Asian stocks open mostly positive

Asian stocks opened the fourth session of the week on mixed performance yet mostly positive. With a rise in the Chinese, Australian and New Zealand stocks, as well as Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index. While South Korea's Kospi Index and the Japanese stocks fell on Thursday, with investors pricing on the results of the three largest Japanese banks' work for the first quarter, which was disappointing.

This comes hours after the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, expressed the importance of countries treating each other equitably, explaining that the world situation is unstable and controlled by uncertainty, adding that they call on nations to open their markets and work to support the international trade. That came hours after China's foreign minister said that the United States was the one to describe the trade dispute with his country as a trade war.

The Chinese foreign minister noted that China's actions are purely self-defense, adding that if the United States does not want to trade with China, other countries will close the gap, adding that there will be an upsurge in trade disputes over the country's domestic economy, yet can be overcome. In an affirmation of confidence in the economic prospects of Beijing.

He also expressed Beijing's hopes that Washington would stop using national security as an excuse to suppress the Chinese companies, explaining that his country urges America to create a fair environment for the Chinese companies, following the report on US President, Trump's intention to sign a ban on Huawei. After Trump signed an executive order yesterday that could prevent the Chinese telecoms companies Huawei and ZTE from selling their equipment in America later.

On the other hand, US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said at Senate hearing that the trade negotiations with China were constructive and that he would travel to Beijing soon to resume the talks, adding that his country is close to reach an agreement with Canada and Mexico on tariffs.

On the other hand, we've followed what the US President, Donald Trump, said on Tuesday, that trade talks with China had not collapsed, and what the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said, that Beijing and Washington agreed to continue trade negotiations. This came after China announced that it would increase tariffs on imports of US goods by $60 billion to 25% from 10% by June, in response to a similar decision in which Washington approved tariff increases on imports of Chinese goods worth $200 billion.

We would like to point out that China's decision at the beginning of the week highlighted the escalating trade war between China and the United States, which rose tariffs on Chinese goods valued at $200 billion, from 10% to 25%, bringing China's customs duties to 25%, at about $250 billion, amid a threat by the US President' administration to impose 25% customs duties on other Chinese goods estimated at $325 billion soon.

US President, Trump, said that he would talk with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the G20 summit by the end of next month in Japan. While markets are still pricing the prospects of a slowing global economic growth, which is expected to reflect on the profits of companies later, especially after the economic data that we followed by the US and Chinese economy yesterday, which were overall disappointing.

In terms of trading, the Japanese stock indices witnessed a decline during today's trading session, with the broad Topix index falling by 0.65% losing 10.06 points down to the level of 1,534.09, while Nikkei 225 also fell by 0.66% shedding 139.41 points down to 21,049.15 level.

On the other hand, China's CSI 300 rose by 0.23% (8.73 points) to reach 3,735.82. While the Shanghai Composite Index rose by 0.37% (10.89 points) to reach the level of 2,949.57.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.14% (40.96 points) to 28,309.67, while South Korea's Kospi fell 0.38%, 7.91 points to 2,084.87.

To the NZX 50 index of New Zealand stocks, which rose by 0.47 (47.95 points) to reach 10,179.53. On the other hand, the S&P/ASX 200 index of Australian shares rose by 0.13% (8.30 points) to 6,292.50.