Global Daily Briefing

The US-China 90-day tariff pause — reducing US duties from 145% to ~30% and Chinese counter-tariffs from 125% to 10% — was the single macro event that defined every region's session on May 13. In 🇨🇳🇭🇰 China/HK, BABA surged $11.03 to $145.81 (+8.18%), JD added 8.16%, BIDU +7.8%, and the Property sector ripped 5.94% as LPR cut expectations accelerated; in 🇰🇷 Korea, Samsung OTC shares (SSNLF) went parabolic at +114.7% and the tech/semi sector gained 63%, with the Korea ETF (EWY proxy) up 5.79%; in 🇸🇬 Singapore, the STI proxy added 1.41% with tech/internet leading at +3.49%; in 🇬🇧 UK, BHP and RIO gained 3.2% and 2.5% as the China demand re-pricing flowed into FTSE miners; and in 🇯🇵 Japan, Toyota added 3.21% on tariff-relief margin optimism for its North American operations. The risk to the entire chain: any USTR or MOFCOM clarification that the Geneva framework was preliminary rather than agreed triggers a sharp mean-reversion, with BABA, BIDU, and Korean semis the most exposed given single-session move magnitudes.

While Asian risk assets celebrated the Geneva truce, 🇧🇷 Brazil staged the session's starkest counter-narrative: EWZ dropped 3.8% with zero gainers among top movers — Fintech -5.1%, Energy -4.6%, XP Inc. -6.8%, Petrobras -4.5% — a clean institutional liquidation driven by Brazil's 14%+ CDB risk-free yields making equity risk premium compression arithmetically untenable at current Selic. 🇨🇦 Canada joined the pain from a different angle: SHOP -4.45% dragged TSX tech down 3.6%, banks fell 1.3% on BoC cut pricing compressing NIM outlooks, and materials dropped 1.5%, while the only safe harbor was pipeline yield (TRP +1.1%, ENB +0.6%). The combined Americas picture — US Financials -1.14%, Canadian tech -3.6%, Brazil -3.8% — tells a consistent story: rate-sensitive and high-multiple assets are being sold everywhere outside the US megacap tech complex, and the tariff truce euphoria stopped cleanly at the US border for risk-off EM names.

The 🇺🇸 US session closed with a split tape — GOOGL +3.94% and megacap tech carrying indices while Financials and Utilities bled — but the institutional signal beneath the surface is unambiguous: 23 insider sales totaling $34.04M against just 7 buys at $1.98M, a 17:1 dollar-ratio skewed to distribution. VECO's CEO sold $5.96M in a direct-market transaction — a red flag for semicap guidance credibility — while FITB director Feiger sold $2.69M into a sector already down 1.14%. On the constructive side, Block's 8% after-hours surge on a $309M net loss signals that loss-tolerant risk appetite is returning to fintech multiples, echoing the 2020-21 playbook; but high-beta AH pops are the first to reverse on a risk-off open. 🇩🇪 Germany's institutional flow ran a parallel rotation — selling SAP and Infineon (together -4.5% sector drag) while accumulating Linde (+1.61%) and Bayer (+3.03%) — a value-over-growth repositioning that, combined with US insider distribution, suggests smart money across two continents is trimming high-multiple software into the truce-driven rally.