Crude oil and global equity markets tumbled on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump upped the ante in a trade dispute with China, renewing investor jitters about the potential impact a tariff war would have on the world economy.
MSCI’s gauge of worldwide equity indexes fell 1 per cent and stocks on Wall Street skidded after Trump threatened late on Thursday to add an additional $100 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods.
China warned it was fully prepared to respond with a “fierce counter strike” of fresh trade measures if the United States follows through on Trump’s latest threat.
The U.S. equity rout picked up during a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in Chicago, although he did not address the potential risks of the U.S. dispute with China.
“What Powell is signalling to market participants is that the Fed is not swayed or rattled by equity market volatility at this point. That’s the reason for the additional selling pressure,” said Chad Morganlander, a portfolio manager at Washington Crossing Advisors in Florham Park, New Jersey.
“The Fed has the intestinal fortitude to wait until it creeps into credit conditions and causes financial stress,” he said.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index, which closed before Powell’s speech, fell 0.4 per cent and ended the week 1.15 per cent higher.
The STOXX Europe index of companies in 17 European countries fell 0.35 per cent, with the trade-exposed auto sector the leading sectoral loser, down 1.7 per cent.
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Defensive stocks such as utilities or telecoms were among a handful of European sectors to end the day in higher.
Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and JPMorgan led MSCI’s all-country index of stock performance in 47 countries lower, the same as on the benchmark S&P 500 index.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 706.29 points, or 2.88 per cent, to 23,798.93.
The S&P 500 lost 69.99 points, or 2.63 per cent, to 2,592.85 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 179.07 points, or 2.53 per cent, to 6,897.48.
The market’s decline is due more to its current vulnerable state than the prospect of a trade war, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at The Leuthold Group in Minneapolis.
“It’s got higher values; financial liquidity is contracting. You came into the year with a little too much optimism. You got rising rates going on, you got rising inflation fears,” he said.
Powell said the U.S. central bank would likely need to keep raising interest rates to keep inflation under control.
A weak U.S. jobs report, which nonetheless highlighted underlying labour market strength, helped push U.S. Treasury prices higher as the economy created the fewest jobs in six months in March.
Oil prices tumbled, with U.S. crude falling more than 2 per cent.
Brent crude futures fell $1.22 to settle at $67.11 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled down $1.48 at $62.06 a barrel.
U.S. Treasury and euro zone government bond yields dipped as the trade spat raised the prospect of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
The yield on 10-year German government debt, the euro zone benchmark, dipped 2.7 basis points in late trading to 0.494 per cent, erasing much of Thursday’s rise.
Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 16/32 in price to push yields down to 2.7716 per cent.
Mike Terwilliger, portfolio manager of Resource Liquid Alternatives for the Resource Credit Income Fund, said nearly every news event seems to register on the market’s Richter scale, though the market has been dealing with some relatively weighty challenges this year.
“The recent decline in Treasuries is largely ‘Tweet related’ versus some fundamental shift in the view of inflation or economic growth,” he said.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback versus a basket of major currencies, fell 0.42 per cent, with the euro up 0.41 per cent to $1.2288.
The Japanese yen firmed 0.49 per cent versus the greenback at 106.86 per dollar.
U.S. gold futures for June delivery settled up 0.6 per cent at $1,336.10 an ounce.
