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Markets stuttered on Friday as optimism from “very positive” talks between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping was wiped out by the stunning public row between the US leader and Elon Musk.The much-anticipated discussions between the heads of the world’s biggest economies fuelled hopes for an easing of tensions following Trump’s “Liberation Day” global tariff blitz that targeted Beijing particularly hard.However, investors remained wary after an extraordinary social media row between Trump and billionaire former aide Musk that saw the two trade insults and threats and sent Wall Street into the red.Wall Street’s three main indexes ended down as Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla tanked more than 14 percent and the president threatened his multibillion-dollar government contracts.Asian equities fluctuated in early business, with some observers suggesting traders were positioning for what could be a volatile start to next week in light of the row and upcoming US jobs data.Hong Kong dropped after three days of strong gains, while Sydney, Wellington, Taipei and Bangkok also retreated.Mumbai led gainers after the Reserve Bank of India slashed interest rates more than expected.Tokyo and Singapore rose, while Shanghai was also marginally higher.London rose in the morning but Paris and Frankfurt fell. US futures were stronger. Chris Weston at Pepperstone said that while the call with Xi was “seen as a step in the right direction, (it) proved to offer nothing tangible for traders to work with and attention has quickly pushed back to the Trump-Musk war of words”.”It’s all about US nonfarm payrolls from here and is an obvious risk that Asia-based traders need to consider pre-positioning for,” he said.Weston said there was a risk of Trump sparking market-moving headlines over the weekend given that he is “now fired up and the risk of him saying something through the weekend that moves markets on the Monday open is elevated”. The US jobs figures, which are due later Friday, will be closely followed after a below-par reading on private hiring this week raised worries about the labour market and the outlook for the world’s top economy.They come amid bets that the Federal Reserve is preparing to resume cutting interest rates from September, even as economists warn that Trump’s tariffs could reignite inflation.Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management warned that while poor jobs figures could signal further weakness in the economy, a strong reading could deal a blow to the market.”In this upside-down market regime, strength can be weakness. A hotter-than-expected (figure) could force traders to price out Fed cuts. That’s the paradox in play — where good news on Main Street turns into bad news on Wall Street.”- Key figures at around 0810 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.5 percent at 37,741.61 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.5 percent at 23,792.54 (close)Shanghai – Composite: FLAT at 3,385.36 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 8,831.21Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1425 from $1.1444 on ThursdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3544 from $1.3571Dollar/yen: UP at 143.88 yen from 143.58 yenEuro/pound: UP at 84.35 pence from 84.31 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.8 percent at $62.88 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.7 percent at $64.88 per barrelNew York – Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 42,319.74 (close)

A Japanese court overturned a $92 billion damages verdict on Friday against ex-bosses of the operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, thought to be the largest such award ever in the country for a civil lawsuit.Four former executives had in 2022 been ordered to collectively pay 13.3 trillion yen in a suit brought by shareholders over the nuclear disaster triggered by a massive tsunami in 2011.But that verdict was thrown out Friday by the Tokyo High Court, a spokeswoman for the institution told AFP.Shareholders argue the catastrophe could have been prevented if Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) bosses had listened to research and implemented preventative measures, like placing an emergency power source on higher ground.But the defendants counter that the risks were unpredictable, and the studies in question are not credible.”The defendants… cannot be found to have had this foreseeability at a point in time before the earthquake in question,” Friday’s court ruling said.TEPCO declined to comment on the High Court verdict, but the shareholder plaintiffs reacted with anger.”If I were to summarise today’s ruling in one phrase: it is a ruling that will lead to future serious nuclear accidents,” said Hiroyuki Kawai, head of their legal team.”When nuclear operators read this ruling, I believe they’ll become even more complacent,” he later told AFP.”No major earthquake has ever been accurately predicted in advance,” Kawai added. – ‘Take responsibility’ -Three of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s six reactors were operating when a massive undersea quake triggered a massive tsunami on March 11, 2011.They went into meltdown after their cooling systems failed when waves flooded backup generators, leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.Overall the tsunami along Japan’s northeast coast left around 18,500 people dead or missing.The 13.3 trillion yen damages award was meant to cover TEPCO’s costs for dismantling reactors, compensating affected residents and cleaning up contamination.In 2015, British oil giant BP was ordered to pay $20.8 billion for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in what was described at the time as the highest fine ever imposed on a company in the United States.The High Court court spokeswoman said that an appeal by the shareholders for an even higher damages order of 22 trillion yen had been dismissed on Friday.”Take responsibility for the Fukushima nuclear accident!” said a pink-and-white banner displayed by the plaintiffs after the ruling.They said they would now appeal to the Supreme Court.In March this year, Japan’s top court said it had finalised the acquittal of two former TEPCO executives charged with professional negligence over the Fukushima meltdown.The decision concluded the only criminal trial to arise from the plant’s 2011 accident.

