Featured Opinion
Labor’s efforts to link Dutton to Trump are proving effective
Like the rest of the world, WA politics has been upended by Donald Trump’s reckless tariff war, which has a sharp edge in a resources-dependent economy closely intertwined with China’s growth.
Columnist
Trump isn’t kowtowing to the market – he’s doubling down
Investors need to be bold during these dark days. You want to be buying when the crowd is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Columnist
Voters deserve better than empty slugfests dressed up as debates
The closer we get to May 3, substance is being swiftly usurped by banal talking points and shrill attack lines whenever politicians step up to a microphone.
Canberra Bureau Chief
Hawke and Keating were wrong. There is a strong case for tariffs
The Hawke-Keating-Howard era got rid of tariffs. But in their place, they brought in a range of imposts that never existed before, or at least not to the same degree.
Who won the second week of the election campaign?
With week two done, we asked two former political staffers which leader had edged ahead on the election trail.
Nine rules for investors to navigate the trade war
Trade wars, like pandemics, have the potential to break traditional correlations in financial markets. But do not despair: trade wars also have their logic.
Strategic thinker
Trump’s pause no relief from great power showdown on trade
Australia confronts a worrying dilemma as the economic conflict between our major alliance partner and our major trade partner ramps up.
Editorial
Albanese cruises as budget discipline barely rates with voters
“Cuts” is a dirty word during an election campaign. But its increasing resonance underscores a scant regard for the need to address debt and deficit.
Political editor
Yesterday
The sell-off we had to have is only part-way done
In an environment when the market could drop 5 per cent on any given day and throw off opportunities, investors have to go back to basics.
Trump’s trade ructions will end up disrupting banking and payments
European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde has lamented an almost exclusively American financial infrastructure. Others feel the same way.
Trump’s big problem didn’t go away this week, it got more urgent
For Australian investors who live and work outside the US political cycle, it is easy to forget that the president is working under considerable time pressure.
I’m 72 with $2.3m in super. How much more can I contribute?
There is a lifetime limit on the amount of super that can be transferred into your tax-free pension accounts.
Could Trump’s tariffs decouple Europe from China, too?
The levies may trigger a strategic diversion of Chinese exports from America to the EU, eventually compelling European governments to respond with their own trade barriers.
A ‘classic emerging market crisis’ as investors flee US assets
The usual flight to safety toward long-term US government bonds occurred at first but has since very much reversed. The reversal shows no signs of slowing.
Will global leaders practice free trade preached to Trump?
Given the agreement that tariffs are a tax on consumers, why don’t both major political parties pledge to remove them if they prevail at the election?
ASX is facing a perfect storm. What’s it going to take to fix things?
The operator of the nation’s market infrastructure finds itself in a farcical and unacceptable position. Hopefully, it can heed the messages being blasted through.
This Month
Buckle up for next 90-days as tariff talks play out
Sentiment turned on a dime on Thursday as investors piled back into equities. We spoke to one of the country’s top wealth investor shops to find out why.
Trump’s economic cold war forces trade pragmatism from Australia
Deepening South-East Asian trade ties would prevent an assertive China exploiting the vacuum left by Trump’s unpredictability.
ASX board, management needs a clean-out
Readers’ letters on the Reserve Bank losing confidence in the ASX, Donald Trump’s backdown on tariffs, foreign students and Peter Dutton’s election campaign
No, Ambassador Xiao, China is not a champion of free trade
It is not Trump’s tariffs but Chinese economic policies and practices over many decades that are the greater challenge to economic globalisation as we know it.
Coalition’s Future Fund plan is a funny money fiscal illusion
The opposition’s proposal to pay down debt would actually involve the federal government taking on even more debt.
Bond markets smacked Trump’s tariff plan. He had to back down
Markets are recovering, but the scars from Trump’s tariff saga will run deep.
For a revealing insight into Nvidia, this book is unrivalled
Jensen Huang’s brainchild, Nvidia, has had astronomic success making microchips. Stephen Witt’s “The Thinking Machine” tells the inside story.
Why your SMSF is not a de facto private bank
Many self-managed super fund trustees continue to cite a handful of persistent myths to justify – or excuse – unlawful loans.
‘Feels like the commissioner is sitting at the kitchen table’
What was once a relatively simple formula has become a maze of complex decisions with potentially severe tax consequences.
Beyond perks and pay: The expanding role of work in a volatile world
In rapidly changing times, successful organisations will be intentional, strategic and courageous in making difficult yet necessary choices.
The day a market rout turned into something scarier for investors
What looked like a standard and orderly sell-off – overpriced equity markets reacting to an economic growth shock or the prospect of a US recession – is starting to look leaky.
Labor is giving the people what they want to hear
Peter Dutton is struggling to compete with Anthony Albanese’s promises to protect voters from the new Trump world challenges - as opposed to facing up to them.
No room for super complacency about cyber risk
Big super’s governance failures are now piling up coordinated cyberattacks targeting some of the nation’s largest industry funds.