 500 edged up 0.1% to 5,667.56, finishing with a 0.5% weekly gain. It’s still down 4.8% so far this month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 0.1% gain to 41,985.35, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.5% to 17,784.05.
Technology stocks bounced back to offset a big share of the declines elsewhere in the S&P 500. The sector has been at the center of much of the market’s recent sell-off in a reversal from their market-driving gains throughout the previous year. The stocks are among the most valuable on Wall Street and have outsized impacts on whether the market gains or loses ground.
Apple rose about 2% and Microsoft added 1.1%. Another Big Tech stock, Nvidia, fell 0.7%, while Micron Technology slid 8% for the biggest decline among S&P 500 stocks.
Stocks have been losing ground for weeks over uncertainty about the direction of the U.S. economy. A trade war between the U.S. and its key trading partners threatens to worsen inflation and hurt both consumers and businesses. Inflation remains stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2% and tariffs could hurt the central bank’s efforts to ease the rate of inflation.
A recent batch of economic reports on home sales, industrial production and unemployment reinforced the view that the economy is holding strong. But other reports on consumer sentiment and retail sales have revealed rising caution from consumers.
Businesses have been warning investors about tariffs, inflation and growing uncertainty about the impact to costs.
Homebuilder Lennar fell 4% after giving investors a weaker-than-expected forecast for new orders and average sales prices for the current quarter. It said high interest rates, inflation, and waning consumer confidence are weighing on an already tough housing market.
In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 22 cents to $68.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 30 cents to $71.86 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 149.78 Japanese yen from 149.37 yen. The euro inched up to $1.0823 from $1.0816.