Headlines:
- Silver jumps to a new all-time high as Trump threatens tariffs over Greenland
- Nasdaq futures extend losses as Trump declares trade war over Greenland. What’s next?
- Another start to the week, another one with Trump making the headlines
- Trump and TACO: Will it be different this time?
- One last chance to preserve the old world order?
- European officials continue to hit back at Trump over Greenland tariffs threat
- EU says no planned meeting between von der Leyen and Trump in Davos for now
- Japan prime minister Takaichi makes announcement to call for snap election
- Japan prime minister Takaichi says ready to take necessary action on speculative FX moves
Markets:
- CHF leads, USD lags on the day
- European equities lower; S&P 500 futures down 1.0%
- Gold up 1.6% to $4,670.12
- WTI crude oil down 0.7% to $59.00
- Bitcoin down 2.5% to $92,989
Once again, it’s another start to the week with Trump making all the headlines. This time around, he delivered a tariffs threat to European countries “meddling” with Greenland affairs as he steps up geopolitical tensions in the region. All this of course before he travels to Davos for the World Economic Forum later this week.
Trump threatened 10% tariffs on all goods starting 1 February, with the potential to escalate that to 25% come 1 June after.
And that’s keeping markets on the defensive with the risk mood looking sour to start the new week. US markets might be closed but equity futures are battered with S&P 500 futures down 1%. In Europe, major indices in the region are also bleeding by over 1% as geopolitical risks now transfer over to economic risks.
In the major currencies space, the dollar is lower across the board as the narrative here just adds to the debasement trade. EUR/USD is up 0.3% to 1.1626 with USD/CHF down 0.6% to 0.7983 with the Swiss franc the most favoured amid the risk-off flows.
USD/JPY had some back and forth but is sitting little changed near 158.00 on the day. That as Japan prime minister Takaichi confirms a snap election for 8 February in order to try and consolidate power after having began her term in October last year.
As traders stick with the currency debasement trade, the big winners are once again precious metals. Gold and silver and rallying strongly after a gap higher with the latter pushing gains of over 3% on the day above $93. The former is also posting solid gains of just under 2% around $4,670 as it remains the preferred option for traders and investors to diversify away from fiat currencies.
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.