There has been a huge wave of relief across European and US markets after Friday proved to be a dark day for investors.
Leading European stock indexes started the week in the green, as well as the US futures, while bitcoin, silver and gold rallied.
After leading stock indexes on the Wall Street dropped between 1.9 and 3.6% on Friday, Asian indexes followed the lead on Monday morning, and unanimously lost between 1% and 1.7%.
US stocks skidded on Friday after US President Donald Trump threatened to crank tariffs higher on China, signalling more trouble ahead between the two biggest economies. He was responding to restrictions Beijing is imposing on exports of rare earths, which are materials that are critical for the manufacturing of everything from consumer electronics to jet engines.
However, by the European opening on Monday, investors appeared to be cheered by the US president’s promising words, as he commented on the mounting US-China trade tensions on social media, saying, “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!”
Stock markets appear to reverse the losses from the end of last week, the FTSE 100 in London was up by 0.3% at around 10h CET on Monday, the Paris CAC 40 cheered the promise of a new government by gaining 0.7% and the Dax in Frankfurt joined the crowd by rising 0.5% by this time.
The Ibex 35 in Madrid also gained 0.8% and the European benchmark Stoxx 600 was up by nearly 0.5%.
Crypto rallies after Friday’s sharp decline
Bitcoin approached $115,000 on Monday, while Ethereum exceeded $4,200.
“The crypto market capitalisation stood at $3.9 trillion on Monday, up 4.4% from the previous day but down 6% from pre-Friday crash levels,” Alex Kuptsikevich, the FxPro chief market analyst, said.
Gold was up by more than 2.3%, trading at $4,092 an ounce, nearing 11h CET, while oil prices were also climbing, the US benchmark crude was up by nearly 0.9% at 59.85 a barrel, whereas the international benchmark Brent cost $63.69 a barrel, 1.5% increase in the price.
Meanwhile, US futures advanced, with the contract for the S&P 500 gaining 1.1% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.5% and Nasdaq futures were climbing 2% by 10.30 CET.
In other dealings early Monday, the dollar rose 152.22 Japanese yen from 151.89 yen late Friday. The euro fell to $1.1605 from $1.1614.