Having rallied 800 points last week on hopes that US-China trade tensions were on a path to de-escalation, Dow futures are opening down just 100 points (and Yuan is lower) after China escalated and canceled two planned trade talk visits.
After President Trump slapped a fresh round of tariffs on Chinese goods, targeting 10 percent duties on $200 billion of goods; the two camps were scheduled to meet in order to dial back tensions.
That was what sparked hope that this was just a trade skirmish (as Jamie Dimon attempted to play down), sending stocks soaring all week.
However, that is all over now.
The Journal just reported on Friday that, according to sources, China has rescinded the proposals to send two delegations to Washington.
Chinese officials have said such pressure tactics wouldn’t induce them to cooperate.
By declining to participate in the talks, the people said, Beijing is following up on its pledge to avoid negotiating under threat.
“Everything the U.S. does hasn’t given any impression of sincerity and goodwill,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a press briefing Friday.
“We hope that the U.S. side will take measures to correct its mistakes.”
And the result at the Sunday night futures open… Dow futures are opening down…
As are the rest of the US equity futures markets…
And Yuan is down modestly also after ramping for four days on trade hopes…
Meanwhile, WTI futures are up over 1% following OPEC’s tepid response to President Trump’s demands to lower the oil price…
The timing of this trade tension news, after the exuberant equity week, is also noteworthy as it follows Ray Dalio’s, founder of Bridgewater, warnings that the current trade tensions mirror those of the 1930s:
“I think that the 1935-40 period is most analogous to the current period and that it is worth reflecting on what happened then when thinking about US-Chinese relations now.
To be clear, I’m not saying that we are on a path to a shooting war, but I am saying that we have to watch what path we are on, given these cause-effect relationships that history has taught us and that are described in the template. This excerpt describes how the economic and political conditions of the late 1930s evolved into the wars that followed. “
We have discussed this case-effect relation before…
via RSS https://ift.tt/2OSofhG Tyler Durden