Asian stock open mixed as investors parse new trade developments

The major Asian stocks indices opened mixed today, as the Chinese, Australian, New Zealand stocks and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose, while the Japanese stocks and the South Korean Kospi fell, as investors parse the latest developments in the long-running US-China trade war.

Yesterday, President Trump administration issued new extension for the US companies exemption to continue doing business with the Chinese tech giant "Huawei", which is aimed at paving the way for resolving the US-China trade dispute, boosting investors sentiment, however, reports about Chinese officials doubts about the US intentions to roll back the imports tariffs have ebbed the hopes for resolving the trade war between them.

Otherwise, Bank of Japan Governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, said on the Bank's Semiannual Report on Currency and Monetary Control that the Boj has room to deepen negative interest rates beyond -0.1%, and added that he never said there are no limits to how much BoJ can deepen negative rates or that it had unlimited ammunition to ease policy.

Kuroda also noted that the Japanese economy provides momentum to continue expanding and inflation will head towards the BoJ's inflation target, and that strong quantitative easing will continue, adding that BOJ are carefully weighing the benefits and costs of further easing

The Reserve Bank of Australia released its minutes of the last monetary policy meeting held on Nov.5, during which the bank kept short-term interest rates at the all-time low of 0.75%, the minutes also showed the Australian monetary policy makers readiness to expand the monetary policy easing if required.

As for trading, the Japanese stocks fell today, with the Topix falling by 0.03% or 0.50 points to 1,700.22 points, and Nikkei 225 fell by 0.14% or 32.62 points to 23,384.14.

While the Chinese stocks rose, as the CSI 300 index rose by 0.61% or 23.98 points to 3,931.91, and the Shanghai Composite index rose by 0.46% or 13.25 points to 2,922.45.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose by 0.74% or 197.94 points to 26,879.03, while the South Korean Kospi index fell by 0.44% or 9.51points to 2,151.18.

To New Zealand's NZX 50, which rose by 0.37% or 40.00 points to 10,913.16, and the Australian S&P/ASX 200 rose by 0.32% or 21.48 points to 6,788.30.