World markets mixed, Japan shares dip after election leaves Ishiba's future in doubt
Germany's DAX lost 0.9% to 24,086.56 and the CAC 40 in Paris gave up 0.6% to 7,753.96. Britain's FTSE 100 was nearly unchanged at 9,015.35.
The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was unchanged.
In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark surged and then fell back as it reopened from a holiday Monday following the ruling coalition's loss of its upper house majority in Sunday's election.
The Nikkei 225 shed 0.1% to 39,774.92.
Analysts said the market initially climbed as investors were relieved that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to stay in office despite the setback. But the election's outcome has added to political uncertainty and left his government without the heft needed to push through legislation.
A breakthrough in trade talks with the U.S. might win Ishiba a reprieve, but so far there's been scant sign of progress in negotiating away the threat of higher tariffs on Japan's exports to the U.S. beginning Aug. 1.
"Relief may be fleeting. Ishiba's claim to leadership now rests on political duct tape, and history isn't on his side. The last three LDP leaders who lost the upper house didn't last two months," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
Elsewhere, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.5% to 25,130.03, while the Shanghai Composite index advanced 0.6% to 3,581.86.
South Korea's Kospi sank 1.3% to 3,169.94, with investors concerned over the Aug. 1 deadline for making a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump or facing 25% tariffs on all the country's exports to the U.S.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.1% to 8,677.20.
India's Sensex was flat.
In Thailand, the SET sank 1.1% after the government named Vitai Ratanakorn as the new future governor of the central bank. He is viewed as likely to be less independent than the current governor, raising concerns about the bank's independence, analysts said.
Vitai will replace Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, when his term as governor ends in September.
Many of Trump's stiff proposed tariffs are paused after he extended the deadline for talks to allow more time to reach potential trade deals that could lower those rates. Aug. 1 is the next big deadline, at least for now.
U.S. stock indexes inched their way to more records on Monday to kick off a week full of profit updates from big U.S. companies.
General Motors will report its latest profit results later this week, along with such market heavyweights as Alphabet, Coca-Cola and Tesla.
The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and squeaked past its prior all-time high set on Thursday. The Dow edged down less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite added 0.4% to its own record.
Verizon Communications helped lead the way and rose 4%. The telecom giant reported a stronger profit and higher revenue for the latest quarter than expected and raised its forecasts for the full year.
That helped offset a 5.4% drop for Sarepta Therapeutics, which continued to fall after the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that it asked the company to voluntarily stop all shipments of Elevidys, its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, due to safety concerns.
Cleveland-Cliffs rallied 12.4% after the steel producer reported a smaller loss for the spring than analysts expected. It's a major supplier to the auto industry, and Trump's tariffs steer companies hoping to sell cars in the United States toward steel made in the country.
In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 67 cents to $65.28 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 65 cents to $68.56 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 147.55 Japanese yen from 147.38 yen. The euro gained to $1.1701 from $1.1696.
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MTV Lebanon
3 hours ago
- MTV Lebanon
23 Jul 2025 08:55 AM Japan PM Plans To Resign After Election Debacle
Having done a trade deal with US President Donald Trump, Japan's prime minister will soon announce his resignation, reports said Wednesday, after his latest election debacle left his coalition without a majority now in both houses of parliament. The reports said Shigeru Ishiba had conveyed his intention to step down to those close to him, following the announcement Wednesday of a US-Japan trade deal. Sunday's upper house election was calamitous for Ishiba's centre-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost continuously since 1955. Voters angry at inflation turned to other parties, notably the "Japanese first" Sanseito, whose "anti-globalist" drive echoes the agenda of populist movements elsewhere. Ishiba plans to vacate the top job by the end of August, the Mainichi daily reported. The Yomiuri newspaper said he would announce his resignation in July but did not give details of when he would leave office. These and other reports said calls for the 68-year-old to depart had grown louder within the LDP since the results of the upper house election. But he communicated his decision after striking a trade deal with Washington that cut a threatened 25-percent tariff to 15 percent ahead of an August 1 deadline. In the election on Sunday, the LDP and its junior partner Komeito fell three seats short of retaining a majority. It came only months after Ishiba's coalition was forced into a minority government in the more powerful lower house, in the LDP's worst result in 15 years. Ishiba won the party leadership in September, on his fifth try, to become the 10th LDP prime minister since 2000 -- all of them men. Since the October snap lower house election, the ruling coalition has been forced to bargain with opposition parties to pass legislation. After years of stagnant or falling prices, consumers in the world's fourth-largest economy have been squeezed by inflation since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the price of rice has doubled, while resentment has also lingered over an LDP funding scandal. "I really hope things will get better in Japan, but the population is declining, and I think living in Japan will get tougher and tougher," Naomi Omura, an 80-year-old from Hiroshima, told AFP in Tokyo on Wednesday. "It is disappointing that Japan cannot act more strongly" towards the United States" but "I think it was good that they agreed on a lower tariff", she said. Tetsuo Momiyama, an 81-year-old Tokyo resident, said Ishiba "is finished already". "It's a good timing for him to go," Momiyama said.
