Seoul Gazette - Stocks enjoy 'Trump bump', but oil slumps

Oil prices slumped however on the prospect of more drilling in the United States, while the dollar lost much of its initial gains.

Wall Street's major indices rose at the opening bell, having been shut on Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday, which coincided with Trump's inauguration.

Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare spoke of a "Trump bump" in trading.

"This bump follows yesterday's inauguration," he said, noting that Trump had "wasted no time with a slate of executive orders that unwound a lot of the Biden administration's policies".

On becoming president, Trump signed a executive orders that indicated he could resume his hardball approach to global diplomacy and trade.

He also spoke about the possibility of imposing a 25-percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods, which sent their currencies tumbling.

Canadian and Mexican stock markets were marginally higher in Tuesday trading.

"What was missing in yesterday's executive orders, however, was any declaration of a decisive tariff action against China," said O'Hare.

"Instead, President Trump said existing trade agreements should be reviewed for any recommended revisions."

That helped Chinese markets push higher, with Hong Kong gaining nearly one percent.

A top Chinese official said on Tuesday that no country would emerge victorious from a trade war.

"Protectionism leads nowhere and there are no winners in a trade war," Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Trump also gave social media app TikTok 75 days to find a buyer for its US business, after it missed a deadline on Saturday ordering its Chinese owners ByteDance to sell its US subsidiary to non-Chinese buyers or be banned.

Wall Street received an initial Trump bump after his November re-election, with investors excited about the prospect of tax cuts and deregulation.

However they pulled back in December over fears Trump's plans to slap tariffs on key US trading partners would spark inflation and dim the prospect of further cuts to interest rates.

Oil prices slumped on Tuesday after the Trump administration declared a "national energy emergency" to significantly expand drilling in the world's top oil and gas producer.

"Mr Trump’s full-throated yell for US producers to 'Drill, baby, drill!' is not new. And it's perfectly logical that prices should fall at the prospect of increased supply," said David Morrison, Senior Market Analyst at Trade Nation.

The main US oil contract, WTI, fell by 2.5 percent.

- Key figures around 1430 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.4 percent at 43,661.58 points

New York - S&P 500: UP 0.5 percent at 6,027.95

New York - Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.5 percent at 19,734.15

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 8,530.70

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.4 percent at 7,764.91

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.1 percent at 20,014.46

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 0.3 percent at 39,027.98 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.9 percent at 20,106.55 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,242.62 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0393 from $1.0404 on Monday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2294 from $1.2302

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 155.46 yen from 155.67 yen

Euro/pound: UNCHANGED at 84.56 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.5 percent at $75.47 per barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.6 percent at $78.89 per barrel

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U.Moon--SG