Gold cannot go five minutes without setting a new record high. The precious metal wasted no time this morning in the Asian session, climbing straight to $3,283 an ounce before deliberating its next move. The flight to safety extended to the Swiss Franc, which is already up one cent versus the Dollar as of this morning.
The argument in favour of safe-haven flows is still a convincing one. The 90-day pause on the new tariffs was only ever designed to be temporary and the path forward remains unclear. In a new twist, Federal Register filings revealed on Monday that the US administration is intending to conduct an investigation into semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports. The investigation, launched by the Department of Commerce, seeks to establish how imports of computer chips, as well as the machinery to fabricate them, affect the national security of the United States. Markets were all too happy to hear that electronic products would be excluded from the sweeping reciprocal tariffs, but this latest development suggests that the above imports would fall under “sector specific” tariffs.
On Tuesday, a filing from Nvidia indicated that the company’s sales to China would be affected by the imposition of export licences, resulting in $5.5 billion in extra charges to the chipmaker. The uncertainty surrounding future trade arrangements, particularly in the technology sector, continues to weigh on stock markets around the world. Futures markets are low ahead of the US open later today and Asian stocks are once again on the back foot this morning.
The lack of clarity is certainly doing nothing to perk up oil markets, which continue to advertise some of the lowest crude prices seen in years. Every major bank appears to have adjusted their forecasts to the downside, both in terms of demand and price. Brent Crude is back up to $64 a barrel as of this morning while West Texas continues to tread water above $60.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to deliver a speech this evening, in what is likely to be the only newsworthy story of the day – at least in terms of scheduled events. The Dollar Currency Index is currently unwilling to reclaim the 100 level, despite the fact that interest rate traders are once again favouring a hold during the next meeting on the 7th of May.
Advertencia de riesgos : Productos derivados del trading y productos potenciados poseen un nivel más alto de riesgo.
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