Categories
Markets

Wall Street hesitates to open in a climate of trade tensions

The New York Stock Exchange is trying to rebound Friday, but the technology stocks are still down, investors are still concerned about the commercial offensive launched by Donald Trump against China.

The Dow Jones index gained 96.96 points, or 0.4%, to 24,054.85 points after half an hour of trading. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose by 0.19% to 2648.59 points, but the NASDAQ Composite lost 0.12% to 7158.10 points.

The semiconductor sector remains in the red and Intel (-1.24%) shows the largest decline in the Dow.

On Thursday, the three major indexes on Wall Street ended on declines of 2.4% to 2.9% after signature by Donald Trump a document that could impose tariffs on up to 60 billion dollars of Chinese imports.

The US president’s decision fueled investors’ fears that the world’s first two economies would engage in a trade war, a risk destabilizing the financial markets, worried about the consequences for global growth.

China ready to fight back

The Chinese authorities were quick to react and announced plans to deal with some $ 3 billion of US imports.

The list unveiled by China, less consistent than that of the United States, “suggests that, perhaps, there will be no real trade war and that there is room for negotiations,” says Robert Pavlik, Head of Investment Strategy at SlateStone Wealth in New York.

At the same time, the US president has provisionally exempted the European Union and six third countries from the tariffs that will apply to imports of steel and aluminum as of this Friday.

At the time of the opening of the American markets, Europe reduced its losses in the wake of Wall Street. The CAC 40 lost 0.98% and the Stoxx 600 yielded 0.5% after dropping to more than 1.6%.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Exit mobile version