The Australian Dollar followed the sharemarket lower and commodity prices also went down.
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00:00Well, the Aussie dollar has now left the 63s behind and is back in the 62s. 62.7 US cents
00:09to be precise. The trend is still up though because the US dollar is in decline as the
00:13odds of a recession and rate cuts in the United States rise. Now, as you've heard, the US
00:19share market dived after President Trump refused to rule out a recession, saying it's a period
00:24of transition. It'll take time, but it should be great. Investors are not so sure and knocked
00:302.7% off the S&P 500 and 4% off the Nasdaq. Here's a graph of Tesla's share price over
00:37the past 12 months. It dropped 15% last night and has lost all of what it gained after the
00:42election when Tesla CEO Elon Musk took on a side hustle cutting government spending.
00:49The good news for Tesla shareholders is that he's only paid on performance, so if this
00:53keeps up, they won't have to pay him anything at all. Still, they'd rather he was back
00:57in the corner office at Tesla HQ, I think. Also, I just want to point out that the global
01:02economic stakes are a bit higher now as we head into possible trade wars. Global debt
01:06is now $300 trillion US dollars, 50% more than in Trump's first term. And that's not
01:13counting the $600 trillion in outstanding derivatives, which are really just bets, mainly
01:18on interest rates. Here's the Australian market close, with Macquarie, Westfarmers
01:23and CSL leading the falls, while BHP and Woodside went up. Commodities all fell by around 1%,
01:31and we've got consumer and business sentiment today. Consumers are feeling better, with
01:36this index almost reaching the not-glum level. And business confidence went up a bit last
01:41month, but basically it's been zero for a couple of years, which means there are as
01:45many pessimists among Aussie business people as there are optimists.