Market Information Thursday 16 January 2020

The President of the United States Donald Trump and the Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He have signed the so called ‘Phase 1 trade deal’. With the agreement China promises to purchase more US goods, including billions of dollars extra of farm products. Furthermore, China promises to improve intellectual property protections and market access for foreign participants to Chinese financial markets. The US promises to withhold an earlier announced new round of import tariffs. Future negotiations will probably take some time to start. Trump recently said that a Phase 2 trade deal will start after the US presidential elections in November.

According to statistics Netherlands, the number of employed people in the Netherlands increased in the last three months with on average 17,000 per month and reached 9 million persons in December for the first time. The number of unemployed people decreased in the last three months to 302,000 in December. The unemployment rate reached a level of 3.2%.

In 2019, the German economy experienced the weakest growth in six years. According to preliminary figures of the German federal statistics bureau the economy had a growth of 0.6%. The global trade tensions and the weak German car industry led to a difficult year for the German economy. Furthermore, uncertainty on Brexit and a slowing world economy diminished growth. In 2018 the German economy had a growth rate of 1.5% and in 2017 a growth rate of 2.5%.

The 6M Euribor decreased with 1 basis point to -0.33% compared to previous business day. The 10Y Swap decreased with 3 basis points to 0.16% compared to previous business day.

In the attachment, today’s market data on money and capital market rates as well as other rates are presented.