The stock market is a notoriously poor interpreter of nuance. When President Trump commented this morning that he's "not ready to make a deal," and “we’ll see" about keeping a scheduled trade negotiation meeting with Chinese representatives in September, there is a high likelihood that Trump is doing what he does best by teasing out the very possibility of a deal to goad Beijing. "If we do, that’s fine. If we don’t, that’s fine" is a classic negotiator's line.
Regardless of his intentions, markets reacted, with the three major benchmarks all off by 1 to 1.5 percent.
Deputy Prime Minister and anti-immigration hardliner Matteo Salvini has his sights set on a larger role in Italy. He called for "swift" snap elections in order to oust Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte, who, in the eyes of Bloomberg writer Allesandro Speciale, "would lose" if elections were called for. The ascension of Salvini would almost certainly mean tighter controls around the handling of migrant crisis that has plagued Italy for years.
As a result of Salvini's request, Italian 10-year bond yields moved up by 25 basis points, which marks the largest sell-off of 2019.
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