- Deutsche Bank on 4 factors that could prompt further losses for US equities
- China and India are working towards warmer relations between the two states
- BoJ Rate Hike May Move Closer: Analysis & Outlook
- More on White House ordering a halt to federal loans, grants
- Report that White House budget office is ordering a pause to all federal grants and loans
- Trump says he wants tariffs “much bigger” than 2.5%
- Trump is speaking with media
- RBNZ Chief Economist Paul Conway is speaking on Wednesday – on growth and interest rates
- Critical Australian inflation data due tomorrow – likely to tick the RBA rate cut box?
- Singapore and Hong Kong Lunar New Year market closures – the dates to watch
- There is no PBoC USD/CNY reference rate setting today – China is on holiday
- Australian December 2024 business confidence: -2 (prior -3)
- More on Japan’s service-sector inflation data – will keep the BoJ on rate-hike simmer
- UK shop prices fell in January, not as fast as they fell in December
- Trump says DeepSeek is a positive – a ‘wake up’ call. Meanwhile USD strong still.
- Japan data – Services PPI (December) 2.9% y/y (prior 3%)
- USD surging again – Trump tariff threats, Bessent want tariffs too
- More from Trump – will place tariffs on computer chips, pharmaceuticals
- Bessent is pushing a starting 2.5% universal US tariff plan, which would rise each month
- Trump speaking – Will have many bids for TikTok, Don’t want China involved in TikTok
- Deutsche Bank European Central Bank preview – cut this week and plenty more after that
- ICYMI – Morgan Stanley slashes UK 2025 GDP growth forecast to 0.9% (from 1.3% previously)
- SNB Chair Schlegel says doesn’t want negative interest rates, but “can’t rule them out”
- Rabo stay bearish EUR/USD, expect parity in Q2 2025
- US equity close: Big bifurcation as chipmakers and power generation crushed
- Trade ideas thread – Tuesday, 28 January, insightful charts, technical analysis, ideas
- Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: Nvidia’s market cap loss is the worst in history
It
was another day of tariff talk from Trump, and also from his
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant.
Bessant
kicked it off with a ‘moderate’ proposal to set a universal tariff at
2.5% with a gradual rise of 2.5% each month. Bessent said the
universal tariff could rise as high as 20%. Bessant’s comments were
from an unnamed source cited by the Financial Times.
The
USD began to rise, and soon after Trump weighed in, promising tariffs
on computer chips in the near future, on producers of
pharmaceuticals, will look at steel and other industries for tariffs,
and also tariffs on aluminum and copper.
The
USD gained further. Major FX lost ground broadly: EUR, AUD, GBP,
NZD, CAD.
There
was some stabilisation and a small bounce for non-USD FX before Trump
spoke again saying he wanted tariffs much higher than 2.5%, opposing
Bessent.
The
USD found renewed strength.
USD/JPY
has been a bit of an exception, while many of the major non-USD
currencies stabilised the yen lost further ground pretty much for the
entire session. Lows were around 154.50 and as I update its pressing
towards 155.70.
On
the data agenda today we had services PPI from Japan (for December
2024) coming in slightly lower than November but still at a solid
2.9% y/y rise.
From
Australia, we had a marginal improvement for business confidence but
a better improvement for business conditions (December 2024 data
also).
Australia
will be a focus tomorrow with the official Q4 CPI result (preview in
the points above).
China
began its Lunar New Year holidays today (January 28 – February 4).
Singapore and Hong Kong will be out Wednesday and Thursday and
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively.
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.
