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European shares opened in negative territory on Monday, with the Stoxx 600 down 0.4% shortly after the opening bell.

Most sectors and all major bourses saw losses, with the FTSE 100 and the CAC 40 shedding 0.5%, while Germany’s DAX traded 0.2% lower.

Hedge funds and long-term investors are re-entering trades looking for the yen to rally ahead of potential currency talks this week between the US and Japan.

Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said on May 16 he will seek an opportunity for currency talks with his US counterpart Scott Bessent this week, amid speculation that President Donald Trump’s administration is open to a weaker greenback.

Several Asian currencies, including the yen, rallied last week on news that the US and South Korea discussed currency issues during trade talks earlier this month.

The downgrade will add to “growing concerns about the loss of US exceptionalism and make non-US assets more appealing to global stock investors who have been rotating out of US equities into other markets like European equities,” said Vasu Menon, managing director of investment strategy at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore.

“Moody’s downgrade is more symbolic than a fundamental shift,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets in Singapore. “But it does chip away at confidence, especially with debt and deficit concerns front and center. There’s a risk that this gets politicized.”

Nvidia Corp. unveiled the latest raft of technologies aimed at sustaining the boom in demand for AI computing — and ensuring that its products stay at the center of the action.

Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang on Monday kicked off Computex in Taiwan, Asia’s biggest electronics forum, touting new products and cementing ties with a region vital to the tech supply chain.

The CEO introduced updates to the ecosystem around Nvidia’s accelerator chips, which are key to developing and running AI services. The central goal is to broaden the reach of Nvidia products and eliminate barriers to AI adoption by more industries and countries.

Gold edged higher — although it pared gains from earlier in the session – as mounting concerns over the US economic outlook and budget deficit buoyed demand for haven assets.

“We expect gold to be volatile in the short term as we see a mix of good and bad news headlines,” said Vasu Menon, managing director of investment strategy at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. In the long run, Trump’s policies and diversification away from dollar-denominated assets are “structural tailwinds for gold that could see it scaling new heights in the coming years,” he said.

Gold edged higher — although it pared gains from earlier in the session – as mounting concerns over the US economic outlook and budget deficit buoyed demand for haven assets.

“We expect gold to be volatile in the short term as we see a mix of good and bad news headlines,” said Vasu Menon, managing director of investment strategy at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. In the long run, Trump’s policies and diversification away from dollar-denominated assets are “structural tailwinds for gold that could see it scaling new heights in the coming years,” he said.

– Announcing Foxconn, Taiwan, TSMC, and Nvidia build AI infrastructure for Taiwan.

– Having a world class AI infrastructure in Taiwan is very important/

– Announcing NVLink Fusion, so you can build semi-custom AI infrastructure. Everybody’s AI infrastructure will be a little different.

-In Q3 this year, we will upgrade to Grace Blackwell GB300 with upgraded chips with 1.5 times more HPM memory and 2 times more networking.

– I predict that all supercomputers will have quantum accelerators.

– Agentic AI does everything we do. We are given a goal, break it down step by step. We reason about what to do, what’s the best way to do it, we consider its consequences, and then we start executing the plan.

– We’re not building data centres and servers, we’re building factories.

– Announcing NVLink Fusion, so you can build semi-custom AI infrastructure. Everybody’s AI infrastructure will be a little different.

– Nvidia is not just a technology company anymore, it is an essential infrastructure company. We are an AI infrastructure company.

– In 10 years, we will realise that we need AI everywhere. AI will be a part of the infrastructure and this infrastructure will need factories.

– This will be a $1 trillion industry providing information and storage.

– We’re working with partners like Samsung, Nokia, cisco, vodafone etc to bring AI on 6G, and we’re doing that with quantum computing.

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. slumped after a report that the Trump administration has raised concerns over Apple Inc.’s potential deal with the Chinese technology firm.

Alibaba’s stock dropped as much as 4.8% on Monday in Hong Kong, leading declines on the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index. The broader gauge was down 1.4% before paring its drop.

In recent months, the White House and congressional officials have been scrutinizing Apple’s plan to strike a deal with Alibaba to make the Chinese company’s AI available on iPhones in China, the New York Times reported, citing three people familiar with the deliberations. Apple, the White House and Alibaba did not provide comments for the report.

A key House committee advanced President Donald Trump’s giant tax and spending package after Republican hardliners dropped a blockade against the legislation.

It wasn’t immediately clear what changes party leaders may have agreed to before the House Budget Committee approved the legislation late Sunday night after a weekend of negotiations.

Four ultraconservatives on the panel had voted to reject the legislation Friday, demanding deeper cuts to Medicaid and other programs. They instead abstained on Sunday and voted present.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists say Japan’s Topix stock gauge will benefit from a more benign macro outlook and improved sentiment for risk-taking after a cooling in US-China tariff tensions.

Goldman raised the 12-month Topix target level to 2,900 from 2,775, and its assumption for full-year 2025 earnings per share growth to 2% from -1%. The strategists have also raised the electrical appliance and precision sector back to overweight from neutral.

This follows the Topix index’s advance for a 13th consecutive session up until May 13th after US and China said that they will temporarily lower tariffs on each other’s products. Still investors continue to be wary amid ongoing US-Japan trade talks. The Topix was flat at 2740.38 at 10 a.m. in Tokyo on Monday.

