As Liberation Day approaches tomorrow, The Washington Post reports that the White House is floating 20% tariffs in response to similar measures from U.S. trading partners. President Trump is expected to address the matter during a 3 PM ET event in the Rose Garden. While the president is known for shifting positions abruptly, this move leans on the punitive side. Whether he will scale back remains uncertain—but market volatility is likely to persist as investors react to each new signal.
In FX markets, the three major pairs are mixed: the dollar is stronger against the EUR and GBP, but weaker versus the JPY.
Technicals may have also played a role in the price action. The video above outlines the technicals that are driving those three major currency pairs.
Another influence to the price action is sharply lower yields. To start the US session, yields are sharply lower with declines of -5.6 basis points to -8.9 basis points across the curve. A snapshot currently shows:
- 2-year yield 3.856%, -5.6 basis points
- 5-year yield 3.902%, -7.8 point basis points
- 10-year yield 4.157%, -8.9 basis points
- 30 year yield 4.525%, minus a .9 basis points
Looking at the premarket trading in the major US indices, they are down after a mixed close yesterday to end the month. The futures are currently implying:
- Dow industrial average -234 points
- S&P index -22.85 points
- NASDAQ index -71.2 points
Yesterday the major indices moved sharply to the downside in the first few hours of trading before rallying. The S&P and Dow industrial average closed higher on the day, while the NASDAQ index fell modestly for the fourth consecutive day. For the month, the NASDAQ index had its worst trading month (-8.21%) since December 2022. The S&P also had its worst trading month since that month (-5.75%.
Looking at other markets today:
- Crude oil is trading down $0.11 and $71.37
- Gold is trading higher by $8.11 or 0.26% at $3131.40. It’s a another record
- Bitcoin is also higher by around $1500 and $84,069
On the economic calendar today:
- S&P global PMI data for Canada and the US will be released at 9:30 AM and 9:45 AM respectively. Canadian data came in at 47.8 last month while the US data came in at 52.7. The preliminary for the US showed a decline to 49.8.
- US construction spending will be released at 10 AM. The expectations are a rise of 0.3% versus -0.2% last month
- US manufacturing PMI for March will also be released at 10 AM with expectations of 49.5 versus 50.3 last month. Prices paid expected and 65.0 versus 62.4. Employment last month came in at 47.6
- JOLTs job openings for February are expected at 7.616M vs 7.740M
