US President Donald Trump seems to be at the centre of investor worries, sidestepping a question in a Fox News interview on Sunday about whether his trade tariffs could trigger a US recession.
As City Index analyst Matt Simpson put it, that’s as good as a yes as far as markets are concerned.
The R-word has been making the rounds among traders and analysts.
A Reuters poll found that 91% of economists view the odds of a downturn to have increased under Trump’s rapidly shifting trade policies.
By around midday in Asia though, the pessimism was less pronounced.
Down more than 1% at one point, S&P 500 futures had pared that decline by half.
Japan’s Nikkei had flipped from a small loss to be up 0.6%, escaping the drag from a strengthening of the safe-haven yen.
Taiwan’s benchmark was off just 0.2% compared with 0.8% earlier.
The exception was China where weekend data showed deflationary force continues to build, giving policymakers more to think about at the week-long National People’s Congress that runs through Tuesday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled more than 2% and mainland Chinese blue chips sagged 0.8%.
A big reason for the turnaround in many markets was that they had already sunk so low, with the S&P 500 touching a nearly six-month trough on Friday before bouncing back a bit.
The Nikkei also closed out last week at a six-month nadir. It’s telling that Japan’s best performers today were beaten-down chip-sector shares.
Macro-economic misfires for the US and China have been to the benefit of Europe though, where investors are positioning for a seismic shift from Germany’s suddenly looser purse strings.
Pan-European STOXX 50 futures are up 0.8% in very early trading and the euro is clinging close to Friday’s four-month peak.
Europe’s data calendar is overall light today, headlined by German trade and industrial output figures for January.
The Eurogroup meets in Brussels, with the participation of European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde among others.
Key developments that could influence markets today include the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels, Germany industrial output and trade figures, Italy’s producer prices, Sweden’s GDP and CPI data from Norway and Denmark.