Stocks tumble on bets Kevin Warsh is Trump’s Fed pick

[SINGAPORE] Stocks slumped while the dollar and bond yields shot up on Friday after US President Donald Trump said he has firmed his choice for new Federal Reserve boss, with reports zeroing in on Kevin Warsh as the likely pick.

While Warsh, a former Fed Governor, is seen as an advocate of lower interest rates, he is also considered to be one of the less radical choices among the various names that have been raised and perhaps more cautious on heavy monetary stimulus than others.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan tumbled as much as 1.3 per cent, extending the previous day’s declines with the biggest one-day slump of the past month.

S&P 500 e-mini futures slid 0.4 per cent, Nasdaq e-mini futures were off 0.5 per cent and precious metals plunged, after Reuters reported Warsh visited the White House for a meeting with Trump on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Bloomberg News also reported that the Trump administration is preparing to nominate Warsh as the next Fed chair.

Warsh “is on record as saying he prefers lower rates,” said Damien Boey, portfolio strategist, Wilson Asset Management in Sydney “But the trade-off that he makes with lower rates is that he wants the Fed to have a smaller balance sheet,” he added.

“The markets are reacting as if thinking: ‘What would the world look like with a smaller Fed balance sheet?’ “

On prediction market site Polymarket, the implied probability of contracts betting that Trump will nominate Warsh to lead the central bank surged to 92 per cent from 35 per cent.

The US dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was last up 0.3 per cent at 96.481, reversing some recent weakness.

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“We’ve definitely seen some dollar buying straight away on the back of it,” said Tim Kelleher, head of institutional FX Sales at Commonwealth Bank in Auckland. “He’s known to the markets and will probably calm things down slightly.”

Asian stocks were led lower by declines in China, with a gauge of Chinese companies with listings in Hong Kong off 2.1 per cent.

MSCI’s broadest gauge of equities outside of Japan remains on track for its best monthly performance in more than three years. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.1 per cent.

Stocks in Jakarta rallied 1 per cent after the head of Indonesia’s stock exchange resigned, taking responsibility for a selloff triggered by a warning of a potential downgrade from index provider MSCI. It was the country’s biggest stock rout since the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury bond was last up 4.0 basis points at 4.265 per cent. Fed funds futures are pricing an implied 86.6 per cent probability that the US central bank will hold steady on rates at its next two-day meeting on March 18, compared with a 87.5 per cent chance a day earlier, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

A faltering rebound for precious metals fell short after a choppy session on Thursday. Gold was last down 3.7 per cent at US$5,195.91, while silver plunged 6 per cent to US$109.10.

Brent crude was last down 1.4 per cent at US$69.70 as oil markets weighed geopolitical risks, after Trump on Thursday signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and establishing a process to impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba.

Also on Thursday, Trump said he was planning to talk to Iran amid rising tensions.

Bitcoin was last down 2.7 per cent at US$82,089.96, while ether tumbled 2.8 per cent to US$2,738.30. REUTERS