Trump's tariff hikes on Chinese goods may send markets in a tailspin
After a surprise announcement by the US President Donald Trump to raise levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 per cent starting Friday from 10 per cent currently, media reports state that China may consider pulling out of talks scheduled to begin this week. As a result, this has sent chills down the spines of traders across the globe. At the time of writing SGX Nifty was trading down by 60 points at 11,701 level, which clearly indicates that the domestic markets may witness selling pressure at the start of the week. Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank and Marico are some of the key results scheduled for the day. Traders will also look forward to Nikkei India PMI service data for April which will be released today. The fifth phase of voting in the general elections gets underway today.
Asian indices are a sea of red on Monday after President Donald Trump in a series of twitter messages on Sunday mentioned that tariffs on US$200 billion worth of imports from China will increase to 25 per cent from the current 10 per cent from Friday and might slap extra duties on the rest of what China ships to the US. Hong Kong’s index Hang Seng had skid over 2.5 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite has plummeted about 3 per cent.
Back home, the equity benchmarks ended the final trading session of the week on a negative note. After making a subdued start, equity benchmarks gained momentum and remained in the green for a major part of the day. However, in the last leg of trading, equity benchmarks erased all the gains to settle in the red. The Nifty and BSE Sensex slipped 0.11 per ent and 0.05 per cent, respectively. The broader market indices ended on a mixed note with Nifty Midcap ending up by 0.03 per cent, while Nifty Small-cap shedding 0.01 per cent. Mixed activity was seen in the sectoral indices with Nifty Realty and Nifty PSU Banks leading the gainers, and Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG leading the losers.
The US stocks closed the last trading session of the week on a strong note as April labour report showed non-farm payrolls were above forecasts, unemployment rate had surprisingly fallen and wages continued to move higher. The Dow Industrial Average rose 0.80 per cent, the S&P 500 surged 1 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 1.6 per cent.
Most of the markets in the Europe ended Friday’s session in the green, courtesy positive earnings from the banks. The UK’s FTSE 100 and Germany’s benchmark DAX rose 0.40 per cent and 0.55 per cent, respectively, and France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.18 per cent.