With tariffs now firmly in place
The market’s been keen to embrace
The idea that Xi
And Trump will agree
To terms when they meet face-to-face

But rhetoric lately has shown
That both Trump and Xi will condone
A slowdown in trade
That both men portrayed
As caused by the other, alone

Risk is, once again, in tatters as the fallout from the US increase in tariffs starts to feed through the market. As of midnight last Thursday, US tariffs on $200 billion of goods rose to 25%. This morning, a list of the other $325 billion of goods that may be subject to tariffs will be published with a target date of 30-days before imposition. Meanwhile, China continues to try to figure out how best to respond. Their problem, in this scenario, is they don’t import that much stuff from the US, and so trying to determine what is an ‘equal’ offset is complicated. However, I am confident that within the next day or two, they will publish their response. Markets around the world have felt the fallout, with equity prices everywhere under pressure, EMG currencies, especially, feeling the heat, and Treasury bonds and German bunds remaining in vogue.

As of now, it appears the situation is unlikely to improve in the short-term. The US remains miffed that the Chinese seemingly reneged on previously agreed terms. Meanwhile, the Chinese are adamant that they will not kowtow to the US and be forced to legislate the agreed changes, instead insisting that administrative guidance is all that is needed to insure compliance with any terms. They deem this desire for a legislated outcome as impinging on their sovereignty. Once again, the issue falls back to the idea that while the US consistently accused the Chinese of IP theft and forced technology transfer, the Chinese don’t see it that way, and as such, don’t believe they need to change laws that don’t exist. Whatever the merits of either sides views, the end result is that it seems far less clear that a trade deal between the two is going to be signed anytime soon.

The markets question is just how much of this year’s global equity market rally has been driven by the assumption that trade issues would disappear and how much was based on a response to easier central bank policies. The risk for markets is not only that growth is negatively impacted, but that inflation starts to rise due to the tariffs. This would put the central banks in a tough spot, trying to determine which problem to address first. Famously, in 1979, when Paul Volcker was appointed Fed Chairman, he immediately took on inflation, raising short term interest rates significantly to slay that demon, but taking the US (and global) economy into recession as a result. It strikes me that today’s crop of central bank heads does not have the wherewithal to attack that problem in the same manner as Volcker. Rather, the much easier, and politically expedient, response will be to try to revive the economy while allowing inflation to run hot. This is especially the case since we continue to see serious discussions as to whether inflation is ‘dead’. FWIW, inflation is not dead!

At any rate, for now, the trade story is going to be the key story in every market, and the upshot is that the odds of any central bank turning more hawkish have diminished even further.

Looking at overnight activity, there was virtually no data to absorb with just Norwegian GDP growth printing slightly softer than expected, although not enough to change views that the Norgesbank is going to be raising rates next month. Broadly speaking, the dollar is quite firm, with the biggest loser being the Chinese yuan, down 0.9%, and that movement dragging down AUD (-0.45%) as a G10 proxy. But while other G10 currencies have seen more limited movement, the EMG bloc is really under pressure. For instance, MXN has fallen 0.6%, INR 0.75%, RUB, 0.5% and KRW 1.2%. All of this is trade related and is likely just the beginning of the fallout. Once China publishes its list of retaliatory efforts, I would expect further weakness in this space.

Equity markets are suffering everywhere, with Shanghai (-1.2%) and the Nikkei (-0.7%) starting the process, the DAX (-0.8%) and CAC (-0.6%) following in their footsteps and US futures pointing lower as well (both Dow and S&P futures -1.3%). Treasury yields have fallen to 2.43% and are now flat with 3-month Treasury bill rates, reigniting concerns over future US growth, and commodity prices are feeling the strain as well on overall growth concerns.

Turning to the data this week, there is a modicum of news, with Retail Sales likely to be seen as the most important:

We also see the housing story and hear from another five Fed speakers across seven speeches this week. However, as we learned last week, pretty much the entire Fed is comfortable with their patient stance in the belief that growth is solid and inflation will eventually head to their target of 2.0%.

Add it all up and there is no reason to believe that the trends from last week will change, namely further pressure on equity markets and commodities, with the dollar and Treasuries the beneficiaries.

Good luck
Adf