Earnings season begins amid trade war, dashed optimism [Video]

Tariff-pause optimism didn’t last long. Although the European markets followed the US to the upside, mood in the US turned increasingly sour and led to another wave of selloff as the trade war escalated with China. China announced to restrict the US movie imports and the US increased its tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%. The S&P500 gave back 3.50%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq tanked more than 4% as Dow Jones fell 2.5%, shedding more than 1000 points. On the individual level, Disney lost 6%, while the owner of Temu, PDD, lost by a similar amount. Gold soared past the $3200 per ounce!

The futures are slightly in the positive this morning, but uncertainties persist. The fact that the volatility spreads into the government bond markets is not goods news.

Today begins the US earnings season. Big banks will open the dance with their Q1 earnings and projections - amid trade uncertainty and severely deteriorating growth projections - will take the center stage and shape investor sentiment. The forecasts will be revised lower, but how low remains to be seen. TSMC for example reported stronger-than-expected sales in Q1, sales increased by a whooping 42% - the fastest since 2022. Normally, such update would boost appetite for Nvidia – and it certainly limited losses – but Nvidia closed the session nearly 6% lower.