Stocks fall, gold gains after Trump sets tariff | Money News

By Stella Qiu and Amanda Cooper

SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) -Global shares fell on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up his tariff struggle towards Canada, leaving Europe squarely within the firing line, sparking a modest investor push into secure havens like gold, whereas bitcoin hit a new report high.

The Canadian greenback fell after Trump issued a letter late on Thursday that acknowledged a 35% tariff price on all imports from Canada would apply from August 1, including the European Union would obtain a letter by Friday.

The U.S. president, whose international wave of tariffs has upended companies and policymaking, floated a blanket 15% or 20% tariff price on different nations, a step up from the present 10% baseline price. This week he stunned Brazil, which has a commerce surplus with the United States, with duties of 50%, and hit copper, prescription drugs and semiconductor chips.

Aside from pockets of volatility in goal currencies, shares or commodities, markets have provided little in the way in which of response to the onslaught, leaving the VIX volatility index at its lowest since late February.

In Europe, the STOXX 600, which has risen 2.2% this week, fell 0.7%. Futures on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell 0.6%, pointing to a retreat from this week’s report highs on the open later.

“The market is becoming a bit numb to these (tariff) announcements, and perhaps it’s not until we see hard data showing an impact that we (will) start to see the market reacting,” City Index strategist Fiona Cincotta stated.

“Obviously, we’re getting more information through that does bring with it an element of clarity. Because there is so much uncertainty, there is still this idea that Trump could be open to negotiation, nothing feels ‘final’ still,” she stated.

The greenback rose 0.3% towards the Canadian greenback to C$1.3695. The euro, which has misplaced practically 1% in worth for the reason that begin of July, was down 0.2% at $1.1683.

Earlier within the week, Trump pushed back his tariff deadline of July 9 to August 1 for a lot of trading companions to permit more time for negotiations, however broadened his commerce struggle, setting new charges for a quantity of nations, together with allies Japan and South Korea, together with a 50% tariff on copper.

Joseph Capurso, head of worldwide economics on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, stated the tariff price of 35% on Canada was not as dangerous as feared as a result of most of the imports are nonetheless subject to exemptions underneath the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“Now the tariff rate on imports from the EU … That’s what we don’t know as yet,” Capurso stated. “If you get something similar to (the U.S.-China trade war in April), that’s going to be very destabilising.”