Baltic Dry Index. 1259 -83 Brent Crude 64.52
Spot Gold 3122 US 2 Year Yield 3.91 +0.20
US Federal Debt. 36.705 trillion!!!
At some point the Japanese, Chinese and Saudi buyers of US and
European Government bonds will see just what miserable value they offer. Then
governments may have to stop all the runaway spending and bailouts and even put
up interest rates.
Luke Johnson
In a stunning reversal of Trumponomics and victory for the Penguins of the Heard and
McDonald Islands who can now continue selling Trump’s America tariff free “electrical
machinery,” President Trump paused his tariff war on friend and foe alike,
merely pursuing it now against China.
A spokesman for the Penguins was unavailable
immediately for comment, but we are sure the Penguins are jubilant at their
victory over Team Trump.
If nothing else Trump 2.0 is great for exciting, if unpredictable, stock and commodity markets in 2025.
Look away from that collapsing shipping index
and soaring gold and crude oil prices now.
Japan's
Nikkei jumps over 8% as Asia-Pacific markets track Wall Street gains after
Trump pauses tariffs
Updated
Thu, Apr 10 202512:20 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets mostly rose Thursday, following Wall Street’s biggest burst of buying
since 2008 after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on higher
tariffs on all nations bar China.
Japanese
markets led gains in the region. The benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 8.35%, while
the broader Topix index advanced 7.59%.
South
Korea’s Kospi index
surged 5.38%, while the small-cap Kosdaq gained 5.09%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 4.67%.
Investors
will be keeping a close watch on Chinese stocks, as the U.S. raised
duties on imports from the Mainland to 125% after Beijing announced
plans to retaliate with an 84% levy on American goods.
Mainland
China’s CSI 300 rose 1%
while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
Index pared gains to 1.92%.
India
markets were closed for a holiday.
U.S. futures
rose after Trump’s pledge to pause tariffs on some trading partners
for 90 days spurred a massive surge on Wall Street.
Overnight
stateside, the broad-based S&P
500 skyrocketed 9.52% to settle at 5,456.90 for its biggest one-day
gain since 2008. This also marks its third-biggest
gain in post-WWII history.
Meanwhile,
the Dow Jones Industrial
Average advanced 2,962.86 points, or 7.87%, to close at 40,608.45 for
its biggest percentage advance since March 2020. The Nasdaq Composite jumped
12.16% to end at 17,124.97, notching its largest one-day jump since January
2001 and second-best day ever.
Ray
Dalio urges Trump to make a deal with China after U.S. pauses tariffs on other
countries
Bridgewater
Associates’ Ray Dalio on Wednesday implored U.S. President Donald Trump to make
a deal with Beijing after Trump announced to pause steep tariffs on all
countries barring China.
“There
are better and worse ways of handling our problems with unsustainable debt and
imbalances, and President Trump’s decision to step back from a worse way and
negotiate how to deal with these imbalances is a much better way. I hope and
expect that he will do the same with the Chinese,” Dalio said in a post on
social media platform X.
Trump’s
decision to pause tariffs sent Wall Street soaring overnight, with Asian
markets also jumping Thursday.
Asia
markets live: Stocks rise
Trump
limits tariffs on most nations for 90 days, raises taxes on Chinese imports
By JOSH BOAK Updated 1:38 AM GMT+1, April 10, 2025
WASHINGTON
(AP) — Facing a global market meltdown, President Donald
Trump on Wednesday abruptly backed off his tariffs on most nations for
90 days even as he further jacked up the tax rate on Chinese
imports to 125%.
It
was seemingly an attempt to narrow what had been an unprecedented trade war
between the U.S. and most of the world to a showdown between the U.S. and
China. The S&P 500 stock index jumped 9.5% after the announcement, but the
drama over Trump’s tariffs is far from over as the administration prepares to
engage in country-by-country negotiations. In the meantime, countries subject
to the pause will now be tariffed at 10%.
The
president hit pause in the face of intense pressure created by volatile
financial markets that had been pushing Trump to reconsider his tariffs, even
as some administration officials insisted the his reversal had always been the
plan.
