(Updates prices throughout with U.S. markets, adds fresh

analyst comment; previous dateline LONDON)

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Wall Street stocks edge lower

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Gold extends run of record highs

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Japanese yen surges to multi-week highs

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Ukraine bonds tumble on concerns about its future

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Five years since COVID first tore into markets

By Chibuike Oguh and Marc Jones

NEW YORK/LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters) -

Global equity markets fell while gold prices surged on

Thursday, with traders marking one month since U.S. President

Donald Trump's

return to the White House and five years since COVID first

rocked world markets.

Gold was nearing $3,000 per ounce on concerns Trump will

unleash a global

trade war

. Bullion notched its tenth record high this year, partly

fueled by safe-haven demand amid the tariff threats.

The dollar was subdued against major currencies while

the yen stomped higher on bets of more Bank of Japan interest

rate

hikes

.

Trump's latest tariff warning on Wednesday focused on

pharmaceuticals, semiconductor chips and wood. He also intends

to hit car imports as soon as April 2. That, along with other

threats, has exacerbated fears of a broad trade war and unnerved

investors.

On Wall Street, all three main indexes were trading

lower, led by losses in financials, consumer discretionary,

consumer staples, industrials and communications services.

The benchmark S&P 500 hit a second

straight record closing high

this week on Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve's January

meeting minutes showed officials expressing concern about

inflation and Trump's policies.

"There's been some volatility at least in the headlines and

that's beginning to sip into the market, with the equities

indexes still bumping along their highs," said Wasif Latif,

president and chief investment officer at Sarmaya Partners.

"The market just needs to come to terms that this is the new

environment that we are in; just like we saw in the prior Trump

administration, over time the market will begin to discount and

adjust to some of the headlines."

European shares fell as gains in real estate and utilities

were offset by declines in heavyweight sectors such as energy,

financials and healthcare.

Germany's DAX was down 0.41%. Europe's biggest

economy is also set for a snap election at the weekend,

following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way

coalition, with analysts anticipating a Conservative-led

two-party coalition.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.31% to

44,042.00, the S&P 500 dropped 0.78% to 6,096.32 and the

Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.80% to 19,895.73.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell 0.11%.

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe dropped

0.61% to 881.35.

DICTATOR TRADE

Ukraine's government bonds tumbled after Trump caused

widespread alarm on Wednesday by calling Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelenskiy a "dictator" and saying he needed to move

fast to secure peace or risk having no country left.

Foreign ministers from the G20 top economies were meeting in

South Africa. Top U.S. officials have snubbed the gathering and

media reports on Thursday said the U.S. had opposed calling out

Russian aggression at a virtual G7 meeting on Monday.

Mirabaud's head of emerging market debt, Daniel Moreno, said

expectations that Trump would drive a peace deal that provided

Ukraine with long-term security have all but been dashed.

"The way that things are developing (with U.S-Russia

talks and Trump criticisms) the market is now realizing that is

not the base case anymore."

"Trump is not indicating in any form that the resolution

will be a good one in any way for Ukraine," he added.

GOING FOR GOLD

Gold prices showed no signs of slowing, though. They rose to

a fresh record high of $2,956.69 an ounce. The precious metal

is now up 12% in 2025 after rising 27% last year, its

best performance in over a decade.

In the oil markets, Brent crude futures rose 0.93% at $76.76

a barrel while U.S. crude rose 0.8% to $72.83 a

barrel, underpinned by worries over supply disruptions in

Russia.

In currencies, the yen strengthened against the greenback to

an 11-week peak of 149.63 per dollar. The euro

was up 0.41% at $1.0464.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback

against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro,

fell 0.51% to 106.63.