Asian stock markets remain resilient in the first six months this year, due to stable fundamentals and a supportive investor base, said Timothy Pope, a market analyst.
Chinese stocks closed mixed on Tuesday with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.42 percent to 3,505.00 points.
Hong Kong's stock market ended higher with the benchmark Hang Seng Index up 1.6 percent to close at 24,590.12 points.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, ended up 218.40 points, or 0.55 percent, from Monday at 39,678.02.
In an exclusive interview with China Global Television Network, Timothy Pope summed up the performance of Asian stock markets in the first half of the year.
"The story of the first half of the year for Chinese, and Asian stock markets as well, I think, has been one of resilience. The global economic, trade, and geopolitical environment has thrown a lot at us in the last six months, but through it all, markets have been on a broadly upward trend. Chinese Mainland markets are hovering around nine-month highs at the moment, with the Shanghai Composite above 3,500 points. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng started the year below 20,000 points and is now comfortably above 24,000," he stated.
Pope noted that during the period trade and constantly changing U.S. tariff policies have been a huge hurdle for the markets, and April 2, when wide-ranging "reciprocal tariffs" were announced, was a big shock to the markets, which took months to properly recover from, and there is still an argument to be made that the uncertainty that Donald Trump unleashed that day has not been put back in the box completely. "But on the Chinese mainland markets, there has been hope among investors who have focused instead on fundamentals like economic resilience and the prospects for stimulus and reform. Those reform hopes have grown over the last couple of weeks with talk of supply-side changes that need to be made to curb price wars in a few sectors," he said.
"And in Hong Kong, we've seen confidence return alongside a rush among companies to list on the market. And the numbers this year represent a massive turnaround in the Hong Kong Exchange's fortunes. There has been 12.8 billion U.S. dollars raised off listings in the first half of 2025," he continued.
"If we take a look at Japan, we can also see the market there sitting at a fairly high level, despite a turbulent year. Last year it was big news whenever the Nikkei cracked 40,000 points. Now that happens every couple of weeks and investors are talking about 45,000 as the market's next milestone. And today's Nvidia news was also definitely a boost for the Nikkei, with its chip-equipment stocks rising strongly on the prospect of the U.S. allowing AI chips to be sold to China again," Pope also stated.
Analyst recaps Asian stock markets' performance in H1
