SINGAPORE — Asian stocks rose slightly on Thursday, riding on optimism from Nvidia’s brief rise to a world-record $4 trillion valuation and as investors largely shrugged off US President Donald Trump’s latest tariff salvos.
US copper futures widened their premium to the London benchmark overnight after Trump announced plans to impose a 50 percent tariff on copper. He later said on Wednesday the levies would come into effect on August 1.
Trump also turned his trade ire against Brazil on Wednesday as he threatened a punitive 50 percent tariff on exports to the US and issued tariff notices to seven minor trading partners.
The latest moves did little to rattle markets, leaving MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan up 0.2 percent.
The Nikkei fell 0.56 percent, while China’s CSI300 blue-chip index rose 0.2 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.1 percent.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures gained 0.18 percent and FTSE futures advanced 0.33 percent.
Artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia on Wednesday became the world’s first company to hit a $4 trillion market value, as it solidified its position as one of Wall Street’s most favoured stocks.
US stock futures eased slightly in Asia on Thursday, with Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures both down about 0.2 percent each, after both indexes closed higher in the cash session overnight.
The market reaction to Trump’s tariff developments this week has been much less severe than the post “Liberation Day” selloff in April, with Jeff Ng, SMBC’s head of Asia macro strategy, saying investors have grown somewhat “numb” to the ever-changing situation.
“They know that there is still room for negotiation. A lot of these announcements, they start off with eye-catching numbers, but they are not totally final, and they are still subject to changes. Even if they are implemented, they could also be reversed in the coming few months to year,” he said.
Also keeping stocks supported were expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year.
Minutes released on Wednesday showed “most participants” at the Fed’s meeting last month anticipated rate cuts would be appropriate later this year, with any price shock from tariffs expected to be “temporary or modest”.
