Morning Bid: Trump flags crypto reserve, mum on funding

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Wayne Cole.

It's been a bumper day for crypto fans after President Donald Trump took to social media to announce a proposed reserve of digital assets would include bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano.

Bitcoin is up around 10% while ether jumped 13% before easing back a touch as details of how the fund would work are not clear yet and, presumably, will be outlined at Friday's White House Crypto Summit.

Analysts are wondering exactly how the reserve will be funded given the government has $36 trillion of debt, so borrowing to buy crypto would seem a tough sell. Some have suggested the government could use the crypto seized in criminal cases in recent years, though that would only be a paper transfer rather than actual new demand.

Also uncertain is whether Trump's 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada will go ahead on Tuesday, along with an extra 10% on China. U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick said on Sunday tariffs on Canada and Mexico would go into effect on Tuesday, but that Trump would determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level, suggesting it was not a done deal.

There's also been suggestions Trump might soften the blow if Mexico and Canada agreed to place their own tariffs on Chinese imports and/or the levies might be delayed until April 1 when a study on trade is due to be finalised.

The stakes are all the greater as recent U.S. economic data has surprised on the downside, leading the much-watched Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracker to swing to -1.5% from +2.3%. Tariffs are essentially a tax on U.S. consumers and analysts assume they would hurt consumption at a time when the States is not looking so exceptional anymore.

Just the threat of tariffs saw imports surge in January lifting the U.S. trade deficit to easily its highest on record. Normally that would imply a large drag on GDP from net exports, though analysts said much of the jump in imports could have been non-monetary gold which would not be counted in GDP.

Leaving aside the statistical quirks, markets are in no mood for more weak data and a miss on the ISM forecast of 50.5 later today would likely boost bonds at the expense of equities. Markets already have 73 basis points of Fed cuts priced in by January next year, when just a few weeks ago investors had thought one quarter-point cut might be a stretch.

It all makes payrolls on Friday even more pivotal, especially as Fed Chair Powell is speaking a few hours after the data is released.

Beijing's possible response to tariffs, should they go ahead, is also an unknown. The National People's Congress meets on Wednesday and is expected to announce 2 trillion yuan to 3 trillion yuan ($274 billion-$412 billion) in new stimulus, and possibly reprisals against any U.S. action.

Key developments that could influence markets on Monday:

- EU flash CPI for February; European, UK and US PMI data. U.S. ISM survey for February.

- Speeches by Chair of the ECB Supervisory Board Claudia Maria Buch and Fed Reserve Bank of St. Louis President Alberto Musalem.

($1 = 7.2876 Chinese yuan)

(By Wayne Cole; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)