Squawk Box Europe Express

President Trump triggers a trade war which sends the dollar soaring and pushed Asian equities into the red. Mexico and Canada are hit with 25 per cent while Chinese goods are subject to a 10 per cent surcharge on existing tariffs. Trump has threatened that the EU could be targeted next. Both Canada and Mexico have vowed to retaliate. In M&A news, Italy’s Unicredit has disclosed a new stake in the country’s largest insurer, Generali, but has denied any strategic interest behind the move. German lender Commerzbank posts a record FY pre-tax profits while fending off interest from Unicredit.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Apple shares soar more than 3 per cent in after-hours trade boosted by strong revenue from services. However, iPhone sales disappoint, dragged down by poor Chinese demand. Canadian and Mexican imports into the U.S. will be hit with 25 per cent tariffs from tomorrow but President Trump says he is still undecided whether the measures will affect oil. The ECB slashes euro interest rates by 25bps. It’s the central bank’s fifth cut of the cycle amid growing concerns about sluggish growth throughout the bloc. President Christine Lagarde says that a larger cut was not on the table. And two black boxes have been recovered from the Potomac River in Washington D.C. following Wednesday night’s fatal mid-air collision between a regional American Airlines jet and a military Black Hawk helicopter. 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tesla Q4 results miss estimates with shares falling and then rebounding in after-hours trade. However, CEO Elon Musk remains bullish about the year ahead pointing to advancements in A.I. and self-driving technology. Microsoft sees disappointing cloud sector revenue while Facebook owner Meta beats Q4 expectations despite softer-than-expected forecasts. The U.S. Federal Reserve maintains rates in January as the central bank waits to assess the impact of President Trump’s sweeping policy changes on the economy. Chairman Jerome Powell says he is blocking out all external commentary. And dozens of passengers are feared dead in Washington DC after an American Airlines jet collided with a U.S. military Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dutch chip equipment ASML moves to calm investor jitters over AI plans, beating Q4 expectations with net income of €2.69bn. Nvidia shares have slowly rebounded following Monday’s DeepSeek-driven bloodbath, ending yesterday’s session almost 9 per cent higher. Other U.S. tech stocks have also clawed back losses as retail investors re-enter the sector following this week’s massive sell-off. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is to set out deeper plans to improve the country’s economy in a speech later today, saying she anticipates opposition in her quest for growth. And in luxury news, LVMH posts a Q4 sales beat helped along by strong demand in Europe and the U.S. despite the French giant warning of an unfavourable global economic environment for the sector.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nvidia’s market cap takes a $600bn battering – the biggest one-day Wall Street wipe-out in history. The emergence of DeepSeek sees $1tn knocked off big tech stocks amid a market panic reverberating in Japan and in European AI-related shares. In Germany, Siemens attempts to stem losses from the sell-off with preliminary Q1 revenue narrowly beats forecasts at €9bn. German cloud-computing giant SAP boosts guidance on the back of a strong AI-driven Q4 order pipeline. And President Trump touts Microsoft as a potential company to acquire social media platform TikTok.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thousands of displaced Gazans begin to return to their homes in the north of the Gaza Strip as the fragile ceasefire continues to hold. U.S. President Trump has proposed rehousing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in neighbouring Arab nations to ‘clean out’ the demolished territory. Trump has also spoken to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, once again pushing for U.S. control of Greenland. With less than a month before the German elections, the CDU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz has proposed a new hardline immigration bill while Tesla CEO Elon Musk addressed an AfD rally, slamming EU over-reach in the country. In China, manufacturing activity surprisingly contracts in January which now places further pressure on Beijing to provide stimulus measures.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

President Trump calls for interests rates to be slashed immediately, helping to push the S&P 500 to a record high. The BoJ raises interest rates to their highest level since 2008 and indicates further hikes will follow. In a video address to the World Economic Forum, President Trump slams the EU for its treatment of the U.S. We hear from the European Commission’s EVP for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Séjourné, who says neither Brussels nor Washington have any interest in a trade war.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk pours cold water on President Trump’s A.I. mega-project Stargate, saying Softbank, Oracle and OpenAI ‘don’t actually have the money’ to realise the plan but Sam Altman hits back asking Musk to put the country’s interests first. Meanwhile at Davos, President Trump’s tariff threats loom large ahead of his special video address to the World Economic Forum later today. Trump has warned Russia of further sanctions if the war in Ukraine is not resolved quickly while Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s top advisor Andriy Yermak tells CNBC that Kyiv will not compromise on territorial integrity or sovereignty. We also hear from Polish President Andzrej Duda who calls for a dramatic increase in defence spending among NATO members warning Putin’s expansionism is ‘insatiable’.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

President Trump announces a ‘monumental’ $500bn A.I. infrastructure project called Stargate, backed by OpenAI, Oracle and Japan’s Softbank. Netflix shares soar as price hikes and live events help the streaming giant post a huge beat on subscriber numbers. In Asian markets, Greater China stocks disappoint amid new threats of tariffs coming from the Trump administration while European indices are set to open in the green.  

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, immediately signing off on a flurry of executive orders. He did, however, stop short of launching immediate tariffs on neighbours Canada, Mexico as well as on China. Trump did sign a 75-day reprieve on the ban on TikTok in order to review a deal for the platform. He also signed orders to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and to exit the WHO. We speak to UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who says AI demand is ‘profoundly high’ but warned that the technology remains imperfect. In forex news, the dollar is down while the yuan hits a 6-week high as a new Trump era begins.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.