Summary:

• Stocks plummet as US announces new tariffs

• USD outperforms other majors

• Bank of Canada to make interest rate decision (3:00 pm BST)

Steep declines are observed all across Europe after the US administration announced new tariffs on Chinese goods. As China has already warned that it will retaliate investors decided to sell riskier assets concerned about an outbreak of a full-blown Trade War. Apart from equities a wave of selling has also hit the commodity market. Precious and industrial metals are pulling back along with oil. On the FX market USD surfaced as a winner while Antipodean currencies (AUD and NZD) are lagging the most. In the afternoon Bank of Canada will announce its interest rate decision.

It has been less than a month since the H&R Block published its financial report for the first quarter of a year, the last company to do so from the S&P 500 index. However, no later than this Friday major US banks will kick off the earnings season for the second quarter of 2018.

London School of Economics, one of the best British universities in economic sciences, introduces new online crypto classes. A course is titled “Cryptocurrency Investment and Disruption”. The London’s educational giant joins an array of universities offering courses related to virtual currencies all over the world.

While the Trade War theme is most likely to steer the markets during the upcoming days investors should be aware of quite an important event taking place on 11 and 12 of July in Brussels. Namely, the NATO summit will be held today and tomorrow with a special focus on the defense and security spending.

Following two upbeat days across riskier assets a brutal end of this idyll came and roiled markets noticeably. The Donald Trump administration informed yesterday it planned to push ahead with fresh tariffs on Chinese goods worth $200 billion being burdened with a 10% rate.