Chris Becker

Risk sentiment continued its decline over the Easter weekend with Wall Street snapping back nearly 3% lower overnight as it appears all the puffery around trade deals from the Trump regime is exactly that – hot air!

As the world fights back against the Trump regime’s tariff nonsense, the latest Japanese trade figures showing a sharp decline in exports to the US year on year while locally the latest numberwang showed mixed sentiment around employment that could upset the expected cut from the RBA in May.

Volatility in equity markets is ramping up after another round of Trump tariff nonsense against China while a miss or two amongst US tech stocks is not helping risk sentiment with S&P and Eurostoxx futures sharply down going into tonight’s session.

Risk sentiment is flat lining again as stock market volatility moves lower but all eyes still remain on US Treasuries and the USD itself with Swiss Franc now taking the lead while Euro took a slight back seat on poor sentiment readings in Germany.

Volatility in equity markets is slowly cooling down and indeed spreading to currency markets with some range trading across the Asian session today although the Kiwi is making big gains against the USD while the Australian dollar remains well above the 63 cent level this afternoon.

Risk sentiment is slowly lifting and stock volatility moving lower but all eyes must remain on global bond markets and the USD as the big shift is happening beyond the equity market headlines.

Finally a relatively non-volatile trading session today although the newsflow remains weird with more Trumpian two-steps around tariffs on Chinese goods, while all eyes remain on the canary in the mine – the bond markets.