On a day when the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, and Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and advisor, visited schools in Idaho together, Donald Trump decided to ramp up trade war fears yet again and cause Apple’s shares to slide. The president said he would probably increase existing tariffs of Chinese imports in January and was unlikely to accept a peace offering from China.
He also saw fit to peddle a theory concerning the UK’s ability to trade with the US in light of Theresa May’s Brexit proposals. Quite what his motives for doing so are is anybody’s guess, but he certainly enjoys stoking fires. Sterling slid against the dollar as investors received the news and took it to mean bad things for the UK. It is currently unclear whether Trump has read all 585 pages of the withdrawal agreement.
Consumer confidence in the US slid in November to 135.7 from 137.9 the previous month and below the 135.9 the markets had expected. Today we will see the second estimate of the GDP growth rate for the third quarter of 2018, as well as new home sales for October.
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