By Mike Dolan
LONDON (Reuters) – What matters in U.S. and global markets today
By Mike Dolan, Editor-At-Large, Financial Industry and Financial Markets
The escalating U.S.-China trade war has expanded and moved beyond tariffs, now hitting everything from chips to planes and pharma. The tensions upended the week’s fragile market stability while hitting the dollar again and spurring gold to new records.
Speaking of gold, in today’s column, I explore the rush for the precious metal this year and let you know which country has been dramatically ramping up imports.
Now onto the market news.
Today’s Market Minute
* Shares fell in Asia on Wednesday as AI darling Nvidia took a hit from U.S. curbs on chip sales to China, highlighting the damage to come in a tit-for-tat global trade war, while gold hit a record and the safe-haven currencies jumped.
* Nvidia did not warn at least some major customers in advance about new U.S. export rules it was told about a week ago requiring it to obtain licenses to sell its China-focused artificial intelligence chip, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
* China’s first-quarter economic growth outstripped expectations, underpinned by solid consumption and industrial output, but analysts fear momentum could shift sharply lower given the risk posed by U.S. tariffs.
* Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to transform India into a global factory floor has produced billions of dollars of low-cost iPhones and pharmaceuticals. Now he hopes to add missiles, helicopters and battleships to the shopping carts of foreign governments.
* U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status on Tuesday and said the university should apologize, a day after it rejected what it called unlawful demands to overhaul academic programs or lose federal grants.
US-China trade war goes full throttle
Investors fearful of facing endless more months of trade war-induced uncertainty were given a litany of new concerns overnight, while they also braced for a wave of retail and industrial reports and corporate earnings outlooks on Wednesday.
Shares in chip giant Nvidia plunged 6% in after hours trading on news that the firm is facing a $5.5 billion charge related to its most advanced chip available for sale in China. Washington issued new export licensing requirements for both its H20 artificial intelligence chip and AMD’s’s MI308 chip.
In addition, Trump ordered a probe into potential new tariffs on all U.S. critical minerals imports, on top of reviews into pharmaceutical and chip imports.
