It's been a sea of red in Asia so far on Wednesday, with new U.S. moves turning up the heat in the trade war with China, but at least the losses have been relatively shallow compared with other down days of the past few weeks. Washington issued new export licensing requirements for Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 artificial intelligence chips to China. Nvidia's shares slumped 6% in after-hours trading, after it said the move would cost $5.5 billion.
Stock market investors are bound to feel a degree of trepidation following recent economic events. After all, the near-term outlook for inflation, interest rates and GDP growth has been turned on its head by the prospect of extreme US tariffs. Indeed, the potential for further heightened uncertainty may be sufficient to convince some equity investors to seek shelter in other mainstream assets.
Bank of America called Netflix stock a "defensive choice" compared to other tech companies.
Oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday after Washington issued new sanctions targeting Chinese importers of Iranian oil. Brent crude futures rose $1.08, or 1.67%, to $65.75 a barrel by 11:43 a.m. EDT (1543 GMT) while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.14, or 1.86%, to $62.47. The U.S. on Wednesday issued new sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports, including against a China-based "teapot refinery", as President Donald Trump seeks to ramp up pressure on Tehran, and drive Iranian oil exports down to zero.
Tariffs have been the most important news story so far this year. The president has caused investors a lot of uncertainty with rapid-fire announcements affecting global trade and the flow of capital. The market has responded with extreme volatility.
The Seychelles-based crypto exchange also established a regional HQ in San Jose, California, and appointed Roshan Robert as its new U.S. CEO.
Janover, a real estate-focused fintech company, has ramped up its investments in Solana (SOL), now holding a total of 163,651 tokens, valued at approximately $21.2 million.
Four asset managers—Purpose, Evolve, CI, and 3iQ—are set to launch spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Canada on April 16.
Bitcoin has shown unusual strength against a backdrop of economic instability, with its price climbing nearly 7% over the past week to reach around $84,000 and even briefly touching $86,000.
Figma has confidentially filed for an IPO more than a year after a $20 billion acquisition bid by Adobe fell apart due to antitrust concerns.