As
stocks and bonds sold off, voters were watching their retirement savings
dwindle and businesses warned of worse than expected sales and rising prices,
all a possible gut punch to a country that sent Trump back to the White House
last year on the promise of combatting inflation.
The global
economy appeared to be in open rebellion against Trump’s tariffs as
they took
effect early Wednesday, a signal that the U.S. president was not
immune from market pressures. By early afternoon, Trump posted on Truth Social
that because more than 75 countries had reached out to the U.S. government for
trade talks and had not retaliated in meaningful ways, “I have authorized a 90
day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of
10%, also effective immediately.”
Trump
later told reporters that he pulled back on many global tariffs — but not on
China — because people were “yippy” and “afraid” due to the stock market
declines. He added that while he expected to reach deals, “nothing’s over yet.”
The
president said he had been monitoring the bond market and that people were
“getting a little queasy” as bond prices had fallen and interest rates had
increased in a vote of no confidence by investors in Trump’s previous tariff
plans.
“The
bond market is very tricky,” Trump said. “I was watching it. But if you look at
it now, it’s beautiful.”
The
president later said he’d been thinking about his tariff pause over the past
few days, but he said it “came together early this morning, fairly early this
morning.”
Asked
why White House aides had been insisting for weeks that the tariffs were not
part of a negotiation, Trump said: “A lot of times, it’s not a negotiation
until it is.”
More
Trump
limits tariffs on most nations for 90 days, raises China import tax | AP News
China
hits back in Donald Trump trade war with HUGE new tariff on US goods
China
has responded to Donald Trump's tariffs by hiking its own on US goods from 34%
to 84% - it comes after Trump's tariffs on around 60 'worst offender' countries
came into effect today
12:15,
9 Apr 2025 Updated 12:39, 9 Apr 2025
China
has reacted to Donald
Trump's tariff hike by increasing its own on US goods, rising to
84%.
The
US president sparked
fury in Beijing last week as he announced a tariff of 34% on
the nation, which was to come
on top of 20% levies he imposed on the country earlier this year. He has since
added a
50% levy on Chinese goods, bringing the combined total to an
eye-watering 104% against China. Beijing has now
reacted itself to Trump's tariffs and announced its reciprocal taxes on Chinese
goods exported to the US would increased - from 34% to 84% - and come into
force tomorrow.
China's
state media reported: "The State Council Tariff Commission issued an
announcement the rate of "reciprocal tariffs" on Chinese goods
exported to the US would be increased from 34% to 84%. The US's practice of
escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, seriously
infringing on China's legitimate rights and interests, and seriously damaging
the rules-based multilateral trading system.
"In
accordance with the Tariff Law of the People's Republic of China, the Customs
Law of the People's Republic of China, the Foreign Trade Law of the People's
Republic of China and other laws and regulations and basic principles of
international law, with the approval of the State Council, from 12:01 on April
10, 2025, the tariff increase measures on imported goods originating from the
United States will be adjusted."
Chinese
foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian earlier told a news conference: “The
U.S. continues to abuse tariffs to pressure China, China firmly opposes this
and will never accept this kind of bullying.”
He
added if Trump wants to solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation, it
should adopt an attitude of "equality, respect and mutual benefit."
However, if Trump "insists" on provoking a trade war, "China
will be compelled to fight to the end.”
Financial
markets across the world were thrown
even further into meltdown after Donald Trump hit China with huge
104% tariffs -
worsening fears of a new global recession. The FTSE
immediately dropped by 2.4% this morning and Asian shares sank again overnight
as the latest set of tariffs - including the massive levy on Chinese imports -
went into effect at around 5am BST.
More
China hits back in
Donald Trump trade war with HUGE new tariff on US goods - Mirror Online
Dramatic
sell-off of US government bonds as tariff war panic deepens
Falling
demand suggests loss of financial confidence in US as Donald Trump escalates
trade standoff with China
Wed
9 Apr 2025 17.37 BST
US
government bonds, traditionally seen as one of the world’s safest financial
assets, are suffering a dramatic sell-off as Donald Trump’s escalation of his
tariff war with China sends panic through all sectors of the financial markets.
