Asian currencies: S Korea's won and Taiwan dollar higher
An MSCI index of emerging Asian equities jumped to a more than 3-1/2-year high, rebounding from a slight dip on Tuesday that snapped its three-day win streak.
A subset of ASEAN stocks, dominated by Singapore, also jumped nearly 1%. Singapore's Straits Times index extended its rally into its 13th consecutive session - its longest ever - during which it advanced more than 5%.
Indonesia's benchmark jumped more than 1%, and headed to its highest closing since mid-December. Stocks in the Philippines jumped 1.7% to mark their best day in a month.
US President Donald Trump announced new import duties of 19% for goods from the Philippines, a touch below the rate of 20% he threatened earlier this month. Indonesia agreed to eliminate levies on more than 99% of US goods and scrap barriers to American firms, while the US said it will drop its tariff rate on Indonesian products to 19% from 32%.
'Asian equities are rallying on a cocktail of positives,' said Mohit Mirpuri, an equity fund manager at SGMC Capital.
'Tariff clarity with the United States across multiple fronts, including Japan and the Philippines, is lifting sentiment...Investors are rotating back into Asia, where valuations look compelling and policy risk is finally easing.'
South Korea's KOSPI index advanced 0.4%, while Taiwan's benchmark jumped 1.4%. Vietnam's benchmark was largely flat in the afternoon, after touching a more than three-year high earlier in the day.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
11 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Azerbaijan, Armenia sign US-brokered peace deal
U.S. President Donald Trump and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gesture at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 8, 2025. Photo: Reuters Listen to article Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a US-brokered peace agreement on Friday during a meeting with US President Donald Trump that would boost bilateral economic ties after decades of conflict and move them toward a full normalization of their relations. The deal between the South Caucasus rivals - assuming it holds - would be a significant accomplishment for the Trump administration that is sure to rattle Moscow, which sees the region as within its sphere of influence. "It's a long time - 35 years - they fought and now they're friends, and they're going to be friends for a long time," Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House, where he was flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Trump said the two countries had committed to stop fighting, open up diplomatic relations and respect each other's territorial integrity. US President Donald Trump holds the hands of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as they shake hands between each other during a trilateral signing event, at the White House, in Washington, D.C., August 8, 2025. Photo: Reuters The agreement includes exclusive US development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus that the White House said would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources. Trump said the United States signed separate deals with each country to expand cooperation on energy, trade and technology, including artificial intelligence. Details were not released. Read: Trump announces trade deal, oil partnership with Pakistan US officials believe a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan could prompt negotiations on the entry of Azerbaijan into the Abraham Accords, the series of normalization agreements that Trump brokered between Israel and four Muslim-majority countries in his first term. He said restrictions had also been lifted on defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States, a development that could also worry Moscow. Both leaders praised Trump for helping to end the conflict and said they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. PM Shehbaz welcomes the peace deal Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the White House-brokered peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, praising both nation's leadership and noting US President Donald Trump's role in facilitating the deal. Pakistan welcomes the historic peace agreement signed between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia at the White House Summit under the auspices of U.S. President Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump This landmark development marks the dawn of a new era of peace,… — Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) August 9, 2025 Trump has tried to present himself as a global peacemaker in the first months of his second term. The White House credits him with brokering a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand and sealing peace deals between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Pakistan and India. US President Donald Trump and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gesture at the White House in Washington, DC, US, August 8, 2025. Photo: Reuters Conflict Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. It's a long time - 35 years - they fought and now they're friends, and they're going to be friends for a long time US President Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory's 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Under the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh became an autonomous region within the republic of Azerbaijan, and it enjoyed de facto independence for decades after Soviet collapsed in 1991. Russia However, he has not managed to end Russia's 3-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine or Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza. Trump on Friday said he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15 to work on ending the war. Read more: Azerbaijan to export 1.2 bcm of gas to Syria US officials said the agreement was hammered out during repeated visits to the region and would provide a basis for working toward a full normalization between the countries. The peace deal could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran that is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines but riven by closed borders and longstanding ethnic conflicts. Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and adviser to Loyola University's Chicago School of Law, said the agreement would help the West crack down on Russian efforts to evade sanctions. 'The Caucasus has been a blind spot in sanctions policy," he said. "A formal peace creates a platform for the West to engage Armenia and Azerbaijan ... to shut down the evasion pipelines.' Tina Dolbaia, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Friday's signing was a big symbolic move, but many questions remained, including which US companies might control the new transit corridor and how involved Armenia and Azerbaijan would be in its construction. She said Russia would likely be irritated by being excluded from the agreement and the US role in the corridor. "Now the fact that ... Armenians are shaking hands with Azerbaijanis, and they are talking about US involvement in this corridor - this is huge for Russia," she said. Olesya Vartanyan, an independent regional expert, said the deal added greater predictability to the region, but its long-term prospects would depend on continued US engagement. "Armenia and Azerbaijan ... have a much longer track record of failed negotiations and violent escalations than of peaceful resolutions," she said. "Without proper and continued US involvement, the issue will likely get deadlocked again, increasing the chances of renewed tensions." Senior administration officials said the agreement marked the end to the first of several frozen conflicts on Russia's periphery since the end of the Cold War, sending a powerful signal to the entire region. Armenia plans to award US exclusive special development rights for an extended period on the transit corridor, U.S. officials told Reuters this week. The so-called Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity has already drawn interest from nine companies, including three US firms, one official said on condition of anonymity. Daphne Panayotatos, with the Washington-based rights group Freedom Now, said it had urged the Trump administration to use the meeting with Aliyev to demand the release of some 375 political prisoners held in the country. Azerbaijan, an oil-producing country that hosted the United Nations climate summit last November, has rejected Western criticism of its human rights record, describing it as unacceptable interference.