China’s industrial output expanded faster than expected in April, highlighting the resilience of the world’s second-largest economy and feeding optimism about growth following a quick de-escalation of trade tensions with the US.

Industrial output climbed 6.1% on year last month, down from 7.7% in March, according to figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts was for a 5.7% gain.

Retail sales, a key gauge of consumption, rose 5.1%, versus an up-tick of 5.9% in the previous month and weaker than economists’ projection. Growth in fixed-asset investment slowed to 4% in the first four months of the year.

China’s home prices fell at a faster pace in April, signaling the property market slump remains a headache for policymakers as they fend off a tariff war with the US.

New-home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidized housing, dropped 0.12% from March, when they declined 0.08%, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed Monday. Values of used homes slid 0.41%, compared with a 0.23% drop a month earlier.

The trade war risks worsening the housing slump that has dragged on economic growth and has only recently been showing signs of abating. While the US and China made a truce on tariffs last week, trade ructions may add to woes for workers in the export-driven economy, curtailing housing demand.

Investors faced yet another bumpy start to the trading week with US assets coming under fresh pressure, although it’s mounting concern over American debt rather than tariffs generating the volatility this time.

Longer-dated Treasuries dipped with US equity futures and the dollar in early Asia trading after Moody’s Ratings announced Friday evening it was stripping the American government of its top credit rating, dropping the country to Aa1 from Aaa. T

The company, which trailed rivals, blamed successive presidents and congressional lawmakers for a ballooning budget deficit it said showed little sign of narrowing.

Gold bounced back after its biggest weekly decline in six months, with appetite for haven assets boosted by mounting concerns about the US economic outlook and budget deficit.

Bullion rose as much as 1.3% to around $3,245 an ounce in early Asian trading. That was after Moody’s Ratings announced late Friday it was downgrading the US government’s top credit rating of Aaa to Aa1. The agency blamed successive administrations’ inability to cut the budget deficit.

“While we recognize the US’ significant economic and financial strengths, we believe these no longer fully counterbalance the decline in fiscal metrics,” Moody’s said in a statement.

Asia-Pacific markets fell Monday as investors await a slew of economic data from across the region and parse Moody’s downgrade of the US credit rating.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.54% at the open while the Topix lost 0.36%. South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.47% and the small-cap Kosdaq traded 0.77% lower.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 23,270, lower than its last close of 23,345.05.

China on Sunday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9% on imports of POM copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from the United States, the European Union, Japan and Taiwan.

The commerce ministry’s findings conclude a probe launched in May 2024, shortly after the U.S. sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports.

POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc and have various applications including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the ministry has said.

A reclusive Chinese billionaire whose prescient gold trades turned into an eye-catching windfall has now become the country’s biggest copper bull, amassing a bet worth nearly $1 billion in a market jolted by escalating competition between the US and China.

Bian Ximing, who made an early fortune in plastic tubes before seeking a quiet life in Gibraltar, has made waves over the last two years with his investment in Chinese gold futures, betting on what he argued would be a global effort to reduce reliance on the dollar and counter inflation worries.

His fund came in just as bullion was beginning a record-breaking ascent — and made roughly $1.5 billion in profit in the process, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Oil steadied after an early drop, as Moody’s Ratings stripped the US government of its top credit rating, adding to concerns about the outlook for global growth.

Brent fell as much as 1.1% to below $65 a barrel before recovering, while West Texas Intermediate traded near $62. The Moody’s downgrade, which trailed rivals, risks reinforcing Wall Street’s growing worries over the US sovereign bond market and a slowing economy.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said he plans to hold a call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday to discuss how to end the conflict. An end to the war could potentially increase oil exports from the world’s third-biggest producer.

Warren Buffett will not take the stage at the Berkshire Hathaway 2026 annual meeting, preferring instead to let his successor have the spotlight after he retires, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Buffett, 94, announced at the end of this year’s meeting two weeks ago that he would be stepping down as CEO of the conglomerate he founded but would remain chairman of the board.

His successor Greg Abel will become the next Berkshire chief executive officer at the end of the year and will take Buffett’s place on stage at Buffett’s request, the paper reported, quoting Buffett’s daughter Susie.

The dollar edged lower and US equity futures slipped in early trading Monday as fiscal concerns mounted over Treasuries and the trajectory of US borrowing.

S&P 500 index futures fell almost 1% in Asian trading after an exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500 fell 0.6% post-market on Friday. Contracts for Australian, Hong Kong and mainland Chinese shares also indicated stocks were set to decline at market open. US Treasury futures extended Friday’s decline after the downgrade.

The downgrade comes after a winning week on Wall Street as investors cheered the White House’s deal with China to temporarily slash levies.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the way, surging more than 7%. The broad S&P 500 jumped over 5% and posted a five-day winning streak.

The blue-chip Dow rallied more than 3% last week. Friday’s gain of over 300 points pushed the 30-stock average into positive territory for 2025.

US stock futures have seen a slide in early trading on Sunday evening US time, as a credit rating downgrade of the world’s largest economy by Moody’s has hit sentiment.

The Dow futures are down 280 points, while those on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down 50 points and 165 points respectively.

Good Morning!

Welcome to CNBC-TV18’s Live Coverage of the Global market action, particularly on Wall Street, after the credit rating downgrade over the weekend.

The futures are currently trading lower after indices turned positive for 2025 in regular trading last week.

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