Asia markets trade mixed as investors assess SCO summit

Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed as investors assessed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting of leaders in Tianjin, with tariff uncertainty weighing on sentiment.

This comes after a U.S. federal appeals court on Friday ruled that most of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs are illegal.

India markets will be in focus after U.S. President Donald Trump said that India had offered to reduce its tariffs on U.S. imports to zero.

“They have now offered to cut their Tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added that the U.S.’ relationship with India was “one sided.”

Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.25%, while the broader Topix index rose 0.48%.

Over in South Korea, the Kospi index increased by 0.68%, while the small-cap Kosdaq moved up 0.5%. The country’s consumer price index rose 1.7% in August from the year before, after increasing by 2.1% the month before. This marks its slowest year-on-year rise since November and is marginally weaker than the 2% rise forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.48%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 ticked down 0.1%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.24%. The country’s current account balance for the April to June quarter came in at a deficit of 13.7 billion Australian dollars ($8.97 billion), compared to the AU$14.7 billion deficit the quarter before and the AU$16 billion deficit forecast by economists polled by Reuters.

Spot gold rose 0.6% to $3,496.76 as of 10:47 p.m. ET Monday, after hitting a record high of $3,503.32 per ounce earlier in the session.

U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asia hours at the start of what has historically been a seasonally poor month for equities, following new uncertainty about tariffs after the court decision.

U.S. markets were closed Monday for the Labor Day public holiday.

— CNBC’s Yun Li, Pia Singh and Alex Harring contributed to this report.