Trump Rattles Markets With Latest EU Tariff Threats

Economic

Summary:

US President Donald Trump threatened a sweeping 50% tariff on the European Union starting June 1. Trump also made a threat to place a 25% levy on Apple if the tech giant failed to move iPhone manufacturing to the US. The comments, made in social media posts, have reignited investor fears about his trade agenda.

Trump accused the EU of being “very difficult to deal with” and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News that he hopes the message would “light a fire under the EU.” This latest posturing comes after the EU earlier this week shared a revived trade proposal with the US in a bid to jump-start talks.

Equities dropped across the globe, with the S&P 500 and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index each sinking about 1%. Apple led a selloff in tech, falling 2%. The dollar slid toward its lowest since 2023 and Treasury yields plunged across the curve.

Trump’s latest tariff threat would hit $321 billion worth of US-EU goods trade, lowering US gross domestic product by close to 0.6% and boosting prices by more than 0.3%, according to Bloomberg Economics calculations.

Faster US inflation triggered by tariffs wouldn’t necessarily spill over into the euro zone, according to European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane. “With floating exchange rates, there’s nothing mechanical linking inflation here with the US,” Lane said Friday in Florence, Italy. “It’s important to remember inflation is under our control. So the global inflation concept is not totally well founded.” Tighter US monetary policy could actually curb price growth in Europe by acting as a drag on the world economy, the Irish official said.

Visa and Mastercard fees are under fresh scrutiny from European Union antitrust enforcers. Less than a decade ago a series of probes ended with hefty fines and an agreement to cut some of their controversial levies. While at an early stage, it’s possible the EU’s competition watchdog could move toward opening of a formal probe, ramping up the risk of heavy fines of as much as 10% of annual revenue if firms are found to have abused their market dominance.

Attacks on power infrastructure have become a feature of Russia’s attempts to conquer Ukraine. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, 63,000 pieces of energy infrastructure have been damaged, according to the Energy Ministry. But as the war has dragged on, the disruptions have been shorter. The grid has been reengineered to be less reliant on massive Soviet-era thermal power stations, and more distributed and diverse in its sources. Under fire, Ukraine has built a system that is more resilient — and greener — than what it had before.

Harvard University sued the Trump administration over its move to block it from enrolling international students, ratcheting up a high-stakes legal fight with broad implications for higher education in the US. The Trump administration issued its decision on Thursday, delivering a major blow to the university and escalating the government’s fight with elite colleges to an unprecedented level. The government’s action has thrust thousands of foreign students into limbo.

The EU has decided to delay the application of tougher capital requirements for banks’ trading businesses as the bloc is concerned about the industry’s competitiveness. The regulation known as Fundamental Review of the Trading Book will be pushed back by one year to the start of 2027, a European Commission spokesperson said. It’s the second such delay. The EU decision comes amid rising pushback from businesses and national governments across the bloc against what they see as excessive red tape, especially in financial services.

Farms across wide swaths of Europe are parched after an unusually dry spring, evidence of the increasing threat of climate change to homegrown grains. The sunny stretch follows a winter marked by long periods of low rain and snowfall in key crop-producing regions. Total precipitation in Europe from February through April was below long-term averages, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.

Iran and the US have started their next round of talks on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, it was reported. The delegations are headed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, ISNA added. The talks are taking place in Rome and are being mediated by Oman. Earlier Iran said it’s “time to decide,” with the main sticking point being whether Tehran will be able to continue enriching uranium.

Europeans are planning 10% fewer trips to the US as the busy summer season approaches, in the latest sign that some international travelers are avoiding America as backlash grows against President Donald Trump’s policies.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

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Adam

Economic

Sales of new U.S. single-family homes unexpectedly increased in April as builders lowered prices to lure buyers, but rising mortgage rates and an uncertain economic outlook remain constraints for the housing market.

New home sales surged 10.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 743,000 units last month, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said on Friday.

The sales pace for March was revised down to a rate of 670,000 units from the previously reported 724,000 units.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales, which make up about 14% of U.S. home sales, declining to a rate of 693,000 units.

Source: Reuters

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Adam

Commodity

Economic

A protracted slump in crude prices has ramped up the pressure on Big Oil’s commitment to allocate cash to shareholders.

Western energy supermajors have long sought to return cash to investors through buyback programs and dividends to keep their shareholders happy. Energy executives have also expressed confidence that they can continue to reward investors following a relatively robust set of first-quarter earnings.

Some analysts, however, are less convinced about Big Oil’s pledge to return ever-higher shareholder returns, citing already stretched balance sheets and a sharp drop in crude prices.

Oil prices have fallen more than 12% year-to-date amid persistent demand concerns and U.S. President Donald Trump’s back-and-forth trade policy.

