US equities dipped lower at Thursday’s close as concerns over trade wars re-surfaced. Sentiment in Asia was fairly similar, although so far we did see some mixed results across the major Asian equity indices.
Focus shifts from Italy’s political concerns to the US’s latest moves on tariffs. Yesterday the US announced that steel and aluminium tariffs on imports from EU, Canada and Mexico would take effect from midnight. All effected regions have already announced retaliatery measures.
The US Dollar has however shrug off 2-days of losses as it resumed some upside. The US Dollar index reached 6-month highs last Tuesday when striking levels of 95.03, since then it pulled back and is currently at 94.14.
EURUSD has managed a small rebound after hitting support ahead of the 1.15 level last Tuesday, currently the currency pair is at 1.1678. EURUSD has been on a losing streak since mid-April. Political woes have been troubling the euro and in the most recent cases we’ve seen Italy shake as it tries to form a Government, while in Spain a corruption case has toppled Mariano Rajoy.
On today’s economic docket the highlight goes to Nonfarm payrolls and the latest health check on the US labour market.
