Asian stocks open mixed as the week wraps up

Asian stocks opened the fifth trading session on a mixed performance with Japanese and Australian stocks falling, as with the South Korean Kospi and Hong Kong's Hang Seng, while Chinese and New Zealand stocks rose on Friday, as investors concerns over the Middle East tensions eased in addition to strong prospects for major global central banks to adopt further stimulus.

We have followed on Thursday Iran dropping a US drone amid its claim that it had entered its airspace, and in return, US President Donald Trump expressed when asked by journalists about his response to this matter "will see", after he described the order as a fatal error and said that the plane was over the international territorial waters and did not enter Iranian airspace, as claimed by Iran.

In another context, US President Trump also noted yesterday that he sees the importance of good relations between Washington and Beijing and Moscow, adding that he will have a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G20 summit next week in Japan and will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for the ongoing trade talks between the United States and China.

"We had a very good phone conversation" President Trump said in a public comment on Twitter on Tuesday. "We will have a meeting next week at the G20 in Japan, our respective teams will start talks before our meeting" Which boosted market hopes in resolving trade disputes between the world's two largest economies.

The Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said that the Japanese central bank has continued to pursue expansionary monetary policy in the shadow of rising uncertainty over the global economic outlook. This came during the press conference following the decision by the BOJ monetary policymakers to keep interest rates at a negative 0.10%, which was expected by market analysts.

This came hours after the FOMC meeting on June 18-19, during which Federal Reserve policy makers kept short-term benchmark interest rates between 2.25% and 2.50% for the fourth meeting in a row, with the unveil of the Federal Commission's forecasts of growth rates, inflation and unemployment as well as future interest rates for the next three years.

We would like to point out that the Federal Reserve yesterday dropped the word "patient" from its statement, adding that they will act as necessary to maintain the economy, which reflects the possibility of a cut in federal interest rates later. In particular, the Federal Reserve's interest rate forecasts showed that eight Members see a reduction this year, while the average forecast did not reflect any reduction this year, but next year 2020.

Fed Governor Jerome Powell said at a press conference after the meeting in Washington that some monetary policy makers in the Fed committee believe that the issue of soft monetary policy has been boosted, stressing that the committee will continue to monitor the developments and economic data closely during the coming period to determine the future Monetary policy depending on those factors.

Japanese stocks saw a decline during today's trading session, with the broader Topix index falling by 0.35% to lose 5.39 points, down to the level of 1,554.51, and Nikkei's 225 lost 0.20% or 42.28 points down to 21,420.58.

While Chinese stocks saw a rise, as CSI 300 rose by 0.39% or 14.76 points to reach 3,843.28, while the Shanghai index rose 0.69% or 20.58 points to reach 3,007.70.

Hong Kong's Hang Sang fell 0.16% or 46.88 points to 28,503.55. South Korea's Kospi Index fell 0.14%, shedding 3.08 points to 2,128.21.

To NZX 50, which rose 0.03% (3.37 points) to 10,294.13. On the other hand, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.52% (35.11 points) to reach 6,652.30.