The
falls suggest that as Trump’s
fresh wave of tariffs on dozens of economies came into force,
including 104% levies against Chinese goods, investors are beginning to lose
confidence in the US as a cornerstone of the global economy.
----The
yield – or interest rate – on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond rose to
4.516% on Wednesday before slipping back to 4.451%, up 0.14 percentage points
on the day. This week it has undergone the three biggest intraday moves since
Trump was elected in November. Yields move inversely to prices, so surging
yields mean falling prices as demand drops.
The
move in the 30-year bond was more dramatic. The yield briefly jumped above 5%
to its highest since late 2023 and was last trading at 4.899%, or 0.12
percentage points higher than Tuesday.
Both
yields came down from their highest levels, however, after a much-anticipated
$39bn (£31bn) US bond auction later in the day met market expectations.
“This
is a fire sale of Treasuries,” said Calvin Yeoh, a portfolio manager at the
hedge fund Blue Edge Advisors. “I haven’t seen moves or volatility of this size
since the chaos of the pandemic in 2020,” he told Bloomberg.
Analysts
believe the US Federal Reserve may need to step in. Jim Reid, at Deutsche Bank,
said: “Markets are pricing a growing probability of an emergency [interest
rate] cut, just as we saw during the Covid turmoil and the height of the GFC
[global financial crisis] in 2008.”
More
Dramatic
sell-off of US government bonds as tariff war panic deepens | Bonds | The
Guardian
European
Union approves first set of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports
Published
Wed, Apr 9 2025 9:18 AM EDT
The
European Union on Wednesday voted to approve its first set of retaliatory
measures to counter tariffs imposed by the U.S. on steel and aluminum.
The
European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said duties would start being
collected from April 15. The response package was unveiled last month targeting a range
of goods.
The
27-nation bloc had warned it would act
to protect European business and consumers after U.S. President Donald Trump
imposed 25% duties on the metals.
“The
EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both
sides, as well as the global economy. The EU has stated its clear
preference to find negotiated outcomes with the US, which would be
balanced and mutually beneficial,” the European Commission said.
The
EU also faces tariffs of 20%, along with over 180 countries and
territories, as announced by the White House leader on April 2.
European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the time said the EU was ready to retaliate unless
negotiations with the U.S. administration were successful.
“We
are prepared to respond,” she said, adding that the EU was preparing for
further countermeasures to protect its interests and businesses. But, von der
Leyen also called for talks with the U.S., saying it was “not too late to
address concerns through negotiations.”
Maros
Sefcovic, the EU’s commissioner for trade and economic security, said Monday that
the bloc would start collecting a first tranche of tariffs on U.S. imports from
April 15, with a second set of measures following on May 15.
The
U.S. tariffs are impacting 380 billion euros ($420.45 billion) worth of
Europe’s exports to the United States, amounting to around 70% of total
exports, Sefcovic said during a press briefing.
“To
put it in perspective, that’s over 80 billion euros in duties, an eleven-fold
jump from the 7 billion [euros] the U.S. currently collects,” he added.
European Union
approves first set of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports
Businesses
face a sobering reality: Under Trump’s tariff plan, reducing reliance on China
won’t be easy
Published
Wed, Apr 9 2025 1:57 AM EDT
Many
companies had been steadily reducing their reliance on China as a manufacturing
hub since President Donald Trump’s first term, hoping to blunt the impact of
punitive levies from the United States. Then his latest “reciprocal” tariffs
came along.
Trump’s
move to impose tariffs on goods on a broader swathe of countries is
now putting those diversification plans in disarray and leaving companies
scrambling to decide where and how their goods are produced.
Steve
Greenspon, CEO of Illinois-based houseware company Honey-Can-Do International,
started moving more of his production from China to Vietnam during Trump’s
first presidential term. The company supplies household durables such as
shelving units, coat hangers and laundry hampers to U.S. retail giants such
as Walmart, Target and Amazon.
