Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain
Antonio Conte has admitted Chelsea face a daunting challenge if they are to claw back the nine-point deficit to leaders Manchester City and successfully defend their Premier League title. A 1-0 victory at Bournemouth on Saturday ensured Conte’s men didn’t lose more ground to Pep Guardiola’s side and the head coach insisted the win provided a welcome boost to the London club’s confidence ahead of the midweek trip to face AS Roma in the Champions League. But the Italian refused to look too far into the future and warned of the difficulties that lie ahead for Chelsea in merely attempting to secure their position in the top four of the Premier League before setting their sights any higher. “At this moment we must be realistic by going game by game,” said Conte. “We have 19 points and we deserve to have 19 points. We are first in our group in the Champions League. “We went into the next round of the Carabao (League) Cup after going out in the second round last seaso