NEW YORK (Reuters) – Making sense of the forces driving global markets
By Alden Bentley, Americas Finance and Markets Breaking News
Editor.
Jamie is away so I’ll provide a round-up of today’s main market moves below. I’d love to hear from you, so please reach out to me with comments at alden.bentley@thomsonreuters.com.
If you have more time to read today, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets.
1. White House would consider cutting China tariffs as partof talks, source says 2. Bessent says China tariffs are not sustainable as USsignals willingness to de-escalate 3. Americans sour on Trump’s handling of the economy,Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 4. Investors relieved Musk will refocus on Tesla, but worryabout brand damage 5. Citadel’s Griffin says Trump needs to be careful aboutTreasuries’ brand 6. Wall St rallies on tariff optimism, Trump eases Powellthreats 7. Tariffs restrain US business activity, boost askingprices for products
Today’s Key Market Moves
* The S&P 500 closes up 1.79%, the Nasdaq Composite ends2.61% higher and Dow Jones Industrial Average rises 1.22%. * The dollar rises 1.2% against the yen, trading at 143.28,near an eight-day high. The euro falls 0.84%. * Gold closes down 2.6%. * The 10-year Treasury note yield eases 0.8 basis point to4.3812%. * Brent crude oil falls 2% to $66.05 a barrel. * The pan-European STOXX 600 index rises 1.78%, whileEurope’s broad FTSEurofirst 300 index rises 1.75%. * MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japancloses 1.99% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei rises 1.89%.
Wall Street extends rebound as trade war fears subside
The bounce in U.S. stocks gained momentum on Wednesday as the Trump administration turned down the heat on its trade war with China that has so rattled markets, while the president distanced himself from his own calls for the immediate termination of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.
At one point Wall Street’s indexes were up more than 3%, with the S&P 500 hitting a two-week high, after a Wall Street Journal report cited a senior White House official as saying that U.S. tariffs on China were likely to come down to between roughly 50% and 60%.
There was talk of short covering even as investors were loathe to buy into a full-recovery scenario. They remain distrustful after the selloff on U.S. President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff declarations since April 2 earned the Nasdaq a bear-market label, the S&P 500 nearly so, and sent investors rushing out of dollar-based assets like Treasury bonds, which had been trusted safe-havens.