The
company relied on Chinese suppliers for as much as 70% of its products before
Trump’s first term. That share has since fallen to less than a third as Vietnam
and Taiwan have become increasingly important as sourcing destinations.
News
of high tariffs on Taiwan and Vietnam stings, given the significant investments
made, Greenspon said.
“It’s
crushing to our company. It is disappointing. It is saddening. It’s
frustrating,” Greenspon said.
“As
a U.S.-based company, this is incredibly hurtful that our own government is
doing this to us,” he said, noting that moving production back to the U.S. is
not an option, given high labor costs and the absence of the requisite
infrastructure.
The
tariffs will only force businesses to charge higher prices from consumers,
eventually making these products’ pricing less competitive, he said.
Trump’s
trade war with China in his first term fueled the
“China Plus One” strategy, which saw many manufacturers shift part of their
production away from China to other Asian countries with lower labor costs and
moderate tariff risks from the U.S.
But
after Trump’s latest announcement of a much broader tariff regime — including a
minimum 10% baseline tariff on all countries and much higher tariff rates on
certain Asian economies — firms that adhered to “China Plus One” may be forced
to reevaluate their options.
“The
‘China Plus One’ strategy has been severely undercut by Trump’s tariffs that
have by now encompassed every U.S. trading partner,” Eswar Prasad, professor of
international trade and economics at Cornell University, told CNBC.
“The
viability of rerouting output and restructuring supply chains through countries
such as Vietnam and India, with whom the U.S. had more constructive trading
relationships, has been shattered by the latest round of tariffs,” he
added.
India
and Vietnam were two major beneficiaries of that shift away from China,
particularly in the apparel and
consumer electronics sectors. American tech giant Apple, for example,
has been producing more products in both
countries.
Imports from
India, Vietnam and Taiwan are now hit with additional levies totaling 26%,
46% and 32%, respectively. A punitive 104% tariff on China also took effect
Wednesday.
According
to Prasad, the high level of tariffs imposed on U.S. imports from China means
that there is still an advantage in routing supply chains through countries
subject to relatively lower tariffs.
“However,
the entire logic underpinning global supply chains as a means to cut costs and
improve efficiency has been decimated by tariffs,” he said, adding that it will
substantially add to the costs of maintaining “lean and mean supply chains”
that cross national borders, often many times over.
More
China supply chain
diversification challenged by Trump's tariffs
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Wall
Street starts to cut China growth forecasts as trade tensions with U.S.
escalate
Published
Tue, Apr 8 2025 10:57 PM EDT
BEIJING
— Citi on Tuesday became one of the first investment firms to lower its China
growth forecast on escalating trade tensions with the U.S.
In
less than a week, U.S. tariffs on goods from China have more than doubled,
while Beijing has hit back with more duties and restrictions on U.S.
businesses.
Citi
analysts cut their forecast for China’s gross domestic product to 4.2% this
year, down by 0.5 percentage point, as they see “little scope for a deal
between the U.S. and China after recent escalations.”
Natixis
on Monday also told reporters the firm was cutting its China GDP forecast to
4.2% this year, down from 4.7% previously.
Morgan
Stanley and Goldman Sachs have not yet cut their forecasts, but warned this
week of increasing downside risks to their expectation — currently both predict
4.5% growth.
China
in March announced its official growth target would be
“around 5%”
for 2025, but stressed that it would not be easy to reach the goal.
“The
main issue is that uncertainty for the economy is rising,” Hao Zhou, chief
economist at Guotai Junan International, said Tuesday in Mandarin, translated
by CNBC. He noted that visibility on future growth had dropped significantly,
while U.S. tariffs might keep on rising.
U.S.
President Donald Trump announced an additional 50% in tariffs on Chinese goods
entering the U.S. will take effect Wednesday after Beijing raised duties on all
U.S. products by 34%. As part of its plan for sweeping tariffs on multiple
countries, the White House last week had said it would add a 34% levy on
Chinese goods.
Combined
with two rounds of 10% tariff increases earlier this year, new U.S. tariffs on
Chinese products in 2025 have reached 104%.
