United States stock market futures plummeted after US President Donald Trump’s recently announced trade tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, while almost half a trillion dollars exited crypto markets over the past 24 hours.
Nasdaq 100 futures slumped on Feb. 3, having fallen almost 2.7%, according to Finviz. Meanwhile, other US equity futures opened down, with the Russell 2000 small-cap US stock market index down 3.2%, the S&P 500 down 2%, and futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average down around 1.5%.
Equity futures are financial contracts that allow investors to speculate on or hedge against the future value of US stock indexes such as the Nasdaq 100, which includes the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the stock exchange.
US stock futures decline 24 hours. Source: Finvz
The US stock futures sell-off came in response to President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China on Feb. 1.
Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, along with a 10% tariff on China, with the levies due to take effect on Feb. 4.
“The market needs to structurally and significantly reprice the trade war risk premium with the announcements at the weekend roughly three times larger than what was envisaged,” said George Saravelos, head of FX research at Deutsche Bank.
Meanwhile, Wolfe Research head of US policy and politics Tobin Marcus said, “Markets may now need to take the rest of Trump’s tariff agenda literally rather than just seriously … If this new level of seriousness gets priced in suddenly, Monday could be a rough day for markets.”
Related: Trump's trade war will send BTC price 'violently higher' — analyst
Crypto markets have also been mauled over the past day, with total market capitalization dumping more than 13% as $450 billion exited the space over the past 24 hours. This has resulted in a market cap fall to $3.12 trillion, its lowest level since mid-November, according to CoinGecko.
However, Trump’s trade war could send Bitcoin (BTC) prices “violently higher” in the long term due to a weakening dollar and lower yields on US government securities, according to Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise.
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