Tariff Delay Provides Fillip For Global Markets

Global stocks rebounded on Monday after US President Trump said he would delay a hike in tariffs on Chinese goods, citing "substantial progress" in trade talks and fuelling hopes of an end to the long-running standoff.

Most key European markets were firmly in the black by the close, but London underperformed, while Wall Street showed solid gains by late morning trading in New York, with the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Nasdaq all up at least 0.5 percent.

Earlier, Shanghai had spearheaded gains across Asia with a surge of more than five percent, while Hong Kong and Tokyo each rose 0.5 percent in value.

Optimism over the negotiations had already provided support to global equities in January and February, but the president's comments gave extra impetus to investors to ramp up buying.

"Global markets are on the rise... as markets celebrate the news of an indefinite delay to the deadline beyond which US will ramp up tariffs on Chinese imports," said IG analyst Joshua Mahony.

"Donald Trump's decision to push back the March 1 deadline comes amid significant progress on a number of crucial fronts, including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services and currency.

"The fact that the US are seeking to address the value of the Chinese currency is of particular interest to markets."

The news fired currency markets, with the yuan extending gains to a seven-month high, while other high-yielding, riskier units were also up against the dollar.

Trump said on Twitter that the US "has made substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency and many other issues".

He added: "As a result of these very productive talks, I will be delaying the US increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1."

Trump also said he planned to hold a summit with his counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to sign a deal.

China's Xinhua news agency added that the two sides had "made substantial progress on specific issues" including on transfer of technology, intellectual property and agriculture.

In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 closed up 0.6 percent at 11,505, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.3 percent at 5,231, but the FTSE 100 in London underperformed - weighed down by Brexit fears - and was up 0.1 percent at 7,183. (AFP)