India’s central bank cut interest rates more than expected on Friday, citing muted inflation and a need to kickstart economic growth as the impact of US tariffs weighed on the country’s outlook.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lowered the benchmark repo rate, the level at which it lends to commercial banks, by 50 basis points to 5.5 percent.A majority of analysts had expected 25-basis-point reduction.The cut was its third in a row and comes a week after government data showed India’s economy expanded at its slowest pace for four years in the fiscal year that ended in March.And while the January-March quarter showed signs of a rebound, with forecast-topping 7.4 percent year-on-year growth, analysts said US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs posed risks to the outlook.Easing price concerns have also allowed the RBI to concentrate on growth, with retail inflation dropping to a near six-year-low of 3.16 percent in April.Bank governor Sanjay Malhotra said India’s growth remained “lower than our aspirations” in a “challenging global environment” and that it was necessary to continue stimulating domestic consumption and investment. “This changed growth inflation dynamics calls for not only continuing with the policy easing, but also frontloading the rate cuts to support growth,” Malhotra said.He added that the monetary policy committee had changed its stance from “accommodative” to “neutral”, which implies a rate cut is not guaranteed at its next review meeting. The central bank also threw in a liquidity-boosting measure by cutting the cash reserve ratio, the proportion of deposits that banks must set aside with the RBI, by 100 basis points to 3 percent. The RBI cut rates for the first time in nearly five years in February and followed up with another reduction in April.The Indian government has forecast above-average monsoon rains, which observers say should help growth, as higher agricultural output will aid the rural economy and keep vegetable prices stable.But Trump’s protectionist policies could add to growth pressures.While New Delhi is not a manufacturing powerhouse, experts believe that US tariffs will hurt billions of dollars of Indian exports across different sectors including gems and jewellery, electronics and seafood.India is hammering out the first tranche of a trade deal with Washington and negotiators have made several trips over the past three months.Local media reports say that while the White House is pushing for India to drop levies on a range of products, including agricultural produce and automobiles, New Delhi is seeking greater access for labour-intensive exports such as textiles and footwear.US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this week that a trade deal between the two countries could be expected in the “not too distant future”. 

Vietnam’s exports rose sharply last month, official figures showed Friday, as the communist country tries to negotiate relief from swingeing tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump.May exports stood at $39.6 billion, according to data from the General Statistics Office, up 17 percent on the same period a year ago, while the year-to-date total reached $180.2 billion, 14 percent higher than in 2024.Vietnam, a major centre for global brands producing shoes and clothes, says it is making progress in talks with Washington to head off Trump’s threatened 46 percent levy.The Southeast Asian manufacturing hub has the third-biggest trade surplus with the United States after China and Mexico, putting it in the firing line for Trump’s “Liberation Day” global tariff blitz.Vietnam’s overall import-export turnover stood at $78.6 billion in May, 15.5 percent higher than the same month last year.Imports were up by 14.1 percent year on year to stand at $39 billion in May.Processed industrial goods dominated exports, while imports were led by production materials.Despite the tariff uncertainty, the United States remained Vietnam’s number one export market with $57 billion in the first five months of 2025 — up from $44 billion over the same period a year ago.Vietnamese and US trade negotiators meeting in Paris this week agreed to step up the pace of their talks.Vietnam has signed several agreements to buy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products and other raw materials from the United States as it seeks to rebalance their trading partnership.Trump’s real estate group also broke ground last month on a $1.5-billion luxury golf resort in Vietnam, while his son Eric Trump has been scouting locations for a potential tower project in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s southern business hub.

