Stocks, dollar and oil sink as gold hits high on Trump tariffs
AFP | Washington
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Stock markets and the dollar tumbled yesterday after President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs salvo against countries worldwide, fanning a trade war that many fear will spark recession and ramp up inflation.
The dollar slumped by as much as 2.6 percent versus the euro, its biggest intraday plunge in a decade, and suffered sharp losses also against the yen and British pound.
On stock markets, Wall Street’s main indices opened sharply lower, with the Nasdaq Composite falling more than four percent.
“The simultaneous decline in both stocks and the US dollar speaks volumes about investor confidence in Trump’s trade policy,” said City Index and FOREX. com analyst Fawad Razaqzada.
Shares in apparel companies, which rely on cheap labour in factories abroad, with Nike sinking 11 percent and Gap shedding 15 percent.
Across the globe shares in major sectors including auto, luxury and banking, also took big hits.
Tokyo’s Nikkei briefly collapsed more than four percent and the Paris stock market led losses in Europe as it fell over three percent.
Oil prices plummeted around seven percent to under $70 per barrel as an economic downturn would hit demand.
Gold, a safe haven asset in times of uncertainty, hit a new peak of $3,167.84 an ounce.
Yields on government bonds, another haven investment, fell as investors fled risky assets.
Renewed rate cuts?
The panic came after the US president unveiled a blitz of harsher-than-expected levies aimed at countries he said had been “ripping off ” the United States for years.
The measures included a 34 percent tariff on world number two economy China, 20 percent on the European Union and 24 percent on Japan.
A number of others will face specifically tailored tariff levels, and for the rest, Trump said he would impose a “baseline” tariff of 10 percent, including on Britain.
Auto tariffs of 25 percent meanwhile kicked in yesterday. “Markets, unsurprisingly have reacted badly,” noted Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at wealth manager Quilter.
“(US) Treasury yields have fallen sharply, as investors take flight and look for safe haven assets.
“This would suggest the Federal Reserve will need to put additional rate cuts on the table to look to prevent recession being triggered, but should it face inflation rising too, it is in somewhat of a bind,” Carter added.
As world markets tumbled Trump acknowledged the shock brought by his tariffs onslaught, but said the US economy would emerge “far stronger”.
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