Diminishing
impact from new tariffs
While
an initial 50% increase in duties could reduce Chinese GDP by 1.5 percentage
points, a subsequent 50% increase would drag it down by a smaller 0.9
percentage point, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a report Tuesday.
Chinese
exports to the U.S. account for about 3 percentage points of China’s total GDP,
Goldman said, noting that includes 2.35 percentage points of domestic value add
and 0.65 percentage point of associated manufacturing investment.
China
is expected to report March trade data on Monday, and first quarter GDP on
April 16.
Nomura
now expects China’s exports to drop by 2% this year, worse than their previous
expectation of no change, the firm’s Chief China Economist Ting Lu said in a
report Tuesday.
But
he kept his 2025 GDP forecast of 4.5%. “Given the extraordinarily fluid
situation, it is impossible to reasonably estimate the impact of the ongoing
U.S.-China trade war on China’s economy,” he said, adding that his forecast
already accounted for significantly worse tensions.
China
this week signaled it could cut interest rates or increase fiscal spending to
bolster growth in the near future.
Diminishing
impact from tariffs can also feed into Beijing’s calculus that U.S. leverage is
likely reaching a ceiling, Yue Su, principal economist, China, at the Economist
Intelligence Unit, said in an email.
“From
Beijing’s perspective, the strategic gains of a strong retaliation now appear
to outweigh the associated economic costs,” she said.
Wall Street starts to cut China GDP forecasts on U.S. trade tensions
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Technology
Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this
section. Updates as they get reported.
Today, shiver me timbers!
Prefabricated
timber tower will be constructed in just 90 days
By Adam Williams April 08, 2025
An
ambitious new timber tower in Toronto, Canada, is due to begin construction
soon. Thanks to its innovative prefabricated wooden design, the residential
building named 230 Royal York is expected to rise in a mere 90 days.
230
Royal York will actually be the tallest mass timber residential building in
Toronto. We've no word on its exact height yet, but, to be
clear, this is a modestly proportioned low-rise structure with a height of
approximately 30 m (almost 100 ft), not some crazy supertall.
Its
interior will include nine floors and 58 residences, and the renders depict
some outdoor terrace areas and greenery on the roof.
Structurally,
it will feature a concrete core and will primarily consist of sustainably
produced mass timber, such as glulam (glued laminated
timber) and CLT (cross-laminated
timber), which can outperform
steel in a fire. It's currently being prefabricated by Intelligent
City in a warehouse that makes use of automation and AI technology. Then, when
it's time for it to rise, the parts will be shipped to the site and go up
remarkably quickly, helping to reduce the disruption of neighboring homes.
"Using
advanced automation, including industrial robots and AI to process and assemble
building parts on the production line, the company is driving innovation in
industrialized construction processes," explains Intelligent City.
"This development is a true demonstration of the power of prefabricated
construction and sustainable materials reshaping the future of housing. By
moving work from on-site to off-site, this approach can cut the construction
time by three to four months."
230
Royal York is due to begin rising in May. It's being developed by Windmill
Developments and Leader Lane Developments. Other project partners include Oben
Build, Lang Wilson Practice in Architecture Culture Inc, and Moses Structural
Engineers.
The
project joins a remarkable number of timber towers being built in North America
at the moment, including the new world's
tallest in Milwaukee.
Source: Intelligent
City
Timber tower in
Toronto to be constructed in 90 days
Shiver my
timbers
"Shiver
me timbers" (or "shiver my timbers" in Standard English) is
an exclamation in
the form of a mock oath usually
attributed to the speech of pirates in
works of fiction. It is employed as a literary device by authors to express
shock, surprise, or annoyance. The phrase is based on real nautical slang
and is a reference to the timbers,
which are the wooden support frames of a sailing
ship.
More
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
The
stock market in Japan was half the world market and where has the Japan economy
gone since the 1990s? Nowhere. They've been struggling for two decades in the
aftermath of a massive bubble that's collapsed. They've tried to work their way
out of it by printing even more money and it hasn't worked. Now, I'm saying
this is what all the central banks are doing. There is no honest interest rate
in the world today.
David
Stockman
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