Japan’s hopes of achieving its first soft touchdown on the Moon by a private company were dashed Friday when the mission was aborted after an assumed crash-landing, the startup said.Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to make history as only the third private firm — and the first outside the United States — to achieve a controlled arrival on the lunar surface.But “based on the currently available data… it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing”, the startup said.”It is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored” so “it has been decided to conclude the mission”, ispace said in a statement.The failure comes two years after a prior mission ended in a crash.The company’s unmanned Resilience spacecraft began its daunting final descent and “successfully fired its main engine as planned to begin deceleration”, ispace said Friday.Mission control confirmed that the lander’s positioning was “nearly vertical” — but contact was then lost, with the mood on a livestream from mission control turning sombre.Technical problems meant “the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing”, ispace said.- High-profile payloads -To date, only five nations have achieved soft lunar landings: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and most recently Japan.Now, private companies are joining the race, promising cheaper and more frequent access to space.On board the Resilience lander were several high-profile payloads.They included Tenacious, a Luxembourg-built micro rover; a water electrolyser to split molecules into hydrogen and oxygen; a food production experiment; and a deep-space radiation probe.The rover also carried “Moonhouse” — a small model home designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg.”I take the fact that the second attempt failed to land seriously,” CEO Takeshi Hakamada told reporters.”But the most important thing is to use this result” for future missions, he said, describing a “strong will to move on, although we have to carefully analyse what happened”.Last year, Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise to reach the Moon.Though its uncrewed lander touched down at an awkward angle, it still managed to complete tests and transmit photos.Then in March this year, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost — launched on the same SpaceX rocket as ispace’s Resilience — aced its lunar landing attempt.- Never quit -The mood ahead of Friday’s attempt had been celebratory, with a watch party also held by iSpace’s US branch in Washington.After contact was lost, announcers on an ispace livestream signed off with the message: “Never quit the lunar quest.”The mission had also aimed to collect two lunar soil samples and sell them to NASA for $5,000.Though the samples would remain on the Moon, the symbolic transaction is meant to strengthen the US stance that commercial activity — though not sovereign claims — should be allowed on celestial bodies.Landing on the Moon is highly challenging as spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burning to slow their descent over treacherous terrain.Intuitive Machines’ second attempt at a Moon landing ended in disappointment in late March.Its spacecraft Athena, designed to touch down on a spot called the Mons Mouton plateau — closer to the lunar south pole than any previous mission — tipped over and was unable to recharge its solar-powered batteries.

Asian markets stuttered Friday as optimism from “very positive” talks between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping was wiped out by the stunning public row between the US leader and Elon Musk.The much-anticipated discussions between the heads of the world’s biggest economies fuelled hopes for an easing of tensions following the US leader’s “Liberation Day” global tariff blitz that targeted Beijing particularly hard.However, investors remained wary after an extraordinary social media row between Trump and billionaire former aide Musk that saw the two trade insults and threats, and sent Wall Street into the red.Wall Street’s three main indexes ended down as Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla tanked more than 14 percent and the president threatened his multibillion-dollar government contracts.Asian equities fluctuated in early business, with some observers suggesting traders were positioning for what could be a volatile start to next week in light of the row and upcoming US jobs data.Hong Kong dropped after three days of strong gains, while Shanghai and Taiwan also retreated.Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore and Wellington rose.Chris Weston at Pepperstone said that while the call with Xi was “seen as a step in the right direction, (it) proved to offer nothing tangible for traders to work with and attention has quickly pushed back to the Trump-Musk war of words”.”It’s all about US nonfarm payrolls from here and is an obvious risk that Asia-based traders need to consider pre-positioning for,” he added.He said there was a risk of Trump sparking market-moving headlines over the weekend given that he is “now fired up and the risk of him saying something through the weekend that moves markets on the Monday open is elevated”. The US jobs figures, which are due later Friday, will be closely followed after a below-par reading on private hiring this week raised worries about the labour market and outlook for the world’s top economy.They come amid bets that the Federal Reserve is preparing to resume cutting interest rates from September, even as economists warn that Trump’s tariffs could reignite inflation.Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management warned that while poor jobs figures could signal further weakness in the economy, a strong reading could deal a blow to the market.”In this upside-down market regime, strength can be weakness. A hotter-than-expected (figure) could force traders to price out Fed cuts. That’s the paradox in play—where good news on Main Street turns into bad news on Wall Street.”- Key figures at around 0230 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.5 percent at 37,730.67 (break)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.3 percent at 23,844.13Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,382.06Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1435 from $1.1444 on ThursdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3567 from $1.3571Dollar/yen: UP at 143.84 yen from 143.58 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 84.27 pence from 84.31 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.3 percent at $63.16 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.3 percent at $65.17 per barrelNew York – Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 42,319.74 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 8,811.04 (close)