Ya Libnan
6 hours ago
- Ya Libnan
Trump strikes tariff deal with Japan that angered U.S. automakers
The tariff deal that Trump strikes with Japan led to a surge in Japanese auto stocks , but angered US automakers because they have to pay higher tariff on imports of their autos and parts from their factories in Canada and Mexico By Trevor Hunnicutt , Jasper Ward and Mariko Katsumura WASHINGTON/TOKYO – U.S. President Donald Trump struck a trade deal with Japan that lowers tariffs on auto imports and spares Tokyo punishing new levies on other goods in exchange for a $550 billion package of U.S.-bound investment and loans. It is the most significant of a clutch of deals Trump has bagged since unveiling sweeping global levies in April. Japan's critical autos sector, which accounts for more than a quarter of its U.S. exports, will see existing tariffs cut to 15% from 25%. Duties that were due to be imposed on other Japanese goods from August 1 will be cut by the same amount. The announcement sent Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index climbing over 3% to its highest in a year, led by stocks in automakers with Toyota up more than 14% and Honda nearly 12%. 'I just signed the largest TRADE DEAL in history with Japan,' Trump said on his Truth Social platform. 'This is a very exciting time for the United States of America, and especially for the fact that we will continue to always have a great relationship with the Country of Japan,' he added. Ishiba, who local media reported will soon resign after a bruising election defeat on Sunday, hailed the deal as 'the lowest figure among countries that have a trade surplus with the U.S.' The U.S. investment package includes loans and guarantees from Japanese government-affiliated institutions of up to $550 billion to enable Japanese firms 'to build resilient supply chains in key sectors like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors,' Ishiba said. Japan will also increase purchases of agricultural products such as U.S. rice, a Trump administration official said. Ishiba said the share of U.S. rice imports may increase under its existing framework but that the agreement did ' not sacrifice ' Japanese agriculture. The exuberance in financial markets spread to shares of South Korean carmakers, as the Japan deal stoked optimism that South Korea could strike a comparable deal. The yen firmed slightly against the dollar, while European and U.S. equity index futures rose. But U.S. automakers signaled their unhappiness with the deal, raising concerns about a trade regime that cuts tariffs on auto imports from Japan while leaving tariffs on imports from their plants and suppliers in Canada and Mexico at 25%. 'Any deal that charges a lower tariff for Japanese imports with virtually no U.S. content than the tariff imposed on North American-built vehicles with high U.S. content is a bad deal for U.S. industry and U.S. auto workers,' said Matt Blunt, who heads the American Automotive Policy Council which represents General Motors Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis . 'MISSION COMPLETE' Autos are a huge part of U.S.-Japan trade, but almost all of it is one-way to the U.S. from Japan, a fact that has long irked Trump. In 2024, the U.S. imported more than $55 billion of vehicles and automotive parts while just over $2 billion were sold into the Japanese market from the U.S. Two-way trade between the two countries totaled nearly $230 billion in 2024, with Japan running a trade surplus of nearly $70 billion. Japan is the fifth-largest U.S. trading partner in goods, U.S. Census Bureau data show. Trump's announcement followed a meeting with Japan's top tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, at the White House on Tuesday. '#Mission Complete,' Akazawa wrote on X, later saying the deal did not include Japanese exports of steel and aluminum that are subject to a 50% tariff, nor any agreement on defence budgets. The deal was 'a better outcome' for Japan than it potentially could have been, given Trump's earlier unilateral tariff threats, said Kristina Clifton, a senior economist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. Kazutaka Maeda, an economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute, said that 'with the 15% tariff rate, I expect the Japanese economy to avoid recession.' Japan is the largest investor in the United States. Together with pension giant GPIF and Japanese insurers, the country has about $2 trillion invested in U.S. markets. Besides that, Bank of Japan data shows direct Japanese investment in the United States was $1.2 trillion at the end of 2024, and Japanese direct investment flows amounted to $137 billion in North America last year. Speaking later at the White House, Trump also expressed fresh optimism that Japan would form a joint venture with Washington to support a gas pipeline in Alaska long sought by his administration. 