Market and stock exchange Trump's tariff club throws financial markets into turmoil
A pitch-black trading day is looming for the global financial markets - including the Swiss stock exchange. US President Donald Trump presented his long-awaited tariff plans on Wednesday evening.
03.04.2025, 07:11
SDA
However, the mega tariff package announced by Trump does not affect all of the USA's trading partners equally. In addition to the ten percent that is to apply to imports from all countries into the United States, there are individual punitive levies - depending on whether the respective countries have particularly high trade barriers for American products from the US perspective. The President has announced very high tariffs of 31% for Switzerland.
The SMI is currently expected to fall by more than 1 percent at the start of trading. Broker IG puts the leading index at 12,431 points at around 6.45 a.m., which represents a drop of almost 130 points compared to the closing price. The barometer had already closed significantly weaker (-0.8 percent) on Wednesday in the run-up to the tariff announcements.
Nikkei down more than 3 percent
While the stock markets in Asia are already reacting to the news with significant losses - the Japanese Nikkei, for example, is down 3.6 percent - the European and US stock markets are also off to a weak start. The German Dax is expected to fall by 2 percent and the futures for Wall Street are also pointing to deep red prices.
On the other hand, safe havens are in demand. The price of gold climbed to a record of 3167.84 US dollars during the night. The troy ounce last traded at 3149 dollars.
Dollar is shunned
On the foreign exchange market, the US dollar is being shunned. The euro/dollar pair is currently trading at 1.0911. On Wednesday evening it was still trading at 1.0856.
The greenback is also losing ground against the franc. It is currently trading at 0.8760 francs per dollar. The previous evening, 0.8824 francs had to be handed over the counter.
With regard to Switzerland, investors should initially keep an eye on the pharmaceuticals and watchmaking sectors. While pharmaceutical exports account for more than half of Swiss exports, the USA is the most important foreign market for the watch industry, summarizes investment strategist Arthur Jurus from Oddo BHF in a commentary.
For Claude Maurer from Bak Economics, the tariffs "on April 2 meant that a great deal of legal certainty in international trade was lost". Power politics is taking the place of rule-based action. The fact is that the uncertainty alone is already causing enormous costs in the form of lost economic output.
