The twists and turns of tariff talks which change from day to day and sometimes even hour to hour have had markets on a roller coaster ride for weeks now. President Trump has been going around calling April 2, the day he plans to roll out reciprocal tariffs against pretty much everyone, “Liberation Day”. Meanwhile, index futures are up this morning on speculation that tariffs against some industries or countries may be softened or delayed. Trade war developments may continue to influence trading in stocks and currencies over the next two weeks.
US index futures are up 0.8%-1.4% this morning with NASDAQ Futures leading the rally. European trading is muted with the Dax up 0.1% and the FTSE down 0.1%. The US 10-year treasury note yield has crept up toward 4.30%, but the US Dollar is down 0.1%-0.4% against the Euro, Pound and Loonie. Gold is up 0.4% and Silver is up 0.6%, while Bitcoin is up 2.75% in alternative currency trading. In commodity action, Crude Oil is up 0.6% and Copper is up 1.4%.
Flash PMI reports rolling out overnight have been a mixed bag with no clear direction. US Flash Manufacturing PMI (street 51.9) and Flash Services PMI (street 51.2) are due at 9:45 am EDT. The rest of this week is relatively quiet for economic news outside of US durable goods orders, a Q4 GDP update and Core PCE inflation.
It’s a quiet week for earnings reports, headlined by retailers Walgreens Boots, Lululemon, and GameStop. Being the last full week of the quarter, investors may start watching to see if we get an early start to confession season with several US airlines and Nike having already warned about slowing sales.