Australian bond yields plunge tracking U.S. peer after President Trump announces new tariffs on China

Australian government bond yields plunged during Asian session of the last trading day of the week Friday, tracking a massive slump in the U.S. 10-year counterpart after President Donald Trump announced on Twitter a new set of trade tariffs on goods imported from China.

Also, the country’s retail sales for the month of June slightly exceeded market expectations, also rising from the previous reading in May.

The yield on Australia’s benchmark 10-year note, which moves inversely to its price, plunged 11-1/2 basis points to 1.095 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year bond slumped 9-1/2 basis points to 1.774 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year suffered nearly 8 basis points at 0.793 percent by 04:55GMT.

US President Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on USD300 billion of Chinese imports from September 1, following inconclusive trade talks in Shanghai earlier this week and threatened that they could be raised beyond 25 percent if talks continue to stall, OCBC Treasury Research reported.

With this threatened escalation, Wall Street slumped overnight while UST bonds rallied and pushed the 10-year yield to a low of 1.89 percent (last seen in November 2016), the report added.

Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 index remained tad -0.29 percent down at 6,700.50 by 05:00GMT.