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The Australian stock exchange is expected to plunge as much as 1.14% this Monday morning after Donald Trump and his White House formalised long-heralded tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China. They’ll begin on Tuesday.
The local bourse, which ran green through most of Week 5, is now being tipped to shave nearly 100 points in what could be a fairly rough start to the trading day.
All three leading U.S. indices dropped on Friday, too, before the tariffs even arrived.
This is arguably only the first salvo in the trade war too; things may very quickly get worse.
The whole thing leaves a bit of confusion on the Sydney trading floor; the ASX 200 notched a record high on Friday – ending at 8,532 points – but doesn’t really have the staying power to deny such heavy global pressures.
Added to the mix is the fact it’s profit season: Major Oz companies like Amcor (ASX:AMC), REA Group (ASX:REA), and Nick Scali (ASX:NCK) will start things there today.
Elsewhere, Charter Hall (ASX:CHC) has kicked its Hotel Property Investments (ASX:HPI) takeover down the road slightly. The $760M acquisition had a January 31 deadline; things must now wrap up by March 14.
Coles (ASX:COL) will also make market headlines this week after the supermarket giant opted to “aggressively” slash the number of products on its shelves.
Looking at forex, and the Aussie dollar has been hit hard by trade war concerns: The AUD is buying 61.6 US cents after a 1% drop.
To commodities, which are in the greenback,
Iron Ore has added 0.64% to $105.95 a tonne in Singapore,
Brent Crude is trading at $75.67,
Gold is trading at an all-time high, selling at $2,831 per ounce, and,
US natgas futures are at $3.04 per gigajoule.
That’s Market Open, I’m Isaac McIntyre, stick with us for HotCopper’s Market Update.
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