Wall Street has doubts after partial trade deal: 'I don't think this gets us to Christmas'
CNBC, 12.10.2019
- Investors cheer a partial trade deal with China but soon realize there is no clear timeline for removing existing tariffs.
- Chinese companies do not meet U.S. accounting standards, and there's been no clear progress with its regulators.
- Nevertheless, delisting Chinese companies from U.S. indexes is not an attractive option.
After a partial trade deal, what's next?
The next move could be a ratcheting up of the attacks on Chinese listed companies in the United States.
Friday's rally clearly indicates that the market is happy for the moment with just a partial deal, though the Dow gave up 200 of its 500-point gain in the final half hour as markets realized there was a cessation of tariff hikes but no clear timeline for removal of the existing tariffs.
UBS' Art Cashin is doubtful that the good feelings will last. "I don't think this gets us to Christmas," Cashin said. "I think it could be a temporary truce that wouldn't last very long."
This partial deal, Cashin said, does not change the longer-term narrative of lower growth for 2020, nor does it end the trade wars.
Others agree. "The trade war is one channel. The U.S. will still press forward and confront China in other areas," said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. "The cold war will not go away just because there is a truce in the tariff war."
"Tariffs have been the tip of the spear in Trump's trade wars," Chris Krueger, senior policy analyst at Cowen, said in a recent note to clients. "The next fronts — capital flows, [more] export controls, supply chain duress, industrial policy — are the global plumbing of the real economy."
The impact of this next round in the trade wars, Krueger said, "can produce exogenous shocks to the global system that can dwarf the tariffs."