'We concluded the one deal … and now we're going to conclude another one because they're forming a joint venture with us at, in Alaska, as you know, for the LNG,' Trump told lawmakers at the White House. 'They're all set to make that deal now.' Trump aides are feverishly working to close trade deals ahead of an August 1 deadline that Trump has repeatedly pushed back under pressure from markets and intense lobbying by industry. By that date, countries are set to face steep new tariffs beyond those Trump has already imposed since taking office in January. Trump has announced framework agreements with Britain, Vietnam, Indonesia and paused a tit-for-tat tariff battle with China, though details are still to be worked out with all of those countries. At the White House, Trump said negotiators from the European Union would be in Washington on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Nahar Net
a day ago
- Nahar Net
World markets mixed, Japan shares dip after election leaves Ishiba's future in doubt
World shares were mixed on Tuesday after U.S. stock indexes inched to more records at the start of a week of profit updates from big U.S. companies. Germany's DAX lost 0.9% to 24,086.56 and the CAC 40 in Paris gave up 0.6% to 7,753.96. Britain's FTSE 100 was nearly unchanged at 9,015.35. The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was unchanged. In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark surged and then fell back as it reopened from a holiday Monday following the ruling coalition's loss of its upper house majority in Sunday's election. The Nikkei 225 shed 0.1% to 39,774.92. Analysts said the market initially climbed as investors were relieved that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to stay in office despite the setback. But the election's outcome has added to political uncertainty and left his government without the heft needed to push through legislation. A breakthrough in trade talks with the U.S. might win Ishiba a reprieve, but so far there's been scant sign of progress in negotiating away the threat of higher tariffs on Japan's exports to the U.S. beginning Aug. 1. "Relief may be fleeting. Ishiba's claim to leadership now rests on political duct tape, and history isn't on his side. The last three LDP leaders who lost the upper house didn't last two months," Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. Elsewhere, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.5% to 25,130.03, while the Shanghai Composite index advanced 0.6% to 3,581.86. South Korea's Kospi sank 1.3% to 3,169.94, with investors concerned over the Aug. 1 deadline for making a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump or facing 25% tariffs on all the country's exports to the U.S. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.1% to 8,677.20. India's Sensex was flat. In Thailand, the SET sank 1.1% after the government named Vitai Ratanakorn as the new future governor of the central bank. He is viewed as likely to be less independent than the current governor, raising concerns about the bank's independence, analysts said. Vitai will replace Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, when his term as governor ends in September. Many of Trump's stiff proposed tariffs are paused after he extended the deadline for talks to allow more time to reach potential trade deals that could lower those rates. Aug. 1 is the next big deadline, at least for now. U.S. stock indexes inched their way to more records on Monday to kick off a week full of profit updates from big U.S. companies. General Motors will report its latest profit results later this week, along with such market heavyweights as Alphabet, Coca-Cola and Tesla. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and squeaked past its prior all-time high set on Thursday. The Dow edged down less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite added 0.4% to its own record. Verizon Communications helped lead the way and rose 4%. The telecom giant reported a stronger profit and higher revenue for the latest quarter than expected and raised its forecasts for the full year. That helped offset a 5.4% drop for Sarepta Therapeutics, which continued to fall after the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that it asked the company to voluntarily stop all shipments of Elevidys, its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, due to safety concerns. Cleveland-Cliffs rallied 12.4% after the steel producer reported a smaller loss for the spring than analysts expected. It's a major supplier to the auto industry, and Trump's tariffs steer companies hoping to sell cars in the United States toward steel made in the country. In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 67 cents to $65.28 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 65 cents to $68.56 per barrel. The U.S. dollar rose to 147.55 Japanese yen from 147.38 yen. The euro gained to $1.1701 from $1.1696.
