Wednesday, 11^th July: the blue-chip index was representing England on Wednesday morning as they were almost all dressed in red. The only four in blue and at the top during early hours of trading were; Barratt Developments, Next, Coca-Cola and Unilever. During the first part of this week thus far, the markets have been distracted by Theresa May’s high-profile party members dropping out of her Brexit squad like flies, and trade war news has been muted. The silence has been broken though, when Trump announced an additional £150 billion worth of Chinese goods he plans to place tariffs on. The news managed to reverse the gains the index made on the first two days of the week and they were consequently down by more than 1.0% for the entirety of the day.

China responded on Wednesday promptly and made sure the United States was prepared for them to retaliate, although there was no mention of how or when. The tariffs on China from the United States now include multiple consumer goods, tobacco, chemicals, food products, you would actually have an easier time counting the goods that haven’t been hit with tariffs from Trump.

Asia isn’t the only continent he’s stirring up trouble in though, as Wednesday also marks the first day of his travels in Europe, where he started in Brussels at the NATO summit and has seemed to target Germany to kick things off by accusing them of allowing Russia to control them. Over in the UK, protesters await his arrival in order to welcome him with a Trump baby blimp which they plan to fly across Parliament gardens on Friday morning.

The FTSE 100, DAX Xetra and CAC 40 all ended the day lower by 1.30%, 1.36% and 1.25% respectively.