Zero Hedge
July 26, 2018
It was a tale of two markets on Thursday, with industrial and European stocks opening much higher on Thursday, pushing world stocks to new four-month highs after Donald Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker agreed to negotiate on trade, putting fears of a transatlantic trade war on hold for the time being. At the same time, Nasdaq futures and tech stocks around the globe were hit after Facebook shocked investors yesterday, by not only missing on revenue (for the first time in 3 years), and number of users, but with its unexpectedly low guidance. S&P 500 futures also pointed lower, however the drop has been contained.
In what the EU chief called a “major concession,” President Trump agreed on Wednesday to refrain from imposing car tariffs while the two sides launch negotiations to cut other trade barriers. As a result, there were gains across the board for European stocks on Thursday morning, led by the continent’s auto sector, which was up 2% at one point German’s export-reliant and auto-heavy index rose 1.4%.
It wasn’t just Europe: the global trade truce sent the MSCI world equity index to its highest level since March 16.
“The lifting of the threat of tariffs on the auto sector in particular is a major development. We’ve not seen a lot of actual measures implemented but it should lift the confidence of manufacturers,” said RBC European economist Cathal Kennedy.
“The feedthrough should come through in the manufacturing sector and confidence indicators in the coming months.”
Meanwhile, some more dark clouds gathered over China: Asian stocks were held back by weakness in China, where the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.7% and blue-chip shares lost 1.1%, despite China announcing even more stimulus overnight.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Why? Because with Europe now siding with the US, and with transatlantic mood was improving, the collapse of the…