Wall Street closed lower Thursday as a spat between President Donald Trump and his billionaire former aide Elon Musk spilled into the public eye, but global markets were mixed while investors assessed trade talks between Washington and Beijing.Major US indexes fell, with shares in Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla tanking more than 14 percent as the US leader threatened to tear up the tycoon’s government contracts.Trump expressed disappointment Thursday with his top donor’s criticisms of a “big, beautiful” spending bill before Congress, prompting Musk to hit back in real time.But markets were “holding up reasonably well” otherwise, said Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.Earlier Thursday, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a long-awaited call focused almost entirely on trade.”The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. He added that US and Chinese teams would hold a new meeting “shortly.”The market “initially took a positive view of that call,” O’Hare said. This was “largely because it seemed that the tone of the call was more conciliatory than combative.”Previously, the world’s two biggest economies blamed each other for jeopardizing a temporary truce in their escalating tariffs war.City Index and FOREX.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada said markets hoped the direct line between Washington and Beijing could ease trade tensions, even if momentarily.But he added: “It is super important that the Trump-Xi call now leads to some concrete movement.”Since his return to the White House, Trump has launched wide-ranging tariffs including a 10 percent levy on most US trading partners, while subjecting goods from China to elevated rates.- Euro boost -Meanwhile, the euro got a boost from the European Central Bank signaling an end to its rate-cut cycle.European stock markets closed mixed even though the ECB cut its key deposit rate a quarter point to two percent, as expected.It was its eighth reduction since June last year when it began lowering borrowing costs.But ECB President Christine Lagarde stated the central bank is “getting to the end” of the rate-cutting cycle.That sent the euro surging against the dollar and European stocks gave up earlier gains.The ECB’s series of cuts stands in contrast to the US Federal Reserve, which has kept rates on hold recently amid fears that Trump’s levies could stoke inflation in the world’s top economy.Investors are now looking to the release on Friday of US payrolls data, which could have a bearing on monetary policy.Other data has been mixed. April jobs openings data beat expectations but according to payroll firm ADP, private sector jobs rose by only 37,000 last month, slowing from April.Another survey showed activity in the US services sector contracted in May for the first time since June last year.The readings stoked concerns that the US economy was stuttering.The readings ramped up bets on a Fed cut, with markets pricing in two by the end of the year, starting in September.- Key figures at around 2100 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 42,319.74 points (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.5 percent at 5,939.30 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.8 percent at 19,298.45 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.2 percent at 7,790.27 (close) Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.2 percent at 24,323.58 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 8,811.04 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.5 percent at 37,554.49 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.1 percent at 23,906.97 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 3,384.10 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1444 from $1.1417 on WednesdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3571 from $1.3548Dollar/yen: UP at 143.58 yen from 142.86 yenEuro/pound: UP at 84.31 pence from 84.26 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.7 percent at $65.34 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 0.8 percent at $63.37 per barrelburs-rl-bys/sla

A Japanese company lost contact with its Moon lander Resilience during a daunting final descent, dealing a blow to its bid to make history two years after a prior mission ended in a crash.Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to become only the third private firm — and the first outside the United States — to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.Touchdown was scheduled for 4:17 am Japan time on Friday (1917 GMT Thursday) on the Mare Frigoris region of the Moon’s northern hemisphere, but the mood in mission control turned somber.Around 15 minutes after the scheduled time, announcers on a livestream, speaking through English interpreters, said: “Members of the MCC (Mission Control Center) will continuously attempt to communicate with the lander,” adding that further updates would come at a press conference.They signed off with the message: “Never quit the lunar quest.”Company CEO Takeshi Hakamada had struck an optimistic tone ahead of the attempt, saying iSpace had “leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the Moon.””I’m so looking forward to what’s going to happen today,” added JAXA president Hiroshi Yamakawa on the livestream before the descent. The mood had been celebratory, with a watch party also held by iSpace’s US branch in Washington.On board the lander were several high-profile payloads: Tenacious, a Luxembourg-built micro rover; a water electrolyzer to split molecules into hydrogen and oxygen; a food production experiment; and a deep-space radiation probe. The rover also carried “Moonhouse,” a model home designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg.The mission also aimed to collect two lunar soil samples and sell them to NASA for $5,000. Though the samples would remain on the Moon, the symbolic transaction is meant to strengthen the US stance that commercial activity — though not sovereign claims — should be allowed on celestial bodies.To date, only five nations have achieved soft lunar landings: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan.Now, private companies are joining the race, promising cheaper and more frequent access to space.Last year, Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise to reach the Moon. Though its uncrewed lander touched down at an awkward angle, it still managed to complete tests and transmit photos.Then in March this year, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost — launched on the same SpaceX rocket as ispace’s Resilience — aced its lunar landing attempt.Despite their rocket ride-share, Resilience took longer to reach the Moon than Blue Ghost, and ispace was now hoping for its own moment of glory, after its first mission resulted in an unsalvageable “hard landing” in 2023.Landing on the Moon is highly challenging as spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burning to slow their descent over treacherous terrain.Intuitive Machines’ second attempt at a Moon landing ended in disappointment in late March.Its spacecraft Athena, designed to touch down on a spot called the Mons Mouton plateau — closer to the lunar south pole than any previous mission — tipped over and was unable to recharge its solar-powered batteries.Meanwhile another Japanese startup, Space One, has been trying to become the country’s first private firm to put a satellite into orbit.Its latest rocket launch attempt in December blasted off but was later seen spiralling downwards in the distance as the company said the launch had to be terminated.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke Thursday, with both sides agreeing to talks to prevent an all-out trade war over tariffs and global rare earth supplies.Trump said the call reached a “very positive conclusion” and that they agreed to meet in person — but Beijing issued a more muted readout saying that Xi spoke of a need to “correct the course” of ties.The call — the first to be publicly announced since Trump returned to power in January — comes after Beijing and Washington accused each other of jeopardizing a trade war truce agreed last month in Geneva.Trump said a high-level US trade team including his treasury secretary, commerce secretary and US trade representative would meet Chinese officials soon.”The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries,” Trump said on Truth Social.”President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing,” he added.Trump said they would announce the time and place later.But the leaders did not discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump said, despite long-standing US hopes that Beijing could exert influence over Moscow to end the war.”The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE,” said Trump, adding that they hoped to have resolved issues over crucial rare earth minerals used in tech products.Relations between superpower rivals Beijing and Washington have been fraught since April, when Trump introduced sweeping worldwide tariffs that targeted China most heavily.At one point the United States hit China with additional levies of 145 percent on its goods as both sides engaged in tit-for-tat escalation. China’s countermeasures on US goods reached 125 percent.Trump had described Xi as recently as Wednesday as “extremely hard to make a deal with.” Chinese state media said Trump had requested the call. There was no immediate confirmation from the White House.- ‘Correcting the course’ -In its more restrained readout, Beijing said that relations needed more work.”Correcting the course of the big ship of Sino-US relations requires us to steer well and set the direction, especially to eliminate all kinds of interference and even destruction, which is particularly important,” Xi told Trump, according to state news agency Xinhua. The agency reported that the pair discussed the self-ruled democratic island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory and has threatened to seize by force. Xi warned his US counterpart that Washington should handle the issue “with caution” to avoid Taiwanese separatists “dragging China and the United States into the danger of conflict,” Xinhua said. But Xi also extended Trump a welcome to return to China, according to the agency, following an earlier trip during his first term in 2017.Until Thursday, the two leaders had not had any confirmed contact since the Republican returned to power in January, despite frequent claims by the US president that such a call was imminent. Beijing and Washington agreed in Geneva last month to slash their staggeringly high tariffs for 90 days, but the two sides have since traded blame for derailing the deal.Trump argued last week that China had “totally violated” the terms, without providing further details.China’s commerce ministry hit back by saying the Trump administration had introduced “discriminatory restrictive measures,” including revoking some Chinese student visas in the United States.Trump has separately ramped up tensions with other trade partners, including the European Union, by vowing to double global tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50 percent from Wednesday.

