This report is from today’s TNC’s Daily Open, our international markets update. TNC Daily Open keeps investors informed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are.
The Trump administration’s drastic economic policy and federal government changes negatively impact corporate profits.
Nike warned that it anticipates a sharp decline in sales in the upcoming quarter due to tariffs and waning consumer sentiment when it released its earnings on Thursday. Accenture, on the other hand, reported that as the US government cuts back on spending, its revenue has suffered due to decreased contracts with the government.
These are warnings of the potential larger economic harm nations may experience when U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs take effect on April 2, as he had previously threatened.
The European Union delayed imposing tariffs on the United States across the Atlantic to reach a fresh agreement with Trump and protect its economy from the blows already experienced by corporate America.
What To Note Today
Markets Are Unable To Maintain Gains
On Thursday, U.S. markets lost steam. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.33%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained largely unchanged, and the S&P 500 fell 0.22%. Nike’s stock fell 1.6% on negative guidance brought on by tariffs, while Accenture’s shares fell 7.3% after the company warned of contract losses with the US government.
Asian Stocks Decline With Wall Street
The majority of Asia-Pacific stocks declined on Friday. Due to consumer and healthcare cyclical stocks, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell by about 2%. Even though shares of defense company Hanwha Aerospace fell as high as 14.95% on Friday after issuing $2.5 billion worth of new shares, South Korea’s Kospi index increased by about 0.2%.
Japan’s Inflation Rate Declines
After reaching a two-year high of 4% in January, headline inflation in Japan increased 3.7% year over year in February. Core inflation, which does not include the cost of fresh food, was 3.3%, less than the 3.2% rate in January. Nonetheless, the number exceeded the 2.9% forecast by Reuters’s survey of economists. The inflation data was released on Wednesday after the Bank of Japan kept interest rates unchanged.
Analysts Believe China’s Property Market May Soon Stabilise
According to UBS analysts, there have been “relatively positive signals” in China’s real estate market, and home prices may level down in early 2026. They join a growing number of market observers who anticipate that the nation’s faltering real estate market will soon stabilize.
In a related development, Chinese government bond yields have been increasing recently, but analysts caution that this does not necessarily indicate that Beijing’s economy is experiencing reflation.
The EU Delays The U.S. Tax
To give itself more time to negotiate with Washington, the European Union will postpone the implementation of its initial round of tariffs on U.S. imports until mid-April, a representative for the EU told a reporter Thursday. “In particular, as the EU continues to prepare for retaliation of up to EUR 26 billion [$28 billion], the change represents a slight adjustment to the timeline and does not diminish the impact of our response,” they said.
International Markets Do Better Than The U.S.
Since the beginning of 2025, major U.S. benchmarks have been having difficulty: the small-cap Russell 2000 is on the verge of a bear market, falling 20% or more from a recent peak, while the Nasdaq Composite is in correction territory. However, most international stocks are currently up, so investors are placing more wagers on markets outside of the United States.
Other Reports
When Lisa Su took over as CEO in late 2014, Advanced Micro Devices was in terrible shape and in danger of going bankrupt.
AMD, however, continues to see itself as an underdog. This is because it lags well behind Nvidia in artificial intelligence. AMD is aware that it needs a larger share of the AI market to play a significant role in technology development.
