The Tuesday Market Minute
- Global stocks ease from multi-month highs amid heightened geo-political risks in the Asia region and new developments in Britain’s complex Brexit saga.
- President Donald Trump heads to Vietnam for a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un aimed at regional denuclearization.
- Pound trades at four-week high amid multiple reports that Prime Minister Theresa May is prepared to delay Britain’s March 29 Brexit deadline.
- Global oil prices extend declines, following yesterday’s 3%-plus declines triggered by Trump’s OPEC criticism.
- U.S. equity futures suggest modest declines on Wall Street ahead of Senate testimony from Jerome Powell and earnings from Home Depot, Macy’s and Discovery Communications.
Market Snapshot
Global stocks pulled away from multi-month highs Tuesday amid a series of geo-political risks that trimmed risked appetite in the Asia region and could ripple into the U.S. trading session ahead of key housing data and Senate testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
President Donald Trump heads to Vietnam later today for a Wednesday summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in which the two men will attempt to solidify terms of their 2018 meeting in Singapore aimed and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Trump told reporters in Washington Monday before heading to the region, however, that his trade team was “very close” to cutting a deal with China following weeks of negotiations between Washington and Beijing, adding it “could happen fairly soon, or it might not happen at all”.
The President’s non-committal stance on trade talk progress, despite his decision to extend a March 1 deadline on tariffs, pulled Asia stocks from their recent five-month highs and allowed U.S. equity futures to trade lower in early European hours.
Markets were also unsettled by news of a…
