Hong Kong (AFP) – Crude prices spiked more than two percent Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he would impose heavy sanctions on two Russian oil companies. Meanwhile, equity markets rallied after Beijing said it would hold tariff talks with Washington from Friday, tempering trade fears over reports of potential US curbs on software exports to China.
Both main oil contracts jumped more than three percent — having climbed more than two percent Wednesday — on news of the measures after Trump said Ukraine peace efforts with Russian President Vladimir Putin “don’t go anywhere.” The move was joined by another round of punishments by the European Union as part of attempts to pressure Moscow to end its three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine.
Trump decided on the sanctions after plans for a fresh summit with Putin in Budapest collapsed this week. “Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere,” the US president said in response to a question from an AFP journalist in the Oval Office. But he hoped the “tremendous sanctions” on oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil would be short-lived, and that “the war will be settled.”
Brent and WTI were both sitting at near two-week highs after the spikes, helped by Trump’s claims that India agreed to cut its purchases of the commodity from Russia as part of a US trade deal. New Delhi has neither confirmed nor denied any policy shift. Bloomberg on Thursday cited unnamed Indian refinery sources as saying that flows from Russian crude were expected to plunge almost to zero as a result of the US sanctions.
Equity markets’ fortunes were not as good in the morning but bounced as the day progressed as Beijing said Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng would hold talks with top US officials in Malaysia on October 24-27. The news helped soothe recent concerns about China-US relations, with a report Wednesday saying the White House was looking at curbing shipments of software-powered exports to China, including laptops and jet engines, owing to Beijing’s rare earths controls.
Those mineral controls prompted a round of tit-for-tat exchanges between the superpowers that sparked fresh trade war worries, including Trump’s threat of 100 percent tariffs on China. The negotiations come amid expectations that Trump will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week at the APEC summit in South Korea. “Everything is on the table,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent replied when asked about limits on software exports to China.
“If these export controls, whether it’s software, engines, or other things happen, it will likely be in coordination with our G7 allies,” he added, according to Bloomberg News. The talk of software curbs “injects a degree of doubt into the collective’s consensus position that we will ultimately see a positive resolution in the US–China trade negotiations,” said Pepperstone’s Chris Weston. But he added: “The ingrained belief remains that Trump’s threat of 100 percent additional import tariffs on China is unlikely to take effect on 1 November — or, if they do, that they’ll be rolled back soon enough — and that China is unlikely to retaliate with punchy tariffs of its own.”
Hong Kong rose, while Shanghai, Sydney, Singapore, Wellington, Manila, and Mumbai were also up, with London, Frankfurt, and Paris. Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, and Jakarta all retreated. Gold climbed more than one percent at around $4,100, recovering some of the previous two days’ losses but still well down from the record high above $4,381 touched earlier in the week.
– Key figures at around 0810 GMT –
Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.4 percent at 48,641.61 (close)
Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.7 percent at 25,967.98 (close)
Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 3,922.41 (close)
London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 9,526.62
Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1604 from $1.1606 on Wednesday
Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3354 from $1.3356
Dollar/yen: UP at 152.47 from 151.99 yen
Euro/pound: DOWN at 86.88 pence from 86.90 pence
West Texas Intermediate: UP 3.3 percent at $60.44 per barrel
Brent North Sea Crude: UP 3.2 percent at $64.61 per barrel
New York – Dow: DOWN 0.7 percent at 46,590.41 (close)
© 2024 AFP