Wall Street stocks bounced higher Thursday after US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke amid their trade war, while the euro got a boost from the European Central Bank signalling an end to its rate-cut cycle.Wall Street’s major indices recovered from earlier losses after Trump posted that the call was positive.”The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries,” Trump said on Truth Social, adding that US and Chinese trade teams would hold a new meeting “shortly”.The call follows officials from the world’s two biggest economies accusing each other of jeopardising a trade war truce agreed last month in Geneva. City Index and FOREX.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada said “the markets were hoping that the direct line between Washington and Beijing could ease trade tensions, even if temporarily”.While he said that appears to have been the case, he added “it is super important that the Trump-Xi call now leads to some concrete movement”.After his return to the White House Trump launched a tariffs blitz, introducing a 10 percent minimum tariff and higher rates on many countries, with China subject to the highest rates.Some of the higher rates have been suspended as negotiations are under way.European stock markets closed mixed even though the ECB cut its key deposit rate a quarter point to two percent, as expected.It was its eighth reduction since June last year when it began lowering borrowing costs.But ECB President Christine Lagarde stated the central bank is “getting to the end” of the rate-cutting cycle, as inflation has largely dropped to its two percent target in the 20-nation currency bloc.That sent the euro surging against the dollar and European stocks gave up earlier gains.The ECB’s series of cuts stands in contrast to the US Federal Reserve, which has kept rates on hold recently amid fears that Trump’s levies could stoke inflation in the world’s top economy.Investors are now looking to the release on Friday of US non-farm payrolls data, which the Fed uses to help shape monetary policy.Other data released this week has been mixed. April jobs openings data beat expectations, but according to payroll firm ADP private-sector jobs rose by only 37,000 last month.This was a sharp slowdown from April’s 60,000 and less than a third of the amount forecast in a Bloomberg survey.Another survey showed activity in the US services sector contracted in May for the first time since June last year.The readings stoked concerns that the world’s number one economy was stuttering, with the Fed’s closely watched “Beige Book” study noting that “economic activity has declined slightly”.The readings ramped up bets on a Fed cut, with markets pricing in two by the end of the year, starting in September. Still, there is some concern that Trump’s tariff blitz will ramp up inflation, which could put pressure on the US central bank to keep borrowing costs elevated.- Key figures at around 1530 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 42,559.64 pointsNew York – S&P 500: UP 0.4 percent at 5,996.55New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.7 percent at 19,602.62Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.2 percent at 7,790.27 (close) Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.2 percent at 24,323.58 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 8,811.04 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.5 percent at 37,554.49 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.1 percent at 23,906.97 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 3,384.10 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1448 from $1.1417 on WednesdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3593 from $1.3548Dollar/yen: UP at 143.70 yen from 142.86 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 84.23 pence from 84.26 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 1.1 percent at $65.57 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 1.2 percent at $63.57 per barrelburs-rl/phz