🇬🇧 Stay ahead of the markets with Swissquote

The US dollar extended gains and gold hit a fresh ATH fuelled by fresh tariff threats from Donald Trump. Worries in Chinese markets and rising geopolitical tensions support further gains despite all-time high levels.

Elsewhere, the early moodiness due to Trump’s new tariff threats quickly waned. The euro and Loonie recovered losses against the greenback, while the stock markets in Europe gave a mere reaction to Trump news. The energy and mining heavy FTSE 100 led gains in Europe, goldminer Fresnillo jumped almost 5% to a year-high, while BP rallied more than 7% on news that the activist investor Elliott Investment Management has acquired a substantial stake in the company to increase focus on traditional oil and gas operations and rely less on investments in renewable energy.

Across the Channel, the Stoxx 600 extended gains to a fresh ATH as well, while in the US, the S&P500 gained. US Steel Corp and Alcoa were happy about the tariff news, while the tech stocks led the rally. Nvidia extended gains by more than 2.50% as the French PM promised to invest more than 100bn euro in AI at a tech summit in France.

In the FX, the US dollar remains in demand as the Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell begins his two-day testimony in front of US politicians today and is expected to adopt a cautious approach despite mounting pressure to lower rates from the Trump government.

Listen to find out more!

Another week starts with tariff threats. This time, everyone that applies tariffs to the US will be hit back with the same tariffs, and all aluminium and steel imports to the US – no matter from whom – will face a 25% tariff. ;ood this Monday in Asia is pretty mixed – to say the least. Aluminum and iron ore futures are slightly down, the US dollar index is up and the commodity currencies like Aussie and Loonie opened the week with a gap but the AUDUSD recovered early losses. The swift recovery in Aussie was certainly due to the encouraging Chinese data that showed that inflation advanced to the highest level in five months thanks to increased spending during the Chinese New Year holiday.

Elsewhere, Friday’s jobs data from the US was all but ideal for the so-called goldilocks scenario. Plus, the latest data from the Fed on Friday showed alarming rise in household debt, credit card delinquencies remain strong. As such, it’s hard to guess what’s the best thing to do for the Federal Reserve (Fed). All eyes will be on Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s semi-annual testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday and on US inflation update due Wednesday.

The EURUSD weakened on Friday and again in Asia on tariff threats while the convergence trade between US and European equities remains in play.

Listen to find out more!

Sentiment across Europe and the US improves on waning trade tensions with the US. Most major indices ended the session in the green, but gains in the US were questionable due to the underwhelming set of earnings from big companies including Google, AMD and Ford, and a better than expected ADP report.

US yields fell and the dollar softened letting the euro and sterling recover recent losses. The short-term gains could be extended but medium-term outlook for both currencies remain bearish against the greenback.

Elsewhere, the convergence trade in favour of European stocks and Chinese AI, robot stocks is building up. Gold consolidates near ATH and crude oil is down on global trade worries and big jump in US weekly oil inventories.

Listen to find out more!

00:20 Preview

00:39 Bitcoin

01:45 Ethereum

03:00 World Liberty Financial & RWA Token

05:25 Charts

09:10 Subscribe & Good bye

crypto #cryptonews #cryptotrading #swissquote

Learn more about our employees: https://swq.ch/d5

LinkedIn: https://swq.ch/cH

The Chinese markets opened for the first time after a long Lunar New Year holiday, and they opened down on a set of weaker-than-expected PMI figures, on the news of 10% tariff on its exports toward Trump’s USA, and a further escalation of the trade war with the tit-for-tat measures announced yesterday from Beijing.

Across the Pacific Ocean, Google hit a record high yesterday regardless of the Chinese threat. Magnificent 7 saw dip buying and rebounded near 1.80%. Palantir was the star of the day with a 24% rally in its share price after announcing lot better-than-expected quarterly results and amassing rating and PT upgrades from big banks on its capacity to cash in on the AI boom.

