Australian and New Zealand markets are bracing for another tide of uncertainty over upcoming US tariffs after Wall Street slumped on Friday.
US President Donald Trump is poised to unveil his “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariff regime on April 2, which continues to unnerve investors around the world.
Australian futures are pointing to a 1.1% decline for the S&P/ASX 200 index today, while the kiwi dollar fell to 57.16 US cents at 7am in Auckland from 57.35 cents last week. Stocks on Wall Street sank on Friday, with the S&P 500 down 2%.
“Weak risk sentiment contributed to a large fall in US equities and an outperformance of safe haven assets into the end of last week,” Bank of New Zealand senior interest rate strategist Stuart Ritson said in a note. “Concerns about the widening trade war and US economic data, which pointed to slowing consumption and higher inflation, also weighed on sentiment.”
Local investors are preparing for the Commerce Commission’s decision on whether to approve Contact Energy’s acquisition of generator Manawa Energy. The antitrust regulator pushed out its decision, with some concerns about merged entity’s ability to influence wholesale electricity prices and the potential to refuse to supply hedging products to independent retailers.
Warehouse Group will also be in view after New Zealand’s government announced plans to accelerate efforts to introduce greater competition in the domestic grocery sector, which remains dominated by the Foodstuffs cooperatives and ASX-listed Woolworths.
Souring relations
Meanwhile, Trump has threatened new tariffs on Russia, telling NBC News he was angry with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s questioning the credibility of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in trying to achieve a ceasefire.
Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison is coming under pressure over its planned sale of two port operations near Panama Canal, with Reuters reporting that it won’t sign a deal next week and China’s antitrust regulator said to probe the proposed transaction.
Private equity firm Blackstone is investigating taking a minority investment in TikTok’s US operations as the April 5 deadline for China’s ByteDance to dilute its stake draws near, according to a Reuters report.
Over the weekend, Elon Musk poured his X social media platform – formerly Twitter – into its xAI artificial intelligence business, valuing the businesses respectively at US$80 billion and US$45 billion, including US$12 billion of debt on X.
Bitcoin slipped 0.4% to US$82,326 after Japan’s Financial Services Agency prepares to categorise cryptocurrencies as financial products, according to a Nikkei report.
Local data today include the ANZ business outlook survey. The Reserve Bank of Australia will review its policy on Tuesday and US employment data is scheduled for Friday.
Reporting by Paul McBeth. Image from Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash.