Summary:

• European equities advance yet British ones trade a notch lower

• Bitcoin reversed after touching $7100 mark

• Trade War remains the hottest topic among investors

With almost empty calendar stock markets climb higher on Monday amid easing trade war tensions. However, we should not relax just yet as new remarks from the US and Chinese officials may provide to be a spark that will ignite the conflict ones again. AUD and JPY are the biggest laggards in the G10 basket while Norwegian krone advances against all of its major peers. Gold and silver trade lower while other commodities advance.

It’s all about Trade Wars these days on the markets and it’s not surprising given the ease of throwing “an extra” 100bn imports under tariffs via single Donald Trump tweet. Remember 2009? A severity of global recession 9 years ago was caused by freeze in global trade. Back then it was because of the banking system, today it could be because of politics.

During the last year there were several businessmen and the most prominent people from the business world including Jamie Dimon who expressed their stern remarks with regard to cryptocurrencies. The beginning of this year brought the similar story, this time from George Soros who called virtual currencies a bubble in January. However, a few months later he is reportedly going to trade digital coins.

The trade war tensions may take its toll on the European politics soon as French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel are about to meet Donald Trump at the White House this month. The meetings are most likely to be focused on the tariffs as EU is expected to provide US with the proposition of trade agreement that would make Donald Trump spare Europe from imposing steel duties by 1st of May.

It has been a calm beginning to the new trading week across currencies, and a positive one for stocks all around the globe. Asian stocks are climbing with the Hang Seng being the leader of gains in the aftermath of a bounce seen in the US futures. Do notice that stocks in China could be responding with a delay due to holiday taking place at the end of the past week. Over the weekend, there were a few speeches of Federal Reserve officials who did not take markets off guard though.

There is no shortage of economic reports this week but market’s attention in on the line between the US and China. Interestingly we will have important reports from both countries. However, it’s politics that may have the biggest impact on markets as Trade Wars enter a critical phase.