Copper Futures Make Biggest Daily Rise to Record High, as Trump Threatens 50% Tariff; Trump Says 7 More Tariff Letters to be Sent Today; RBNZ Holds Rates Steady; US Dollar Firm, Trump Exhorts Powell to Cut Rate; Market Await FOMC Meeting Minutes
Summary: President Trump’s threat yesterday to impose a 50% tariff on copper triggered the largest daily rise in copper futures ever seen, sending copper futures prices to their highest ever level.
- The most dramatic asset in the market today is Copper, with Copper futures rising by about 9% over the day after President Trump said he would impose a new 50% tariff on all copper imports. Trend traders will be interested in being long of copper, which can be achieved with futures or even micro futures, although futures might be expensive for many traders. An alternative is the CPER ETF.
- President Trump also said yesterday that tariff letters outlining new tariff rates would be sent to 7 countries today, but there is no further information on that yet.
- The Reserve Bank of New Zealand left its Cash Rate unchanged at its policy meeting earlier today, as was widely expected. The Bank stated that it would remain on a path to cuts but preferred to wait. A cut in August is widely expected now. The policy meeting has had little effect on the New Zealand Dollar.
- The US Dollar remains firm and is rising again for another consecutive day so far. President Trump exhorted Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut rates, saying that Powell remains obsessed with non-existent inflationary pressures.
- Stock markets are mixed today.
- Silver remains within sight of its long-term high price, although it declined yesterday. It is performing much better than Gold, another precious metal with which Silver is usually strongly positively correlated.
- In the Forex market, the New Zealand Dollar has been the strongest major currency since today’s Tokyo open, while the Japanese Yen has been the weakest, putting the NZD/JPY currency cross in focus today. The EUR/USD currency pair also remains within a valid long-term bullish trend.
- Late today, there will be a release of the most recent FOMC meeting’s minutes.
