The dollar and stocks around the world fell on Monday after President Donald Trump introduced highly contentions immigration curbs that attracted sharp criticism from around the world, the Independent reports.
Mr Trump over the weekend signed two executive orders to ban refugees from entering the US and to rebuild the military.
One order begins the process, in his view, of building up the armed forces, while the other is designed to prohibit radical terrorists from entering the country, but acts as a temporary, blanket ban for any refugee coming to the US.
The move sent jitters through global markets, with traders fearful that it would be destabilising.
The UK’s FTSE 100 kicked off the session around 0.5 per cent lower after the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan ended the day lower and Australian shares lost more than 1 per cent.
Japan’s Nikkei finished the day around 0.5 per cent lower. Demand for the yen, which is considered a relatively safe asset to hold during times of market volatility, weighed on the stock index’s major exporters.
In the US, future contracts pointed to a weaker open on the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq indexes.
The dollar index fell around 0.3 per cent early on Monday, according to Reuters, and the dollar declined around 0.7 per cent against Japan’s yen.
