Read full post at forexlive.com
The
bad news twins for non-USD FX and US equities over the weekend were
Trump
sent a military plane of shackled deportees to Colombia. Colombia
turned the plane back to the US, arguing that migrants should be
treated with dignity and respect. The President of Colombia offered
to accept deported Colombians on civilian flights. Trump responded
by slamming tariffs and other sanctions on Colombia. Colombia then
responded in kind, with equivalent sanctions on US products.
The
USD opened higher in early trade in Asia and has continued to ratchet
up.
Globex
opened US equity indexes lower. In addition to the nascent trade war
NASDAQ (NQ futures) was hit by Chinese AI DeepSeek developments that
will likely weigh on the NVDA share price
Of
course all of this is good news if you were positioned on the correct
side.
There was also news from an unnamed source saying Trump’s advisers want tariffs on Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday, February 1, before talks begin.
Later
in the session we had the news that the
US will not levy threatened tariffs on Colombia after the South
American nation agreed to take
illegal migrants back. The USD retraced some of its gains on this
reversal of the news. Trade war over, for now.
In
the midst of all this we had poor data from China. Official PMIs from
the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed
manufacturing falling back into contraction, dropping to 49.1 from
50.1 in December. The non-manufacturing sector also showed signs of
slowing, with its PMI falling to 50.2 from 52.2 in December,
reflecting weaker momentum in services and construction.
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.
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