Weekly Market Update 28 January 2025

Donald Trump returned to the White House last week, announcing a raft of executive orders shortly after taking power.

These ranged from declassifying files related to the assassination of JFK, through to rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

For many market commentators, though, his attitude towards tariffs took centre stage. Trump made notable use of them during his first term, and there’s been an expectation that the same will be the case this time around.

Last week, for example, he called for 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods from the start of February. The tariffs, if enacted, could hit Americans in the wallet, as US consumers would likely shoulder some of the bill.

Mexico and Canada are two of America’s biggest trade partners, accounting for almost a third of the value of all goods imported into the US last year, according to federal trade data.

That said, so far, these fears are yet to be fully realised. Specifically, Trump’s stance on Chinese tariffs appears to have softened. On the campaign trail, there was talk of 60% tariffs on Chinese imports. However, last Wednesday he said his team were discussing a potential 10% tariff instead.

Commenting on the effect tariffs may have on investments, Kristina Hooper, Chief Global Market Strategist at Invesco, said: “When tariffs were implemented in 2018, they caused the S&P 500 Index to experience higher volatility and end the year lower. They caused even more damage to other markets. However, this time around seems like it could be different — there may be more use of tariff threats as a tool to achieve other policy goals and less implementation of actual tariffs. In any event, tariffs had a very temporary impact on the stock market in 2018, so I would not expect new tariffs to impact investors beyond very short time horizons.”

There’s already been one example of Trump using tariffs as a bargaining tool in international relations. Over the weekend, he threatened Colombia with tariffs in order to help persuade the country to take back deportees. That situation appears to have been resolved.

According to George Curtis, Portfolio Manager at TwentyFour Asset Management: “Tariffs are noise. That doesn’t mean markets wouldn’t react to a tariff-driven increase in prices, but we view the potential inflationary impact of tariffs more as a one-off level shift that could delay the underlying downward trend in inflation rather than disrupting it in the longer term.”

It should be remembered that Trump’s inauguration was only a week ago. However, US markets were encouraged, with both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ finishing the week up.

Trump also created an artificial intelligence (AI) action plan, aimed at keeping the US at the forefront of developments. Hopes around AI, powered a number of tech company values to record highs last year.

However, the world was shocked at the end of last week, when a relatively small group of developers in China released their AI model, DeepSeek R1. This is able to compete against leading American AI models, such as those from Meta and OpenAI, despite costing a fraction to develop.

Later this week, the Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet to discuss interest rates but is expected to keep interest rates level.

Turning to Europe, the annual World Economic Forum in Davos saw various European Central Bank (ECB) policymakers delivering presentations and journalist interviews. The tone appeared to suggest imminent interest rate cuts, likely to be announced on Thursday when the ECB meets.

This, as well as some encouraging business activity numbers, helped lift the MSCI Europe ex UK by 1.5%.

After all the noise around gilts at the start of the year, the UK had a relatively quiet week, with the FTSE 100 flat. The government is still in a difficult position, as it looks to generate growth. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to give a speech later this week, outlining her ideas which could include cutting back planning rules and announcing a new runway at London Heathrow airport.