Espen Erlingsen, head of upstream research at consultancy Rystad Energy, said recent market volatility has left the energy majors with “few economically attractive options” that allow for reinvestment while maintaining a competitive capital returns framework.

“As companies like Shell and ExxonMobil continue to push ahead with large-scale buyback programs despite shrinking cash inflows, the durability of these strategies is in question. For now, the majors are holding the line. But if oil prices remain depressed, adjustments may be inevitable,” Erlingsen said in a research note published Thursday.

Share buybacks, which are typically more flexible than dividends, are “likely to be the first lever pulled,” he added. In that vein, weaker crude prices mean energy majors will have less cash to return to shareholders.

Investor concern over the sustainability of Big Oil’s shareholder returns comes after a year of record-breaking payouts.

Analysts at Rystad said total shareholder rewards from the likes of Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Eni, Exxon Mobil and Chevron climbed to a whopping $119 billion in 2024, beating the previous record set in 2023.

The payout ratio, which refers to shareholder payouts as a share of corporate cash flow from operations (CFFO), meanwhile jumped up to 56% last year, Rystad said. That was well above the 30% to 40% range that was typical for the industry from 2012 through to 2022, the analysts added.

If shareholder payouts were to remain at 2024 levels throughout 2025, Rystad said this would imply companies distribute more than 80% of their cash flow to investors. The estimate was based on Big Oil’s first-quarter CFFO as a proxy for full-year performance.

Point of maximum weakness

For European majors, analysts at Bank of America said at the start of the year in a note entitled “bye-bye buybacks?” that it anticipated cuts in such returns, from companies whose balance sheets were already stretched.

The Wall Street bank cited BP, Repsol and Eni at the time. It added that only Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor were among the regional players likely to keep their respective 2025 buyback run-rates intact.

Spokespersons for Repsol and Eni were not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.

So far, BP is the only European energy major to have trimmed its buyback run-rate. The beleaguered British oil company last month posted a sharp fall in first-quarter profit and reduced its share buyback to $750 million, down from $1.75 billion in the prior quarter.

BP, which has been the subject of intense takeover speculation, also reported significantly lower cash flow and rising net debt for the first quarter.

Lydia Rainforth, head of European energy, equity research at Barclays, said BP’s future appears to be “really bright” — on the condition that the company can get through the next six months.

“If I think about when is that point of maximum weakness for BP, it is over the next six months, ultimately. Debt continues to go up a little bit, production continues to fall until mid-2026,” Rainforth told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on Thursday.

“As I get towards the end of the year, hopefully we’ll see that sum of divestments taking down debt. Things like … selling their lubricants business, that could raise between $12 billion to $15 billion. It brings down debt, you start to see the benefit of cost savings coming through, and then production growth starts kicking in next year,” she added.

source : cnbc

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Daniel Carter

Economic

Political

“These deals are moving quickly, and I think as we approach the end of the 90-day period, we're going to see more and more of them announced,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday. “Many of the Asian countries have come with very good deals.”

Bessent said that most US trading partners have been negotiating “in very good faith,” and that the European Union is an “exception.” Trump earlier Friday threatened a 50% tariff on EU goods starting on June 1, saying “our discussions with them are going nowhere.”

“I think this is in response just to the EU's pace,” Bessent said of Trump's threat. “I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU.”

The Treasury chief has been tapped by Trump as point person for negotiations with a number of Asian trading partners, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has taken the lead on European talks. Bessent reiterated his view that the EU has a “collective action problem” in negotiating, because of the need to assemble a unified position among multiple member nations.

Bessent declined to specify which nations the US is likely to announce deals with in the coming weeks. He did say that “we're far along with India.”

He also said that the so-called liberation day tariff rates that Trump announced April 2 were “based on countries coming to us and negotiating in good faith.” After that announcement, Bessent had repeatedly said that those rates were a ceiling unless other nations retaliated. “If you don't retaliate, that is the ceiling,” he said April 9 at an American Bankers Association event. The EU was assigned a 20% rate last month, less than half the level of Trump's Friday threat.

Asked about the tax bill that passed the House earlier this week, the Treasury chief said that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is aiming “to take this up immediately, and I'm not expecting that there's going to have to be that much change” in the legislation in that chamber.

Source: Theedgemarkets

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Adam

Stocks

China–U.S. Trade War

European stocks tumbled, the euro gave back some gains, and euro zone government bond yields fell sharply on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he is recommending a straight 50% tariff on goods from the European Union starting on June 1.

Trump's remarks in a social media post, brought a sudden halt to investors expectations that the bulk of tariffs Trump announced in early April would be negotiated away, a view which had supported stocks market gains in recent weeks.

Europe's broad Stoxx 600 index (^STOXX) was last down 2%, with auto and banking stocks both falling well over 3%.

