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LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks were flat on Wednesday amidst rising prices ahead of tax rates on Chinese imports, while the yuan steadied after China's central bank.
The MSCI All-Country World index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, was lower than 0.1 percent on the day, recovering slightly from a 0.2 percent fall earlier.
Washington has said it would be $ 34 billion worth of Chinese imports on July 6, and Beijing has promised to retaliate in kind on the same day. However, China's finance ministry said it will "absolutely not" fire the first shot in the United States and will not be the first to levy tariffs.
Concerns about the outbreak of a global trade war, among other factors, prevented a sustained recovery in global stock markets since a violent sell-off knocked off record highs in February.
The United States has another 284 product lines valued at $ 16 billion, which includes a wide range of electronics.
U.S. President Donald Trump also threatened tariffs as much as $ 400 billion worth of Chinese goods if Beijing retaliates against the U.S. tariffs due to go into force on Friday.
Trump threating Europe with a 20 percent tariff on imports of various countries have also already taken hold of tariffs on steels and aluminum products.
Over 40 countries have deep concern about the World Trade Organization (WTO) about possible U.S. measures.
"There is a lot of concern I think about the effect of a long time ago," said Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets in London.
He noted that most equity markets were well above this year.
"So it could have a drag, and it will have a drag. But will it push the global economy into recession? Not yet. "
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was last up to 0.1 percent, see-sawing from positive to negative territory during the day. Germany's export-heavy DAX fell half a percent and Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent.
A Chinese short-stature banned Micron Technology from selling chips in China, the world's biggest memory chip market, and stock market share of Asian stocks on Wednesday.
Europe's tech sector was 1-1 / 2 percent STMicro and Infineon, which were down by nearly 8 percent and 2.5 percent respectively. [.EU]
Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, said, "The biggest risks to the technology sector are regulation and global semiconductor disruption from escalating trade war.
"At this point, the probabilities for both scenarios have major impacts on the technology in the short term are low," Garnry said.
MSCI's broadest index of Asian-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.25 percent, a day after it hit a nine-month low. Japan's Nikkei erased future losses.
Mainland Chinese shares with CSI300 Index off 0.7 percent.
U.S. U.S. Independence Day holiday.
In the currency market, the yuan bounced back from an 11-month low moving moves by China's central bank on Tuesday to calm jittery financial markets.
The Chinese currency fetched 6.6444 per dollar in onshore trade, off Tuesday's low of 6.7204.
Major currencies were treading water as traders fretted about the fallout of the intensifying trade frictions between Washington and the rest of the world.
The euro was off by 0.1 percent at $ 1.16450 while the dollar was good at 110.52 yen, down 0.1 percent.
Brent oil prices rose, driven by a threat from an Iranian order and a drop in U.S. crude inventories for the second week in a row caused by an outage at a Canadian facility.
International benchmark Brent futures rose 0.1 percent to $ 77.84 a barrel.
U.S. light crude futures traded down 0.3 percent at $ 73.89 per barrel, after rising above $ 75 for the first time in three years on Tuesday.
Copper, sometimes seen as a barometer of global economic strength in its power and construction, hit a fresh nine-month low of $ 6,381.50 on Wednesday.
Additional reporting by Kit Rees; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg
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