Elsewhere on Wall Street, Kroger fell 2.2 per cent after the grocery chain’s Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen resigned following an internal investigation into his personal conduct.
Stocks of companies enmeshed in the cryptocurrency economy did better after Trump said over the weekend that his administration was moving forward with a crypto strategic reserve.
MicroStrategy, the company that’s now known as Strategy and has been raising money to buy bitcoin, rose 2.1 per cent. Coinbase, the crypto trading platform, fell 0.4 per cent.
Tuesday will bring not only potentially new tariffs but also earnings reports from several big US retailers, including Target, Best Buy, Ross Stores and AutoZone.
Such reports are always highly anticipated because they can shed light on how well US consumers are doing, and spending by US households is the main engine for the world’s largest economy. But these reports could carry extra resonance following data showing US households may not be waiting for tariffs to hit to change their behaviour.
Across the Pacific in China, manufacturers reported an uptick in orders in February as importers rushed to beat higher US tariffs and a Chinese state media report said that Beijing was considering ways to retaliate.
Trump had imposed a tariff of 10 per cent on imports from, China and that’s scheduled to rise to 20 per cent beginning Tuesday. He also ended the “de minimis” loophole that exempted imports worth less than $US800 ($1280) from tariffs.
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In Hong Kong, Chinese bubble tea chain Mixue Bingcheng’s stock soared 43 per cent following its $US444 million debut on the market. The company claims to be the world’s largest food retail chain, with more than 45,000 outlets, and its jump came as the Hang Seng index rose 0.3 per cent.
Indexes rose by even more across Europe and in Tokyo. European markets leaped after a report showed an easing of inflation in February. That should help the European Central Bank, which investors widely expect will deliver another cut to interest rates later this week.
Germany’s DAX surged 2.6 per cent, and France’s CAC 40 jumped 1.1 per cent. Stocks outside the United States have performed better than the S&P 500 this year, even with Trump’s promises for “America First” policies
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.20 per cent from 4.24 per cent just before the manufacturing report’s release. It’s come down sharply since January, when it was approaching 4.80 per cent, as worries have built about the possibility of a slowing US economy.
Often, falls in Treasury yields can give a boost to stock prices because they make loans cheaper to get and give a boost to the economy. But the reason for this recent drop in yields, softer economic growth expectations, mean that’s not the case this time, according to Morgan Stanley strategists led by Michael Wilson.
AP
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