This Tuesday’s list of market movers include data on US manufacturing, trade war tensions, semiconductor-related news, weak oil prices and the strengthening US dollar.
While major indices ended mixed in Asia, investors’ sentiment is mostly bearish in Europe where all major indices weakened towards the close, having lost more than half a percent on average. The US markets opened significantly lower after the ISM manufacturing index reported a disappointing result of 49.1 in August. It is the lowest level in three years, which suggests that US factory activity is contracting.
Meanwhile, the US and China meanwhile haven’t set the date for their September talks yet. The officials from both sides are reported to be facing difficulties setting basic terms for further discussion.
Chinese communication equipment maker Huawei is accusing the U.S. of intimidation saying the latter is harassing its employees and orchestrating attacks on its internal network.
Oil continues to decline, the WTI is losing more than 3.5%, as expectations of the economic slowdown are growing even higher on today’s sluggish data on US manufacturing, and the trade war uncertainties.
The US dollar hit a two-year high after the dollar index rose to 99.37 on expectations that the Fed is not aggressively dovish, and the global growth numbers are weakening, making the world’s central banks get relatively more dovish.