Talk of US curbs on investment in China drag global markets

US stocks logged back to back losses last week as Democrats initiated an impeachment hearing against President Trump over a phone call with the Ukrainian president. Trade war concerns remained in focus in light of reports White House is considering curbs on US portfolio investments into China, and US is unlikely to extend a waiver allowing American firms to do business with Chinese Huawei after it expires in November. The SP 500, Dow and Nasdaq’s upside push has reversed with main US stock indexes entering downtrend. SP500 loss more than doubled to 1.0% while the ICE US dollar index gains more than tripled to over 0.6%.

Only FTSE 100 out of six largest developed market indexes advanced last week. Nasdaq was the loss leader: it dropped 2.2%. Four out of six major currency pairs reversed previous week’s dynamics, and the range of major currency pairs’ weekly fluctuations narrowed while it shifted up. The Pound was the leader in terms of percentage change: it fell 1.4% against the US dollar.

Reports on US, Chinese and British economic performance such as US ISM manufacturing and services indexes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and US jobs report on Friday are the major events this week. And the Reserve Bank of Australia meets on Tuesday, with a quarter percentage point rate cut to 0.75% expected.