U.S. S&P 500 futures also fell around 1.5%, as investors also worried that the tariffs would hurt U.S. and global growth.

"This is a major escalation of trade tensions," said Holger Schmieding, chief economist, at Berenberg.

"With Trump you never know but this would be a major escalation. The EU would have to react and it is something that would really hurt the U.S. and European economy."

nvestor expectations that tariffs would hurt economic growth in the currency bloc caused them to up bets on the scale of European Central Bank easing this year, and sent them scurrying to government bonds.

Germany's rate-sensitive two year bond yield was last down 10 basis points at 1.73%, while benchmark 10 year yields were down 9 bps at 2.55%.

In currency markets the biggest gainer was the safe haven Japanese yen. The dollar was last down 0.9% on the yen at 142.77, while the euro was down 0.56% at 161.43 yen.

The euro was more muted versus the dollar - in recent weeks investors have sold the U.S. currency when worried about tariffs - and so traders had to balance that with concern about the euro zone growth outlook.

The euro gave back some of its earlier gains against he dollar on the tariff news, but remained 0.3% higher on the day at $1.1311.

source : finance.yahoo

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Damon

Cryptocurrency

In the often unpredictable world of cryptocurrency, even exclusive events don’t guarantee profits. A recent report sheds light on a surprising reality for some of the most prominent holders of the TRUMP memecoin. While former U.S. President Donald Trump hosted an exclusive dinner for the top 220 holders of the token, the financial picture for many wasn’t as bright as the occasion might suggest. This situation offers a valuable look into the volatile nature of political tokens and the broader memecoin performance landscape.

What’s Happening with TRUMP Memecoin Holders?

The premise was unique: an invitation-only dinner hosted by Donald Trump himself, extended to the top 220 individuals holding the TRUMP token. This event could easily be perceived as a reward for loyalty or a catalyst for positive sentiment around the token. However, a report by The Guardian, citing data analysis, revealed a less celebratory financial outcome for a significant portion of this elite group.

Out of the 220 top TRUMP token holders invited, 95 were found to have incurred net losses.
This means approximately 43% of the most prominent holders are currently “in the red” on their TRUMP memecoin investments.
The total combined losses for these 95 individuals amount to a staggering $8.95 million since the token’s launch in January.

This finding is particularly noteworthy because these are not just casual investors, but the individuals holding the largest quantities of the token, often assumed to have gotten in early or have significant influence. Yet, a substantial percentage are facing considerable crypto losses.

Analyzing the Crypto Losses Among Top TRUMP Token Investors

Delving deeper into the data highlights the severity of these losses for some individuals. The report specifically points out one user, known by the address label “GAnt,” who ranks fourth on the overall TRUMP token leaderboard by holdings. Despite their high ranking, GAnt has reportedly suffered the steepest individual loss among the group, totaling $1.06 million.

This situation underscores a critical point about cryptocurrency markets, especially memecoins: holding a large position or being an early adopter does not automatically guarantee profit. Factors influencing these crypto losses can include:

Potential Factors Contributing to Losses:

Buying Near Peaks: Some top holders might have accumulated their large positions during periods of high price speculation, leaving them vulnerable to subsequent corrections.
Market Volatility: Memecoins are notoriously volatile. Sharp price drops can quickly erase gains or deepen losses, regardless of entry point.
Lack of Liquidity: For large holders, exiting positions without significantly impacting the price can be challenging, potentially leading to less favorable execution prices.
Broader Market Conditions: The performance of individual tokens like TRUMP is often influenced by the overall sentiment and trends in the wider cryptocurrency market.

The fact that such significant losses are observed among the top echelon of TRUMP token holders serves as a stark reminder of the inherent risks involved in highly speculative assets.

Why Are Memecoin Performance Metrics Showing Red?

Memecoin performance is driven primarily by hype, community sentiment, social media trends, and often, specific events. Unlike traditional assets or even many established cryptocurrencies with underlying technology or use cases, memecoins derive value almost entirely from speculation and cultural relevance.

The TRUMP memecoin adds a layer of political affiliation to this dynamic. Its price can be influenced not only by general crypto market movements but also by political news, polls, and events related to Donald Trump.

Characteristics Affecting Memecoin Performance:

Characteristic	Impact on Performance
Hype-Driven	Rapid pumps followed by sharp dumps are common.
Community Sentiment	Positive sentiment fuels growth; negative sentiment leads to crashes.
Lack of Fundamentals	Value is speculative, not based on utility or revenue.
Concentrated Ownership	Large holders can significantly influence price through large buy or sell orders.

While a gala dinner might generate positive buzz, it doesn’t change the underlying market forces or the speculative nature of the asset. The data suggests that for many top Crypto investors in TRUMP, the market reality has outweighed the positive optics of the event.

