China

The main reason stocks in the steel sector are on fire today is because overnight the Commerce Department escalated its trade war with China when it implemented the latest clampdown on a glut of steel imports, when it announced that corrosion-resistant steel from China will face final U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties of up to 450%. The final U.S. anti-dumping duties on the Chinese products replace preliminary ones of 256% issued in December 2015.

Now that all eyes have turned on China eager to find how it will react to a potential Fed rate hike in June or July, the question is whether the sharp Chinese devaluation unveiled overnight, which sent the Yuan to fresh 5 year lows, will be a one-off event, and whether the PBOC will intervene far more aggressively in the offshore CNY market to keep FX market turmoil to a minimum.

According to at least one person, the answer is no.

Russia’s Deputy Chief of General Staff met his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss strategic military cooperation. According to TASS: China was represented by Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission Admiral Sun Jianguo, Russia – by Chief of the Main Operations Department of the Russian General Staff Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy.

Over the weekend, Deutsche Bank's chief credit strategist Dominic Konstam released a report in which as we documented, he explained his reasons why "the market is not ready for a June hike." This was his key point:

The operative question is whether markets are sufficiently calm for the Fed to use the June 2016 meeting to pave the way for a July hike.

 

The single biggest event overnight was the PBOC's devaluation of the Yuan to the lowest since March 2011, setting the fixing at 6.5693, the highest in over 5 years and in direct response to a stronger dollar, which however if one looks at the DXY remains well below the recent highs in the 100 range, suggesting for China this is only just beginning.