China travels in red. The Hang Seng suffers more (-1.27%, but the declines have been even stronger) and Shanghai is recovering the losses of the start (+ 0.12%). What happens in Asia? Sales are focusing on the technology sector for fears of US retaliation on the import of tech goods from Chinese producers. And this happens while the officials sent by the American president, Donald Trump, to Beijing for dealing with duties have just arrived and have already anticipated that they will remain only until tomorrow evening.
Meanwhile, gold earns 0.34% to $ 1,310 an ounce and US oil (Wti) drops 0.15% to $ 57.83 a barrel. After the Fed expressed itself last night in the FOMC, during the night there was a certain volatility on the currencies and today the dollar trend is weak with the euro rising by 0.31% to 1.987 and the yen strengthens 0.22% to 109.6.
Yesterday, the Fed board signaled its willingness to allow inflation to just exceed the 2% target, adding a reference to the "symmetrical" nature of this objective. The Federal Open Markets Committee saw a slight increase in economic growth in the first quarter, but removed any reference in the March statement that the economic outlook would "be strengthened in recent months". The sentence was then balanced with an annotation to the strong growth of business investment. Investors in the US interpreted the speech as a confirmation of the 3 increases in the cost of money in 2018, of which the next one in June.
The US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, arrived today in Beijing for a two-day visit to discuss the frictions on trade between China and the United States. Mnuchin heads a special delegation that also includes US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House advisers Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow, and Us Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer. Scheduled for tomorrow's trip there are discussions with senior Chinese economic officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Liu He, economic advisor to President Xi Jinping, and head of the Chinese delegation in the talks.
The arrival of the delegation was also signaled by a tweet from US president Donald Trump, who says he is impatient to meet the Chinese president again, face to face. "Our big financial team is in China trying to negotiate an egalitarian trade plan!" Wrote Trump on Twitter shortly after the Mnuchin-led delegation arrived in Beijing. "I am looking forward to meeting President Xi in the near future, we will always have a good (big) relationship". The enthusiasm for the talks has, however, been greatly reduced in recent days, both on the Chinese and the American side.
"If the US delegation comes in good faith, the talks can be constructive," said Beijing's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, yesterday, adding that it would be unrealistic, however, to expect a resolution of problems after just one round of talks. The judgment of a Beijing government official, who in the past few hours had stressed at the South China Morning Post that China does not intend to succumb in the dispute over trade with the United States, and that China is ready to fight "until the end, is much harder "a trade war with the United States.
In particular, according to sources that have spoken to the New York Times in recent days, China does not intend to give in on two preconditions posed by Trump for the success of the negotiations: the reduction of bilateral trade deficit to the benefit of Beijing of one hundred billion dollars, and the downsizing of the advanced manufacturing development plan, the Made in China 2025.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has appealed to Donald Trump, asking the US president not to leave the Iranian nuclear agreement in 2015. Speaking to the BBC, Guterres warned that there will be a real risk of war if the agreement will not be preserved. Trump will decide by May 12 whether to exit the agreement.