“Liberation Day” tariffs!

Stocks recoiled on Wednesday, while safe-haven gold held near record highs as a nervous world awaited details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and investors fretted about the risks of an intensifying global trade war.

“Whatever’s announced today, I doubt very much will be the framework that’s in place in, say, nine months’ time because we know there’ll be negotiations around this,” Daiwa Capital economist Chris Scicluna said.

“It’s very difficult to predict with any confidence what the ultimate impact is going to be, whether broadly, economically, in terms of rates or in terms of stock markets,” he said.

“Investors are hoping for some clarity, and perhaps the start of the deal-making phase. But tariffs are already weighing on business sentiment, and this will probably feed through into lower global economic activity in the coming months,” said Ben Bennett, Asia-Pacific investment strategist at Legal & General Investment Management.

Source – Reuters