Express Tribune
15 hours ago
- Express Tribune
India pauses plans to buy US arms
New Delhi has put on hold its plans to procure new US weapons and aircraft, according to three Indian officials familiar with the matter, in India's first concrete sign of discontent after tariffs imposed on its exports by President Donald Trump dragged ties to their lowest level in decades. India had been planning to send Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington in the coming weeks for an announcement on some of the purchases, but that trip has been cancelled, two of the people said. Trump on Aug 6 imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods as punishment for Delhi's purchases of Russian oil, which he said meant the country was funding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That raised the total duty on Indian exports to 50% — among the highest of any US trading partner. The president has a history of rapidly reversing himself on tariffs and India has said it remains actively engaged in discussions with Washington. One of the people said the defence purchases could go ahead once India had clarity on tariffs and the direction of bilateral ties, but "just not as soon as they were expected to." Written instructions had not been given to pause the purchases, another official said, indicating that Delhi had the option to quickly reverse course, though there was "no forward movement at least for now". Post publication of this story, India's government issued a statement it attributed to a Ministry of Defence source describing news reports of a pause in the talks as "false and fabricated". The statement also said procurement was progressing as per "extant procedures". Delhi, which has forged a close partnership with America in recent years, has said it is being unfairly targeted and that Washington and its European allies continue to trade with Moscow when it is in their interest. Reuters is reporting for the first time that discussions on India's purchases of Stryker combat vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems and Javelin anti-tank missiles developed by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have been paused due to the tariffs. Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in February announced plans to pursue procurement and joint production of those items. Singh had also been planning to announce the purchase of six Boeing P8I reconnaissance aircraft and support systems for the Indian Navy during his now-cancelled trip, two of the people said. Talks over procuring the aircraft in a proposed $3.6 billion deal were at an advanced stage, according to the officials. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics referred queries to the Indian and US governments. Raytheon did not return a request for comment. Russian relations India's deepening security relationship with the US, which is fuelled by their shared strategic rivalry with China, was heralded by many US analysts as one of the key areas of foreign-policy progress in the first Trump administration. Delhi is the world's second-largest arms importer and Russia has traditionally been its top supplier. India has in recent years however, shifted to importing from Western powers like France, Israel and the US, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think-tank. The shift in suppliers was driven partly by constraints on Russia's ability to export arms, which it is utilizing heavily in its invasion of Ukraine. Some Russian weapons have also performed poorly in the battlefield, according to Western analysts. The broader US-India defence partnership, which includes intelligence sharing and joint military exercises, continues without hiccups, one of the Indian officials said. India also remains open to scaling back on oil imports from Russia and is open to making deals elsewhere, including the US, if it can get similar prices, according to two other Indian sources.
Express Tribune
15 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Swiss gold refining sector stung by US tariffs
The first casualty of a hefty 39-percent tariff on Swiss imports into the United States may be gold refining, after it emerged that certain gold bars could face the levy. The price of gold on the US futures market hit a record high Friday after US customs authorities clarified that gold bars weighing either one kilogram or 100 ounces (2.8 kilograms) should be classified as subject to so-called reciprocal tariffs. The July 31 letter was first reported late Thursday by the Financial Times. But a White House official told AFP that President Donald Trump's administration plans to "issue an executive order in the near future clarifying misinformation about the tariffing of gold bars and other specialty products". It was not immediately clear if this meant the products would therefore be exempt from Trump's "reciprocal" levies, imposed to address what Washington deems as unfair trade deficits. One-kilo gold bars are the most traded type of bullion on Comex — the world's biggest futures market — and Switzerland is a major supplier of the bars on the physical market. Expectations had been widespread that gold bars would be classified under a different customs code that excludes them from Trump's countrywide tariffs. Higher "reciprocal" rates took effect Thursday on dozens of economies. Swiss officials travelled to Washington this week to seek a deal similar to the European Union, whose products now face a 15-percent rate. But they came back empty handed. The customs update increased pressure on the Swiss government as gold trading weighs heavily on its trade balance. John Plassard, head of investment strategy at Cite Gestion, expects some of the gold refining business would likely flow to other industry centres such as Antwerp. Gold bars produced in the Belgian city Antwerp face a 15-percent US tariff applied to EU goods. Switzerland is home to four of the world's largest gold refineries, the largest being Valcambi in Balerna, in the Italian-speaking part of the country. They import unrefined gold coming from mines, recycled jewellery or lower-purity bars to be recast into high-quality bars, making Switzerland a hub for the global gold trade. These bars are then reintroduced to the market for jewellery, watchmaking, industry and tech products, as well as the banking sector and for use as central bank reserves. According to a Swiss Federal Customs Administration report, the country imported 2,372 tonnes of gold in 2023 and re-exported 1,564 tonnes. The value of these exports approached 88 billion Swiss francs ($109 billion at current rates), with the main buyers being China at 25.1 billion francs and India at 13.1 billion francs. Including other precious metals like silver and palladium, the sector accounts for 1,500 direct jobs in the country and 1,000 indirect jobs, according to the Swiss association of manufacturers and traders of precious metals. In 2023, Switzerland accounted for 34 percent of the total refined gold worldwide, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Swiss gold exports to the United States soared to 11 billion Swiss francs last year, nearly doubling from 6.1 billion in 2023.
