Main issues markets deliver late on Tuesday, 3rd of April 2018

After U.S. stocks closed with their worst start for April since 1929, futures pointed to a slight bounce in opening trade on Tuesday. And that is a slight relief, we shall say. As we know Wall Street shares plunged on Monday as investors fled technology stocks amid resurgent trade war worries, setting the tone for global equities…

On a side note, fears of an all-out trade war between China and the U.S. continued to center investors’ attention. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected this week to release list of Chinese imports targeted for U.S. tariffs to punish Beijing over technology transfer policies, a move expected to further intensify the strain between two countries.

U.S. tariffs on $50 billion to $60 billion worth of annual imports is expected to be levied on products benefiting from Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial development program, but it may be more than two months before the import curbs take effect, administration officials have said.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office needs to unveil the list of products by Friday under President Donald Trump’s China tariff proclamation signed on March 22.

Dollar feels this “pain” and dollar index slipped 0.04% at 89.65. With no major economic reports on Tuesday’s calendar, markets will pay close attention to comments from a couple of Federal Reserve speakers for insights into the outlook for monetary policy

On commodity markets main issue is Oil prices which are slightly up on Tuesday amid a potential slowdown in U.S. production. But prices were capped by rising Russian output and expectations of a reduction in Saudi Arabian crude prices. Most likely Russia is trying to suck up more cash from oil markets enlarging its cash reserves while fighting budgetary scrutiny under western sanctions.

On stock news: beloved Spotify was set the reference price by the New York Stock Exchange for its shares of at $132, ahead of Direct IPO Listing. We shall see how this plays out, as 2017 was a bit less interesting from IPOs perspective. Spotify is based in Sweden. Arguably, it’s the second most well-known Swedish company after IKEA. Spotify has been around since 2008 so it’s not exactly a start-up. Private valuations for the company are as high as $20 billion.

Sources:

https://www.investing.com/analysis/blog-traffic-picks-up-as-bears-take-control-200302543

https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/china-imposed-tariffs-on-us-products-to-balance-losses-state-media-1374900

https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/trump-to-unveil-china-tariff-list-this-week-targeting-tech-goods-1372710

https://www.investing.com/news/commodities-news/oil-inches-forward-despite-increased-russian-production-1375123

https://www.investing.com/quotes/us-dollar-index

https://www.investing.com/analysis/here-come-the-unicorns-part-ii-spotify-opts-for-direct-listing-200299556

https://www.ft.com/content/aa461838-3716-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544

https://www.fxstreet.com/currencies/eurusd