- Trump: Tariffs on European cars and trucks coming into the US will increase to 25%
- Trump: Not satisfied with the latest Iran proposal, not sure we’re going to get a deal
- S&P Global Canada manufacturing PMI 53.3 vs 50.0 prior
- ISM Manufacturing index for April 52,7 vs 53.0 estimate
- Trump notified Congressional leaders today that US hostilities with Tehran are over
- Trump serves up a huge opportunity for the EU by raising auto tariffs
- Fed’s Logan: Fed should not give guidance implying easing right now
- US S&P Global manufacturing PMI for April 54.5 versus 52.3 last month
- Iran submitted its newest negotiation proposal — Iran state media
- BOE chief economist Pill says choosing to hold on rates is not a passive choice
Markets:
- S&P 500 up 0.3%
- Gold down $7 to $4615
- US 10-year yields down 1.8 bps to 4.37%
- WTI crude oil down $2.68 to $102.68
- USD leads, JPY lags
It’s Friday, so there is the usual angst about Trump escalating the Middle East war. That led to some late selling in equities and some buying in oil but the tale of the tape shows that the bulls won. Stocks still finished at record highs and oil was lower. We learned the Iran presented a new offer late yesterday (around the time the market went parabolic) but Trump said that he didn’t like the new offer. Of course, Trump is tough to read and that doesn’t mean bombs will be flying. Still, it’s always a few anxious hours after the close given the events of the past 10 weeks.
Generally, there was a continuation of Thursday’s risk-positive/war-negative market moves into the start of the US session that faded later. The euro move was particularly stark as it rose to 1.1780 and then fell to 1.1714. The reason for that is that Trump announced new auto tariffs on EU, for what he says was the EU’s non-compliance with the prior deal. Of course, this also comes after an escalating war of words between him and Germany’s Merz, along with rifts with Italy and Spain.
I fear that could open a bag of words as EU officials are having some buyers regret for accepting 15% tariffs last year in order to appease Trump. The risk is that instead of negotiating, they decide to fight back and we get a fresh trade war on top of the real war.
Economic was mostly ignored but the inflationary signals are mounting as the prices paid component in the ISM survey hit 84.6 from 78.3 and that’s the highest since 2022. It’s getting tough to ignore the impacts of government spending, immigration, AI super-spending, the trade war and the Iran war. It’s tough to imagine any of that leading to 2% inflation, or even 3%.
Have a great weekend.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.