U.S. President Donald Trump signed a measure on Thursday directing the U.S. trade representative and commerce secretary to propose new tariffs on various countries in an effort to rebalance trade relationships. This comprehensive process may take weeks or months to complete. Howard Lutnick, Trump's nominee to head the Commerce Department, said all studies should be completed by April 1 and Trump could take immediate action after that.

Global markets were once again on edge after U.S. President Trump announced new tariff plans. Investors flocked to safe-haven assets, pushing gold prices to a record high.

People tend to use simple narratives to explain the rise and fall of assets, but the truth is often far more complicated than it seems. MarketWatch columnist Mark Hulbert recently wrote an article analyzing the relationship between gold prices and U.S. tariff policies.

The number of non-agricultural jobs in the United States increased significantly by 256,000 in December, far exceeding market expectations of 160,000, and the unemployment rate also dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%, reflecting the continued hot job market. Although this data usually puts pressure on gold prices, the yellow metal quickly rebounded after a brief decline, rising by more than $30. Considering that December is the peak employment season and is affected by natural disasters, non-agricultural data is expected to remain strong in the future. After the release of non-agricultural data, U.S. stocks performed poorly, U.S. Treasury yields rose, and market expectations for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in 2025 weakened. Some analysts even believed that the interest rate hike cycle might be restarted.

People familiar with the matter said Trump plans to take a series of actions immediately after taking office to invoke emergency powers to free up domestic energy production plans in the United States while reversing the Biden administration's actions to combat climate change. The shift is aimed at fulfilling his campaign promise to boost domestic energy production and reorient federal government policy to support oil and gas production, in contrast to the Biden administration's efforts to curb fossil fuels.

The dollar has been unexpectedly strong as President-elect Trump prepares to return to the White House. Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve's nominal trade-weighted exchange rate index for the dollar was just below 130, the highest level since March 1973. The ICE Dollar Index recently broke through 110, reaching its highest level since November 2022. The dollar index has risen 9% since Election Day and 7.7% in the quarter ended December, its best quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2015.