European and Wall Street stocks mostly rose Monday following strong US housing data, but worries about tensions with Beijing together with a stalemate on a new fiscal package for the beleaguered American economy limited gains.

The Nasdaq jumped 1.0 percent to another fresh record, leading the major US indices, including the Dow, which closed lower.

Earlier, bourses in London, Paris and Frankfurt all notched modest gains.

The Nasdaq has posted new records more than 30 times this year, including several in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that has driven millions of people to shift to working from home and boosting demand for products such as video conferencing, video games and movie streaming.

Nasdaq firms with especially large gains Monday included gaming company Activision Blizzard, online payments provider PayPal and biotech firm Amgen.

Analysts pointed to loose US monetary policy and positive housing data as other supportive factors to stocks during Monday's session, while low borrowing rates have buoyed homebuilders.

But market watchers fretted about a continued stalemate in Congress on a new spending package. Democrats and Republicans are also sparring over funding for the US Postal Service, which is expected to see an exceptional number of mail-in ballots in November's election because of the coronavirus.

- Troubled by tensions -

Concerns over US-China relations were stoked again after high-level talks between Washington and Beijing on the status of their "phase one" trade agreement did not take place as planned Saturday, with no new date set.

China on Monday slammed Washington for using "digital gunboat diplomacy" after US President Donald Trump ordered TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to sell its interest in the Musical.ly app it bought and merged with TikTok.

Later Monday, the US administration expanded its sanctions on China's Huawei.

A Commerce Department statement added 38 Huawei affiliates around the world to the "entity list," claiming that the company was using international subsidiaries to circumvent the sanctions which prevent export of US-based technology.

Uncertainty over the status of US-China trade talks "has added to the frosty situation," noted David Madden, analyst at CMC Markets UK.

"The lack of agreement between Republicans and Democrats in relation to the stimulus deal remains a concern too."

- Tokyo stocks pull back -

In Asia, Tokyo's main stocks index closed down 0.8 percent Monday after data showed a record contraction of the Japanese economy in the second quarter.

"Investors cashed in on recent gains," said Toshikazu Horiuchi, a broker at IwaiCosmo Securities.

"GDP figures were largely within expectations" but reconfirmed the sizable impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Japanese economy, Horiuchi told AFP.

The April-June GDP figures showed that the economy shrank a record 7.8 percent quarter-on-quarter, the worst contraction in the nation's modern history.

- Key figures around 2050 GMT -

New York - Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 27,844.91 (close)

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.3 percent at 3,381.99 (close)

New York - Nasdaq: UP 1.0 percent at 11,129.73 (close)

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 6,127.44 (close)

Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 0.2 percent at 12,920.66 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.2 percent at 4,971.94 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: FLAT at 3,305.85 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.8 percent at 23,096.75 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: UP 0.7 percent at 25,347.34 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 2.3 percent at 3,438.80 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1876 from $1.1842 at 2100 GMT

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 105.99 yen from 106.60 yen

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3107 from $1.3086

Euro/pound: UP at 90.58 pence from 90.50 pence

West Texas Intermediate: UP 2.1 percent at $42.89 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: UP 1.3 percent at $45.37 per barrel

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Asia markets mostly up after US rally, stimulus woe tempers hope
Hong Kong (AFP) Aug 13, 2020
Asian markets mostly rose Thursday following a rally on Wall Street but investors continued to fret over US lawmakers' failure to find common ground on a new rescue package for their beleaguered economy. All three main indexes in New York saw more sharp gains fuelled by optimism over the US economic recovery following a forecast-busting jump in inflation that indicated the key consumer sector was revving up again, while hopes for a vaccine and the wall of central bank cash were also providing suppor ... read more