Investors turn to safe havens as fresh US tariffs and threats darken the mood
Pedestrians walk past an electric quotation board displaying the numbers on the Nikkei 225 index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo, Japan, on December 2 2019. Picture: AFP/KAZUHIRO NOGI
Investors turned to safe havens, boosting bond prices and sending gold to a one-month high, while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.9%. The yield on benchmark US 10-year treasuries fell as low as 1.6930% overnight, the sharpest fall since May. It stood at 1.7242% on Wednesday.
No high-level meetings are scheduled and the parties still needed to sort out details about Chinese purchases of US farm products and an enforcement mechanism, he said.That put the brakes on a rally that had lifted the S&P 500 almost 10% since early October, when top diplomats from China and the US met and outlined an initial agreement that Trump said he hoped could be sealed within weeks.
In currency markets China’s yuan took a beating and there was a flight to the safe-haven Japanese yen and to the Swiss franc, which held just under a one-month high on Wednesday.
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