Aussie stocks have zig-zagged on open on Wednesday amid confirmation US and Chinese officials will meet in Switzerland this week to discuss their ongoing trade war.
The ASX 200 rose 0.2 per cent when markets opened, but had lost almost all of that gain by 11am, with ASX futures down 0.4 per cent.
Boss Energy is up 7.1 per cent and Vault Minerals has risen six per cent while Clarity Pharmaceuticals is down 5.9 per cent.
Those movements were indicative of the general swings in those sectors, with energy and minerals stocks up 1.4 and 1.2 per cent respectively, while the health sector has slumped 1.1 per cent.
It comes ahead of US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and trade representative Jamieson Greer meeting with Chinese officials on Thursday in Switzerland to discuss trade relations.
Mr Bessent will meet with an official the Treasury department has called China’s “lead representative on economic matters”, in the first confirmed trade talks since Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcements.
The meetings have bolstered investors’ hopes of a cooling in the trade war between the two countries.
Wall Street suffered across the board losses on Tuesday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq sinking 0.9 per cent, the Dow Jones shedding almost one per cent and the S&P 500 down 0.8 per cent.
Sky News Business Reporter Ingrid Willinge said the slump in the US came as major car maker Ford warned of a massive hit to its earnings from the trade war.
“It was a horrible night on Wall Street, it took a hit (with) trade wars,” Willinge said.
“Ford said they were going to take a US$1b hit on tariffs. Of course, that did reverberate through Wal Street.”
Since opening on Wednesday, the NZX 50 Index is up 0.4 per cent.
London’s FTSE 100 finished relatively flat on Tuesday as Germany’s DAX and the EURO STOXX 50 both slumped 0.4 per cent.
