Increased US-China trade tensions trigger market volatility. US stocks experience a dramatic reversal, the Japanese yen strengthens, and gold prices rally. Our technical analysis covers key levels across major markets.
US stock indices resumed their bearish movements with USD/JPY
US stocks staged a dramatic reversal as investor sentiment soured over escalating US-China trade tensions. The S&P 500, which was up as much as 4% intraday, ended yesterday, 8 April US session with a sharp loss of 1.6%, highlighting growing market anxiety.
As of today, 9 April at 12:01 PM Singapore time, higher reciprocal US tariff rates have officially taken effect. China has been hit the hardest, facing an overall tariff rate of 104%, after President Trump imposed an additional 50% duty on all Chinese imports. The move came in response to China’s refusal to ease its earlier retaliatory tariffs on US goods.
Despite talk of potential deals between the US, South Korea, and Japan to soften the reciprocal tariffs on Japanese and Korean products, a risk-on environment prevails today as the focus is on a further intensified US-China Trade War 2.0
Also read: Tactical view for April – Trade tariffs woes back. Impact on markets.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 E-mini futures extended their declines in today’s Asia session, each down around 2% at the time of writing. Japan’s Nikkei 225 led regional losses, plunging 4.5%, while other major Asian bourses also traded firmly in the red.
Interestingly, the China and Hong Kong stock markets trimmed early losses from the opening, with the Hang Seng Index clawing back an intraday loss of 4% to a lesser magnitude of decline at 1.4% as China state funds were rumoured to have stepped into the markets to soften the negative sentiment from US trade tariffs.
Demand for safe-haven assets soared with the yen strengthening against the US dollar by 0.60% as the USD/JPY retested a major support level at 144.80. In addition, Gold (XAU/USD) staged an intraday rally of 1.1% in today’s Asian session while holding above its 50-day moving average, acting as a key intermediate support at US$2,955.
The latest intraday technical analysis on US Wall Street 30, US Nas 100, Hong Kong 33, Japan 225, Germany 30, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/JPY, Gold (XAU/USD), and West Texas Oil can be found in our YouTube video above.
