TOKYO (Reuters) - Global shares were on the mend on Friday as Pyongyang’s measured response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to call off a key summit with North Korea healed market sentiment, although investors remained cautious.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said Pyongyang still hoped for a “Trump formula” to resolve the standoff over its nuclear weapons program, noting that the country was open to resolving issues with the United States.
European shares are expected to recover with spread betters seeing Britain’s FTSE, France’s CAC and Germany’s Dax rising 0.5-0.6 percent.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan managed to eke out 0.1 percent gains, while South Korea’s Kospi pared much of its earlier loss of 0.9 percent to last trade down 0.2 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei was up 0.1 percent.
“Insofar as the North Koreans do not resume testing missiles, which would come as a surprise as it would forestall even a future round of peace talks, I do not see this setback as reigniting a prolonged bout of risk aversion towards South Korean assets,” said Aninda Mitra, senior sovereign analyst at BNY Mellon Investment Management in Singapore.
On Wall Street the S&P 500 ended 0.2 percent lower on Thursday, though it clawed back a large part of its earlier loss of 0.95 percent.
Even before the reaction from Pyongyang, there were no immediate signs of widespread investor panic with Wall Street’s volatility index, seen as a gauge of investors’ fears, ending at a four-month low on Thursday.
Analysts said that level of calm reflected investors becoming accustomed to Trump’s dramatic negotiation style, in which
