Investing.com - Asian shares traded mixed on Monday with trade concerns dominating sentiment.
Stocks in China gained as non-ferrous metal companies found favor. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.66%, while Hong Kong's
Hang Seng Index edged up 0.72%.
Other Asia markets wavered on Monday, with the Nikkei 225 down 0.80% and the S&P/ASX 200 easing 0.81% as investors looked past a weekend dominated with Donald Trump inauguration headlines and await clarity on policies including plans to possibly renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal.
The new administration said last Friday that its trade strategy to protect American jobs would begin with the withdrawal from the TPP and "crack down on those nations that violate trade agreements and harm American workers in the process."
Trump's first speech as president last Friday also revealed an "inward-looking and protectionist U.S., extolling 'only America first' policies on trade, taxes, immigration and on foreign affairs," said Vishnu Varathan, senior economist at Mizuho Bank, in a note on Monday.
Elsewhere, Samsung Electronics (KS:005930) finally identified what went wrong with its Galaxy Note 7 handsets in news that sets the stage for its full-year earnings on Tuesday. Dong-jin Koh, Samsung's mobile business chief, acknowledged two separate instances of battery malfunctions were to blame for some of the handsets catching fire at a Monday press conference in Seoul, South Korea. He also used the conference to apologize to customers and suppliers.
Samsung Electronics shares rose 0.65% to 1,872,000 Korean won.
Last week, U.S. stocks gained on Friday as President Donald Trump took office setting a populist tone on governance, but little in the way of policy direction outside of a repeated commitment to protect jobs at home.
The Dow Jones climbed 94.85 points, or 0.48%, the S&P 500 gained 7.6 points, or 0.34%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 15.25 points, or 0.28%.