Today began poorly for the European stock markets. The STOXX 600 index was down earlier this morning on account of China reworking some of its policies and how this may affect trade with Europe. Moreover, while no concrete plan has emerged yet, Donald Trump did say that some of the European Union’s tariffs on American vehicles (notably the Harley Davidson motorcycles) are “unfair” and deserve to be punished with reciprocal tariffs. This is all too familiar - it is how the trade conflict with China began.
Furthermore, earlier this morning Germany published reports on business expectations and the Ifo business climate assessment. All of the reports failed to meet the forecasts, painting an even more disappointing picture of the eurozone’s economy.
Meanwhile, across the ocean things are going better. The United States published their more recent new home sales report which came in positive, and this reassured the US stock markets. With US assets doing well, the dollar index is also keeping high at 97.36.
