Swiss franc rises as Trump’s tariffs cause further unrest on stock markets
The international trade conflict remains the main topic on the stock markets on Friday and is causing unrest. While share prices in Japan fell significantly, following the negative cues from Wall Street, the Chinese markets stabilised.
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In contrast, the broker IG is signalling a pre-market gain of just under 0.5% for the Swiss SMI. A gain of 0.7% is even forecast for the German DAX.
The previous day, many markets had reacted with relief to US President Donald Trump’s 90-day tariff pause and rallied strongly. In contrast, the US stock markets went into reverse again on Thursday.
The Dow Jones Industrial closed 2.5% lower and the broad market S&P 500 lost 3.5%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 closed down 4.2% after a volatile trading session. The day before, the US stock markets had risen sharply due to the tariff pause for many countries – with the exception of China.
+ Trump tariff shock: how Switzerland is positioning itself
The Swiss SMI rose by over 8% at its peak on Thursday, but then lost most of its gains again, closing up 3.3%. This was due to new tariffs on China.
This is because Trump is driving the trade conflict with China forward with force. The US tariffs against China amount to a total of 145% – not 125%, as the White House had recently announced. This was recently confirmed by an employee at the US government centre in Washington.
Will the respite continue for other countries?
For other parts of world trade, on the other hand, Trump has announced a respite of probably 90 days. However, US tariff policy is likely to remain unpredictable and continue to shake up the markets and cause enormous uncertainty, said one trader. A lot of crockery has been smashed in recent weeks.
The extent of the uncertainty on the markets was also evident in the foreign exchange markets. The Swiss franc, which is in demand as a “safe haven” in uncertain times, gained significantly in value.
One dollar currently costs CHF0.8187. On Friday night, it was as low as 0.8141 francs. “That’s the lowest level in years, if not a record low,” says one trader.
The euro also fell further against the franc and is currently trading at CHF0.9272. The single European currency had hit a new low of 0.92162 during the night.
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Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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