Asian markets mixed as China, US agree to further trade talks

Asian markets mostly rose Friday, with investors treading carefully as China-US trade talks ended with no deal but with both sides sounding notes of optimism and setting up more high-level meetings later this month.

After the much-anticipated gathering, Donald Trump hailed "tremendous progress" between the world's top two economies but warned the "hard deadline" of March 1 remained in place, after which US tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods will be imposed.

For its part, Beijing said they held "candid, specific and fruitful" discussions and had agreed to increase cooperation on intellectual property -- a major source of White House anger with China -- and boost imports of US goods.

Trump's top two economic officials will visit Beijing later this month, after which he said he will meet his counterpart Xi Jinping to hammer out the final deal.

While the negotiations ended with no agreement, Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, said: "For the markets, which are clearly in 'risk-on' mood, it was a case of no news is good news."
"The statement ends with a not-so-veiled threat that China will need to offer more substantive concessions to enable a deal that would take further tariffs off the table."