China’s fixed asset investment fell 3.8% year-on-year as of December, missing forecasts of a 3% decline. This data shows a continued decrease in investment levels across sectors such as infrastructure, real estate, and manufacturing in China.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Australian Dollar strengthened as China’s industrial production grew in December. In currency markets, the USD\/CAD pair dropped to near 1.3900 alongside an appreciation of the Canadian Dollar due to increased oil prices.<\/p>\n
The Japanese Yen eased off a one-week high against the USD, though bullish trends remain strong. Silver prices soared above $92.50 amid a demand for safe-haven assets, reflecting market responses to uncertainties.<\/p>\n
China’s economy achieved a quarter-on-quarter growth of 1.2% in Q4 2025, surpassing expectations of a 1.0% rise. The NZD\/USD pair held onto gains beyond mid-0.5700s after this Chinese data release but showed minimal additional momentum.<\/p>\n
In financial markets, various factors like tariff threats and geopolitical disputes influenced currency and commodity trends. For instance, Trump\u2019s tariff warnings against Europe affected GBP\/USD and gold reached new heights as geopolitical tensions spurred safe-haven purchases.<\/p>\n
The weaker than expected fixed asset investment from China suggests a slowdown in the country’s construction and infrastructure sectors. We saw a similar pattern emerge in late 2024, which was followed by a two-quarter slide in prices for industrial metals like copper and steel. This indicates that traders should consider bearish positions on commodities tied to Chinese industrial growth.<\/p>\n
With the escalating US-Europe trade dispute over Greenland, we are seeing a classic flight to safety, pushing gold to a record high. The VIX, a measure of expected market volatility, has jumped over 15% in the last week, mirroring the spikes we saw during the trade tensions of the last decade. Instead of chasing the spot price of gold, traders could use call options or call spreads on gold futures to gain upside exposure while clearly defining their risk.<\/p>\n
The US tariff threats are weighing directly on the Dollar, creating opportunities in major currency pairs. We are looking at bullish positions on the Euro and Pound against the Dollar, which can be expressed using leveraged futures contracts. The Australian dollar\u2019s strength is noteworthy but may be short-lived, as its fate is tied to the conflicting signals coming out of China’s economy.<\/p>\n
Crypto markets are behaving like traditional risk assets, selling off as geopolitical tensions rise. This confirms their sensitivity to global risk sentiment, a pattern that has become more established over the past two years. For the coming weeks, bearish derivative plays, such as buying puts on Bitcoin and Ethereum, could serve as a valuable hedge against further escalation in trade disputes.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China’s investment declines, but Q4 growth beats forecasts; commodities surge amid geopolitical tensions and safe-haven demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":17021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}