Just out from the US a few minutes ago is this on tariffs on imports from China

I see analysis cranking up that this is confirmation' of the proposals. OK, let's consider how useful that is.

The timeline is the news of the proposals broke during the Asian morning on Wednesday (i.e. an eternity ago in market terms):

OK, yeah, yeah that's when it first hit but what we needed was confirmation before acting, right?

No, wrong. For two reasons:

1. Traders do not wait for confirmation, you may have heard the old saying 'buy the rumour, sell the fact'. In this case it was trade the headline breaking.

2. Specifically, in this case, traders are finally understanding not to underestimate President Trump. I have been a broken record on this and repeated it again yesterday in the final wrap of the session:

  • Please note, these are only proposals at this stage. But, having said that a constant broken record mantra of mine has been not to underestimate President Trump, so do keep an eye out for more on this.

<rant complete> ;-)

ps. Check out the offshore yuan trading. One comment we did get of significance was:

  • Officials, asked about weakening of Chinese yuan, say it is important that countries do not devalue their currencies for trade advantage

That has prompted some short covering in CNH: