Asian stocks surge on US-China trade talk progress

Asian stocks opened the first session of the week higher, after the US President stated that his country and China agreed on the first phase of a trade deal and will be signed next month, which improved investors' risk appetite, as Washington and Beijing are avoiding the escalation of the one year trade war.

Which led the Asian stocks to benefit from the progress of the trade talks -excluding the Japanese market due to closing today in observance of the Sports and Health holiday- after last week's round between the US and China that has resulted in a partial trade deal, with the Phase one of the deal including Washington delay of the tariffs increase decision on Chinese imports, which was set by the middle of this month.

While Beijing in response will increase its purchases of US agricultural products and take steps to protect intellectual property protection and financial services as well as not weaken the Chinese yuan in order to gain a competitive trade advantage.

Otherwise, the Chinese economy released its reading for the trade balance index, which showed that the surplus expanded to 275 billion yuan or $39.7 billion vs. 240 billion yuan or $34.8 billion in August, higher than forecasts of 254 billion yuan or $34.8 billion.

This wide trade surplus in September is due to the progress of the trade talks after last week's round between the US and China, which has also benefited the Asian stocks market, while China will release its inflation data on Tuesday, and on Friday its readings of the GDP, industrial production and the retail sales data for last month.

The Chinese stocks surged today, as the CSI 300 index rose by 1.38% or 53.80 points to 3,965.53, and the Shanghai Composite rose by 1.39% or 41.43 points to 3,015.09.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose by 1.05% or 276.58 points to 26,585.02, and the South Korean Kospi gained 1.33% or 27.17 points to 2,071.73.

To New Zealand's NZX 50, which rose by 1.04% or 113.31 points to 11,037.02, and the Australian S&P/ASX 200 rose by 0.65% or 42.89 points to 6,649.70.