The Hang Seng Index reversed its downward trend in Hong Kong on Thursday (February 12th), weakening by around 0.9% to around 27,000 after a strong session earlier. This decline halted the momentum of the short term rally, as investors began to reduce risk in large cap stocks. Among the index's contributors, Tencent was a major drag, with its shares falling by around 2.3%, putting pressure on the technology sector, which has recently been a driving force behind market gains. Weakness in large cap companies like this typically quickly impacts sentiment due to their significant weighting in...
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that his country is stopping all federal funding to South Africa, but South Africa responded by saying it would not engage in "megaphone diplomacy". Trump had already signed an executive order to cut all U.S. financial assistance to South Africa last month, citing disapproval of its land policy and of its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Washington's ally, Israel. "To go a step further, any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States...
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said it remains to be seen if the Trump administration's tariff plans will prove to be inflationary, mapping out a checklist of things that could cause new import taxes to lead to more persistent price pressures. "In a simple case where we know it's a one-time thing, the textbook would say look through it," with no need for the Fed to respond with tighter monetary policy, Powell said at a question-and-answer session during an economic forum in New York City. "But you also want to be sure of a couple things," he continued. "If it turns into a series of...
In remarks from the Oval Office on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump discussed with disgust the massive tariffs Canada has on dairy and lumber and indicated that reciprocal tariffs from the U.S. could be "coming today" or next week. "They'll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it, and that's what reciprocal means," Trump said. "We may do it as early as today, or we'll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that's what we're going to do. We're going to do, we're going to charge." The comments from Trump follow the 25% tariffs Trump placed on most goods from Canada this week....
US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) rose by 151,000 in February, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday. Source: FXstreet
US President Donald Trump hit markets with yet another structural pivot on his tariff agenda, announcing some temporary exemptions for certain sectors, as well as getting his 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada muddled up with his separate "reciprocal tariff" strategy that is currently slated to come into effect in April. While giving comments to reporters at the White House, President Trump meandered back and forth through several topics. Details on reciprocal tariffs remain almost entirely absent, other than the Trump administration's insistence that they are definitely happening next...