Trump spontaneously caught the markets off-guard with a tweet confirming that the US will impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports effective from June 10 onward. Mexico is currently the US’ 3rd largest foods trading partner with $611.5 billion in net total (two way) trade during 2018. Major macroeconomic news like this is bound to influence markets as domestic corporations in the US associated with businesses in Mexico adjust their demand lower for goods and services denominated in Mexican Pesos. This means that there is less aggregate demand for the Mexican Peso which is interpreted by traders as being bearish for the currency. Our news coverage strategy quickly reacted and picked up a nice 1.7% of our total portfolio value in less than 15 minutes of being in-and-out of the market.
