Geopolitical tensions remain at the forefront as Trump raised the stakes on the whole Greenland situation over the weekend. In case you missed it, he threatened tariffs on eight European countries over their opposition to US control of Greenland. That being Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, and the UK.
The tariffs will come in two stages, the first being a 10% levy on all goods starting from 1 February. Thereafter, it will increase to 25% starting from 1 June unless “a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland”. Oh, what fun.
The erratic policy nature of the US administration is rearing its ugly head again. And that’s putting risk sentiment on the defensive. Meanwhile, precious metals are pushing higher while the dollar is struggling in the major currencies space. Go figure. It’s pretty much a repeat of 2025 once equities brush aside the geopolitical risks in due time.
All of this just continues to play into the structural narrative that has been building since Trump first threatened the world with tariffs in Q1 last year. So, yeah. That is the bigger picture story.
For US stocks, it might not be as easy to fade the negative headlines this time around. For one, we’ve seen such a heated rally in the past year already with tech shares and AI stocks not letting up. But now, AI valuation concerns are creeping in and there are more things to factor in when looking purely into the “AI trade” as seen here.
US futures are keeping lower still today awaiting the return of the long weekend in Wall Street. S&P 500 futures are still down 1.0% with Nasdaq futures down 1.1%. It’s pointing to a rough start but we’ll have to see if investors will feel comfortable enough to bounce back in the early stages this week.
I would be more confident in saying there’s better scope for European stocks to do so but at the same time, it’s also a good time to pull back a little there after having hit fresh record highs last week.
Three more years to go. Fun times, innit?
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.