Understanding the Volatility for TRUMP Memecoin

The TRUMP memecoin’s journey since its January launch has been marked by significant price swings. Its value is intricately tied to political developments and the broader cryptocurrency market sentiment. While it has seen periods of rapid appreciation, often correlated with political milestones or endorsements, it has also experienced sharp downturns.

The report highlights that even those who invested relatively early might be underwater if they bought during specific peaks or failed to take profits during rallies. The $8.95 million in crypto losses among the top 95 holders is a testament to the power of market downturns, even for those with significant positions.

This volatility is a key characteristic of memecoins and political tokens. Investors are essentially betting on continued hype and positive sentiment, which can dissipate quickly. The exclusive dinner, while perhaps boosting morale for attendees, did not insulate their portfolios from the market’s movements.

Actionable Insights for Aspiring Crypto Investors

The situation with TRUMP memecoin holders provides valuable lessons for anyone considering investing in cryptocurrencies, particularly speculative assets like memecoins:

Hype is Not a Strategy: Don’t invest based solely on social media trends, celebrity endorsements, or exclusive events. Look beyond the hype.
Understand the Risks: Memecoins carry extremely high risk. Be prepared to lose your entire investment.
DYOR (Do Your Own Research): Understand what you’re investing in, its tokenomics (if any), and the potential factors influencing its price.
Risk Management is Crucial: Never invest more than you can afford to lose. Consider setting stop-losses or taking profits during pumps.
Diversification: Don’t put all your funds into one highly speculative asset.

Even top Crypto investors are susceptible to market downturns. Success in crypto investing requires careful consideration, risk management, and a realistic understanding of the assets you hold.

Conclusion: The Reality Behind the Gala

The report revealing that 43% of the top TRUMP memecoin holders are in the red, collectively losing $8.95 million, offers a sobering perspective. While an exclusive dinner with a former President might sound like the pinnacle of success for a token holder, the market’s performance tells a different story for many. The significant crypto losses, including a seven-figure loss for one major holder, highlight the inherent volatility and speculative nature of memecoins and political tokens.

This situation serves as a powerful reminder that in the fast-paced world of crypto, particularly within the memecoin sector, hype and high-profile events don’t override market dynamics. Memecoin performance remains highly unpredictable, and even the most prominent holders are not immune to significant financial setbacks. It’s a critical lesson for all Crypto investors about the importance of caution, research, and managing expectations when dealing with highly speculative digital assets like the TRUMP token.

Source: CryptoSlate

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Adam

Stocks

Economic

Nvidia (NVDA) will report its fiscal first quarter results after the bell on Wednesday in the most-anticipated earnings announcement of the season.

Nvidia’s stock has fluctuated wildly since the start of the year as the company has dealt with setbacks ranging from the Trump administration’s ban on shipments of its H20 chips bound for China to concerns related to expected semiconductor tariffs.

But a last-minute reprieve from Washington’s planned AI diffusion rule, which was put in place by the Biden administration to limit GPU sales to certain countries, and major investment announcements during Trump’s visit to the Middle East have pushed Nvidia’s share price to just about flat year to date and up roughly 40% over the last 12 months as of Thursday.

Nvidia’s report follows the company’s showing at the annual Computex Taipei tradeshow in Taiwan, where it showcased new technologies, such as its new cloud offering, which gives customers access to cloud-based versions of Nvidia’s GPUs via third-party providers, including CoreWeave (CRWV) and Foxconn (2354.TW).

For the quarter, Nvidia is expected to report adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.88 on revenue of $43.3 billion, according to Bloomberg analyst consensus data. The company reported adjusted EPS of $0.61 on revenue of $26 billion in the same period last year.

Wall Street anticipates Nvidia’s Data Center revenue to top out at $39.2 billion, up from $22.5 billion, which works out to a 74% year over year increase. Gaming revenue, the company’s second-largest segment, is set to hit $2.8 billion, up from $2.6 billion.

Analysts anticipate Nvidia’s China revenue to come in at $6.2 billion, up 150% from the $2.4 billion it sold in the region in Q1 last year. The US is expected to account for $21.6 billion of the company’s sales.

Nvidia, however, says it will have to write down $5.5 billion in charges related to the Trump administration’s ban on sales of its H20 chip. The company announced the news in an April regulatory filing.

Nvidia specifically designed the H20 to meet the Biden administration’s restrictions on AI chips destined for China. But DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Washington, and Wall Street, when it proved it could produce powerful AI models using below top-of-the-line Nvidia chips. As a result, Trump imposed tighter restrictions on the company’s chips, banning the sale of H20s in the country.

According to Reuters, Nvidia is now working on a modified version of the H20 that meets the Trump administration’s performance requirements.