By Amanda Cooper

LONDON (Reuters) – Global shares dipped on Tuesday, struggling to draw momentum from a rally on Wall Street as concerns about faltering economic growth dampened investor sentiment, which also weighed on oil.

Data from China showed exports grew at their fastest since March 2023 in August, suggesting manufacturers were rushing out orders ahead of tariffs expected from a number of trade partners, while imports missed forecasts amid weak domestic demand.

That followed Monday’s inflation figures that pointed to still-fragile domestic demand as producer price deflation worsened, keeping alive calls for further stimulus from Beijing to shore up its economy.

This took a chunk out of Asian shares, as well as commodities such as and crude.

Across the broader equity market, MSCI’s All-World index was flat, reflecting modest gains in Europe, where the fell 0.3% and as U.S. stock futures tilted into negative territory.

Investors are anticipating a series of rapid interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in the coming months, after last week’s U.S. jobs report painted a picture of a labour market that was slowing.

“Markets are now on hard-landing alert essentially and we’ve seen a return to ‘good news is good news’,” Investec chief economist Philip Shaw said.

Stocks had traded at record highs just two weeks ago, as expectations built for the Fed to deliver some fresh stimulus to the economy by cutting borrowing costs.

But with the all-important labour market slowing, activity across the manufacturing sector in contraction and inflation subsiding, the mood has shifted.

Futures show traders are banking on U.S. rates dropping by a full percentage point by the end of the year, with a near-30% chance of a half-point cut coming as early as next week, according to CME’s Fedwatch tool.

Wall Street had staged an impressive rebound in the previous session, after all three major U.S. stock indexes surged more than 1%, recovering from last week’s selloff.

Later on Tuesday, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump will debate for the first time ahead of the presidential election on Nov. 5, with the two locked in a tight race.

THE CASE FOR CUTS

Investors now turn their attention to Wednesday’s U.S. inflation report, which could provide more clarity on whether the Federal Reserve would deliver an outsized 50-basis-point cut when it meets next week.

“(Inflation) numbers have been pretty critical over past few months, but it is arguably less this time around. Markets have it firmly established in their minds that price pressures are easing back. What matters more are the projected trends in U.S. economy and the extent to which activity holds up or slows down,” Investec’s Shaw said.

Expectations are for headline inflation in the United States to have slowed to an annual rate of 2.6% in August, compared with July’s 2.9%.

“If the inflation number is any different, or significantly different from expectations, then the number of rate cuts (priced in) will be changed,” Jun Bei Liu, a portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners, said.

“At the moment, I think the market is reasonably aggressive in pricing quite a lot this side of the year, and so that probably opens up for a bit more … volatility that we have seen in the last couple of weeks.”

Oil, which has lost nearly 20% in the last two months alone, driven by concern about global energy demand, was down another 1% at $71.13 a barrel.

Copper futures fell 0.2% to $9,076 a tonne, while iron ore futures dropped 0.5% to $91.30 a tonne, after data showed a drop in Chinese imports.

In currencies, the U.S. dollar surrendered earlier gains against the yen to fall 0.1% to 143.03. The euro was flat at $1.10323, while sterling rose 0.2% to $1.3095. Data earlier showed UK wage growth cooled in the three months to July but remained above 5%.

After two months of upheaval, the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is a dead heat — and the stakes of Tuesday’s debate couldn’t be higher

The past two months in American politics have been a whirlwind: Joe Biden fumbled the first debate so badly he had to drop out of the presidential race. Someone tried to assassinate Donald Trump. The new Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, reinvigorated the party’s presidential hopes, sparking widespread joy among a previously dejected base while generating an unprecedented fundraising groundswell.  

On the surface, it may have seemed like the race fundamentally changed: Harris had an impeccable campaign launch, and Trump has been in absolute hell — angrily posting away his feelings while repeatedly complaining that Harris replaced Biden as the nominee. And yet, despite all the upheaval, the broader contours of the 2024 election remain eerily similar: The race is deadly close — and Trump may well still be the favorite. 

