Asia
The imposition of trade tariffs on steel and aluminium products by President Trump ignited fears of a trade war on Thursday and unsettled already fragile sentiment on Wall Street. The 420 point fall in the Dow Jones pushed the index below 25,000 and set the tone for another selloff in Asia-Pacific markets. Japan’s Nikkei bore the brunt of the weakness, losing 2.5% or 542 points on Thursday’s close. At 21,181 points, the Nikkei 225 is off 1,000 points since the start of the week.
The stock market’s weakness was compounded by a strengthening in the yen after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who suggested that the country’s ultra-loose monetary policy would start to be unwound in 2019. The dollar has come under pressure since the start of the year against the yen – trading around 113 yen in early January, the dollar is now threatening the 100 yen level.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng joined in the global selloff with a drop of 1.5% to 30,583 points, while both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Indices were off by less than 1% on Thursday’s close.
Europe
The FTSE 100 was trading around 50 points lower by midmorning, dragged down by weakness in leading mining stocks. Trade restrictions in products such as aluminium and steel are likely to directly affect the profitability of companies like Anglo American (AAL), Glencore (GLEN) and Rio Tinto (RIO).
In the eurozone, Italy’s FTSE MIB dropped 2% ahead of the weekend’s elections. German and French exchanges were also sold off.
North America
Canada’s GDP for December will be in focus on Friday – the North American economy is forecast to have grown by 3.4% on December 2016.
Futures markets suggest that Thursday’s selloff in US markets is likely to continue on Friday as fears over trade persist.
Among companies reporting are retailers JC Penney (JCP) and Foot Locker (FL).