Overall, the S&P500 and Nasdaq 100 consolidated gains above 50-DMA and the Stoxx 600 was better bid on Tuesday on rising confidence that the EU could negotiate trade terms with Trump and avoid tariffs.

But sentiment is much less cheery this morning as Google and AMD results – released after the bell – didn’t enchant investors.

Gold, on the other hand, renews record after record as the precious metal is certainly one of the best hedges against the Trump risks.

Listen to find out more!

The news of a month of delay for the tariffs targeting Mexico landed soon after the US opening bell and similar news about Canada came in later in the day. On the European front, nothing more than increased threats and mounting tensions among politicians, with Brexited Britain spotted as one bright spot in Europe. On the Chinese front, Xi and Trump are set to discuss the 10% tariffs this week, but Beijing has already announced retaliatory measures, including an antitrust probe into Google and a 15% tariff on U.S. coal and LNG imports.

The markets recovered from early losses but futures are in the negative.

Alphabet and AMD are due to announce earnings today, and the monthly avalanche of US jobs data begins today with job openings data. Any strength in data will further fuel the Federal Reserve (Fed) hawks and help push back the expectation of the next rate cut further down the road. For now, the first rate cut is being priced in for June – the earliest.

Listen to find out more!

Risk sentiment is on the floor this morning after Donald Trump imposed 25% tariff on most Mexican and Canadian imports and 10% tariff on Chinese imports which will take effect from tomorrow – a move, I believe, will certainly backfire and end up in tears for everyone. But it will first add volatility and chaos to the financial markets.

The first market reaction on Monday’s open is a swift move to the US dollar. The Mexican peso gap-opened at the lowest levels since March 2022 and the USDCAD jump-opened and flirted with the 1.48 level, the euro fell and crude oil jumped.

Yet, the upside potential in the US dollar will likely be limited by lower growth prospects for the US economy as well, while oil companies will hardly benefit from Trump-led rise in oil prices.

Equities will likely suffer on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Listen to find out more!

The European Central Bank (ECB) cut the interest rates yesterday for the fifth time and voiced concerns about euro area growth and tariff threats.Trump renewed his pledge to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, sending the currencies of both countries lower against the US dollar.

Gold hit a fresh ATH yesterday, backed by a swift move to safety due to the Trump's tariff threats, the rising geopolitical tensions, the rising US government debt and the fear of a potential tech rout that could lead to a global risk selloff.

In the tech space, five days into the DeepSeek drama, and ‘hundreds of companies’ – especially those linked to governments – are already limiting access to DeepSeek’s search engine highlighting data security concerns for using a Chinese chat bot that could collect and give information to Chinese authorities. Chip and digital information war between China and the West is entering a new phase and cybersecurity firms will likely see the benefits of it. Crowdstrike, Fortinet and Cloudfare hit fresh ATH levels this week and have potential to attract more capital.

Elsewhere, Meta extended gains to a fresh ATH as well following the announcement of stronger-than-expected earnings on Wednesday, while Apple gained 3% in the afterhours trading after releasing better-than-expected Q4 results and a record high Q4 revenue despite a massive hit from Chinese revenue.

Listen to find out more!

Three of the Magnificent 7 companies – and ASML – released their Q4 earnings yesterday and the numbers were ... mixed but hinted at strong AI spending and increased competition with Meta aiming to bring its AI model to a bullion users this year.

In China, Alibaba stepped out of the darkness saying that it’s AI model is the greatest of the world and is performing better than Meta and DeepSeek. A giant like Alibaba should be taken as a bigger threat than DeepSeek as the company can back it up with real-world applications and wide adoption.

Zooming out, the US equity markets were down yesterday, but the futures are up this morning. The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) decision went according to the plan. Fed members decided to maintain the rates where they are and seemed worried – and a bit confused – about inflation communication.

Beyond the borders, the Bank of Canada (BoC) cut its rate by 25bp BUT refrained from giving any guidance due to Trump uncertainties and the European Central Bank (ECB) will certainly announce a 25bp cut today, and repeat that if the data allows, there will be further support.

Listen to find out more!