Hong Kong's stock market ended mixed on Wednesday with the benchmark Hang Seng Index up 0.15 percent to close at 26,388 points.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropped 0.07 percent to end at 8,876 points, and the Hang Seng Tech Index rose 0.46 percent to end at 5,093 points.

The sluggish nature of the Hong Kong market extended to much of Asia on Wednesday as markets digested the lack of progress towards Middle East peace and setbacks that rattled the boom in AI technology.

Iran's chief negotiator said on Tuesday that Washington must accept Tehran's latest peace plan or face failure, after US President Donald Trump warned the truce in the Middle East war was on the brink of collapse.

Both sides have refused to make concessions and repeatedly threatened to resume fighting, but neither appears willing to return to all-out war.

Traders are now looking to China, where Trump is due to make the first visit by a US president in nearly a decade, saying he expected a "long talk" with President Xi Jinping about Iran.

Trump's arrival in Beijing comes a day after figures back home in the United States showed consumer inflation hit a three-year high in April, as the economic fallout of the Iran war rippled through the world's largest economy. (Xinhua/AFP)



Edited by Tony Sabine