Week 4 Wrap: World gauges tariffs; Trump’s Fed cut demand & Wall Street keeps rising

Trump has taken the helm of the USA, and it’s been surprisingly tame so far. Or maybe it’s the effect of re-watching a movie you’ve already seen.

The only real truly controversial thing he’s done is ordered US government health agencies to stop posting on social media and to stop publishing reports.

This is bad news if you are a cancer researcher – currently, such individuals cannot approach any US government health agency to apply for loan funding.

Why, exactly, Trump has ordered health agencies to keep their heads down and mouths shut isn’t exactly straightforward. Will conspiratorial mindsets impact the health of the average American?

Probably. Trump wasn’t too keen on doing much about COVID-19 for the brief time he had any say in the matter, but let’s wait and see.

Otherwise it was perhaps fairly predictable. So far:

• Trump says he’ll demand the US Fed cut rates
• Trump has announced a tenuous US$500B AI spending plan
• Trump has ordered that a national bitcoin reserve be looked into
• Trump is keeping world leaders guessing on tariff decisions
• Trump has postured to put pressure on Putin to exit Ukraine – involving a request OPEC drop oil prices

Those tariff decisions, when or if they arrive, will be the most likely catalyst to present risk (upside or downside) for the ASX. Asian shares were higher on Friday after Trump appeared to water down his rhetoric, but, that doesn’t count for much.

Meanwhile, Wall Street keeps rising to record highs. The market doesn’t really care, and the momentum is clearly felt by all.

Of foremost interest is what the relationship between Trump and Fed chair Powell will come to. Trump says he will demand the Fed cuts rates; Powell has previously indicated he would not follow orders from Trump.

In Australia:

• TIanqi has mothballed its Kwinana based refinery, hitting IGO
• The ASX has paid out stockbrokers over a December outage
• Qantas hit a fresh record high this week

Meanwhile, Dutton and Albo are starting to get more and more election-ready: sports season has started.

Australian Equities

ASX pays out stockbrokers over December 20 CHESS outage

Qantas hits fresh record high on customer benefit program

Takeovers Panel declines to look into Global Lithium’s China interference claims

International Equities

Wall Street hits new record highs as Trump talk does its thing

Apple down -12.5% MoM as iPhone 16 sales falter

Boeing flags US$4B quarterly loss to market’s chagrin

International Economies

Trump says he will demand the US Fed cut interest rates

But some analysts see upside inflation risk for USA in months ahead

Bank of Japan raises interest rates to 17Y high as inflation hits 3%

Geopolitics

Trump calls on Russia to end war with Ukraine 

South Korea’s President Yoon finally taken to court

Commodities

Tianqi Lithium pulls out of Australia, mothballing refinery

Oil falls somewhat as Trump tells Saudi Arabia, OPEC to lower price

Regulatory, Odds & Ends

Greek-operated Singapore-bound tanker travels through the Suez Canal

Purdue arrives upon US$7.4B opioid crisis settlement deal