Asian investors struggled Thursday to build on much-needed gains on Wall Street as a below-forecast read on US inflation was offset by ongoing concerns about President Donald Trump’s trade war.
With governments around the world trying to figure out how to respond to the US president’s tariffs agenda and threats of further measures, equity markets have been plunged into turmoil amid uncertainty about what is to come.
While attention has been mostly on the trade saga in recent weeks, Wednesday provided a little relief as data showed US consumer inflation slowed slightly more than expected in February — the first full month of Trump’s second term.
The report also revealed core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, had come in below consensus.
The figures helped temper some worries about a recent uptick in prices.
However, National Australia Bank’s Tapas Strickland said it was “worth noting the data was for February and thus largely pre-dates any potential tariff impacts”.
There has been a growing concern among investors that Trump’s tariffs and pledges to slash taxes, regulations and immigration would reignite inflation, force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates again and cause a recession.
And Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management warned that while markets reacted positively to the consumer price readings, there was still a lot of uncertainty in markets.
“Let’s be clear, this isn’t a free pass to rally unchallenged. The real question now is how far Trump is willing to push on tariffs and government cuts,” he wrote in a commentary.
“With April 2’s reciprocal tariff D-Day looming, traders would be foolish to dismiss his resolve to rewrite global trade,” he added, referring to another round of levies due to come into effect.
“If the past few weeks have proven anything, his tolerance for the ‘pain trade’ (US stocks lower) is far higher than the market assumed.”
In early Asian trade, markets moved in a tight range.
Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore, Wellington and Jakarta fell while Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei and Manila rose.
Mark Hackett at Nationwide said “for the last three weeks, traders have felt like buying this market is like trying to catch a falling knife”.
Focus is also turning to developments in the Ukraine crisis after Kyiv endorsed a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, with Washington saying it wants Russia to agree to an unconditional halt to hostilities.
The Kremlin said it was awaiting details of the US proposal and gave no indication of its readiness to stop fighting but Trump warned “devastating” sanctions were possible if Russian President Vladimir Putin refused an agreement.
