European market higher but Asian equities wobble

Fiona Cincotta
By :  ,  Senior Market Analyst

Although European markets started the day on a marginally higher note, Asian markets felt the full weight of the pressure a day before the US starts imposing punitive tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products with China expected to retaliate with tariffs on US goods of the same value.

Greenback wobbles ahead of tariff deadline

The US currency is wobbling against the pound and the common currency and is down from a six week high against the yen. 

The euro is trading up 0.34% against the greenback while the pound strengthened against the US currency by 0.11% with the potential fallout of the tariff tit-for-tat between the US and China remaining the main theme to colour early trading. 

Later in the day, however, the focus will shift onto a set of key US economic indicators which will provide an insight into the health of the domestic labour market, housing demand and the state of the services industry. None of them are expected to throw a major surprise which will dovetail with the Federal Reserve’s recent discussions.

The FOMC is due to release their minutes this afternoon which are broadly expected to show an upbeat view of the US economy and potentially confirm that the Fed may stay the course on its rate setting agenda. But markets could still end up being disrupted by central bankers’ comments about the impact of the tariff wars between the US and its major trade partners.

Oil prices slip ahead of US oil data

Global trade war fears continue to affect markets outside of equities and currencies as witnessed by the price drop in oil. The black gold was on the slide after two weeks of strong gains and because the US market was closed for a public holiday Wednesday most of the selling was happening in Asia. 

The US benchmark contract traded down 0.4% while September Brent slipped 0.7%. The US weekly crude oil data is due to be released at 4pm London time and will show if US crude oil inventories continued to decline as they have for the last seven weeks, according to the US EIA.e

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