The stakes of Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia — the second of the campaign, and the first between Harris and Trump — could not possibly be higher. With the race between the vice president and the former president trending uncomfortably close — particularly in recent private and public polls conducted in the handful of battleground states that will decide the election — various officials in each camp say Tuesday night’s contest could make or break their candidate’s chances at taking the White House.

Those on Team Harris believe the debate is crucial to preserving the democratic order in the face of Trump’s fascistic whims.

“There is no room for error. None,” says a Harris ally, who adds that a lackluster performance could “cost us the election.” 

In the estimations of Democrats working on her campaign, the debate is very likely to set the tone — in the political press and elsewhere — for the final two-month sprint of the 2024 contest. And if Harris fails to define herself to the American people on live television, it could prove catastrophic, in a presidential election that appears destined to be fought at the margins.

New polling from The New York Times and Siena College indicates many voters still want to know more about Harris and her plans for what she would do as president. A majority of likely voters think Harris deserves blame for rising prices and for “problems at the border,” as the Times/Siena survey put it — suggesting that Republicans’ attacks on Harris and attempts to define her may be resonating. 

So much for coasting on positive vibes.

The Harris campaign finally published an issues page on its website Sunday, a month and a half since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee, two days before the debate. Now, she needs to communicate her policy vision directly to the millions of Americans who will tune in on Tuesday, all while standing a few feet away from Trump.  

“It will be devastating if we screw this up,” one Harris adviser tells Rolling Stone, adding: “It really is one of those ‘failure is not an option’ kinds of evenings, isn’t it?”

As Harris and Trump have prepared for Tuesday night in Philly, their campaigns have actively brainstormed tactics and canned lines that each side thinks would work best at getting under the other candidate’s skin — in the hopes of provoking an overreaction or stumble that sticks in the minds of voters. 

In the lead-up to the debate, Trump’s team and allies have pressed him to be “happy Trump” at the debate, not “mean, bully Trump,” according to the Times. 

According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, when some members of Team Harris were reviewing recent and older videos of Trump — at events, during media interviews, onstage at televised debates — they noticed that Trump is sometimes not as easily baited as some would assume.

“Donald Trump is famous for being easily lured into acting like the oaf and bully that he is, but if you watch him at points during, and also after, his time in office, you will be able to spot the times when he knows somebody is trying to get a rise out of him, and then he just refuses to give them what they want … at least for that short amount of time,” one of these sources says.

In the weeks leading up to the Philadelphia debate, this led to further brainstorming among these Harris 2024 officials, who wanted to flesh out every angle for the kinds of onstage barbs and attacks that stood a chance at effectively triggering the former president. 

The two sources declined to share what the new ideas were, which they added were shared with the vice president, as they aim to catch Trump off-guard on Tuesday.

From mass deportations to the end of abortion as we know it, there are many, many reasons to fear a second term for Donald Trump. Another one that he helpfully reminded people of over the weekend? His plans to imprison his opponents and other perceived enemies for crimes they’ve only committed in his mind.

On Saturday, the GOP nominee for president wrote on Truth Social, “CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Should people who break the law be held accountable? Yes. Yet the ex-president has an extremely bad track record of accusing people of committing crimes that did not actually occur. Despite regularly making claims of “rampant cheating“ during the 2020 election, there remains no evidence that such cheating took place, and numerous courts, Republican officials, and former members of his administration have said as much. Meanwhile, some of those same people have said that Trump tried his hardest to cheat his way into a second term. In fact, he’s been charged by the Justice Department with doing so, and his most recent comments on the matter were that he had “every right” to interfere in the 2020 election.

Also on Saturday, Trump claimed at a Wisconsin rally that “the Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail—they want me in jail—for the crime of exposing their corruption,” despite the fact that there is no evidence the president or current VP has weighed in on decisions at the DOJ. At the same rally, he pledged, as he has done in the past, to pardon individuals involved in the violent attack on the Capitol following his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. “The moment we win, we will rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime,” Trump said in Wisconsin. “And I will sign their pardons on day one.”

In response to Trump’s weekend comments, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign said in a statement, “If he wins this November, Donald…will use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6.” Which sounds like a pretty accurate summation of his plans!

Ron DeSantis is very upset that Floridians will actually get a say in their rights