S&P 500 slips, but losses kept in check as Nvidia climbs ahead of results
* Asian stock markets : https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4
* Asian shares inch up, Nikkei starts on a firm note
* Focus on U.S.-China trade talks
* Gold near three-month lows
By Swati Pandey
SYDNEY, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Asian shares reversed gains on
Monday, the yen ticked higher and gold jumped as fresh violence
broke out in Hong Kong, while uncertainty still remained over
whether the United States and China could end their damaging
trade war.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index .HSI led the losses in Asia,
down more than 1%, after police fired live rounds at protestors
on the eastern side of Hong Kong island. Cable TV and other Hong
Kong media reported at least one protester being wounded. Video
footage showed a protester lying in a pool of blood.
Chinese shares too started lower with the blue-chip CSI300
index .CSI300 down 0.6%. South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 lost 0.7%
Japan's Nikkei .N225 gave up early gains to drift away
from a recent 13-month high after data showed the country's core
machinery orders fell for a third straight month. Australian shares .AXJO bucked the downbeat trend, rising
0.5% to a two-week high.
That left MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares
outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS down 0.5%.
"The China-U.S. trade war and the Hong Kong protest are
combining to cast a negative pall on Asian markets today," said
James McGlew, analyst at stockbroking firm Argonaut.
"Hong Kong protests have been dragging on for a while and
the view from the financial world is that it's really starting
to bite now. The further this drags on it's certainly going to
be very negative."
Gold, which rises during times of uncertainty, rebounded
from a three-month low touched on Friday to be last up 0.4% at
$1,463.5 an ounce. XAU=
In currencies, the Japanese yen gained on the dollar to
109.11 while the Australian dollar, a liquid gauge for risk, was
off slightly at $0.6855.
The dollar index =USD was mostly flat at 98.353 as was the
euro at $1.102.
Market attention was also on the U.S.-China trade talks.
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday that
talks with China had moved more slowly than he would have liked,
but added that Beijing wanted a deal more than he did.
That was a more upbeat tone than just a few days earlier
when he had stressed that the White House would not agree to a
full rollback of existing tariffs, remarks that hit stock prices
and the dollar.
"Despite his bluster that 'China wants a trade deal more
than I do', markets sense that Trump is likely quite keen to
call a truce on what is becoming a serious U.S. economic risk