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There can only be one winner in the ASX’s big tussle for 2025

Shares in Australia’s big banks are easily outrunning the ASX’s big miners. It will switch, it always does.

  • Anthony Macdonald
Constance Wu as Rachel Chu in Crazy Rich Asians - many families across the region are dealing with an erosion in household wealth.

The great ‘Asian dream’ has hit a roadblock

Across the continent, middle-class families are forced to rethink spending priorities as household wealth erodes. What can policymakers do?

  • Karishma Vaswani
Australian investors are pouring money into the US sharemarket, following its best two-year performance in  quarter of a century.

Australians pour record $5b into Wall Street as bulls run wild

Investors are hoping the US can pull off a ‘three-peat’ after the world’s most important equity market capped the best two years in a quarter-century.

  • Joshua Peach
Donald Trump and wife Melania at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve. Economists say his policies will hit global growth.

Trump’s ‘Maganomics’ will damage growth: economists

Surveys of more than 220 economists in the US, UK and Eurozone showed most respondents believed his protectionist shift would outweigh the benefits of his policies.

  • Valentina Romei, Sam Fleming, Colby Smith and Olaf Storbeck

December 2024

Shoppers on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai.

What China’s persistent deflation means for the world economy

China’s deflation spiral is proving difficult to reverse. Prices in the world’s second-largest economy could enter a record deflationary streak not seen since the 1990s.

  • Bloomberg News
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China’s population is shrinking, with the number of deaths outstripping births.

‘Courses in love’: China steps up campaign to promote marriage, babies

Universities have been asked to educate single students on relationships and regular articles appear in state media about the benefits of having children.

  • Eleanor Olcott, Nian Liu and Wang Xueqiao
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

UK economy flat-lines in new setback for Starmer government

GDP is estimated to change 0 per cent in the third quarter and officials have slashed expectations for future growth.

  • Reuters
A worker checks solar panels at a factory in Jiujiang in central China. The country has emerged as an industry leader in green energy sectors.

This is how China could lift growth while cutting global emissions

A shift towards green development could help stabilise the Chinese economy while supporting the world’s energy transition.

  • Yiping Huang
The Bank of England played Scrooge at its pre-Christmas meeting.

Bank of England pauses rate cuts as inflation picks up

The BoE did not join its rate-cutting peers in the US and Europe because, despite a flatlining economy, prices and wages have gathered pace.

  • Hans van Leeuwen
Traders watch Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference in Washington.

Shares, dollar slammed after Fed walks back rate cut plans

The Australian dollar tumbled to a two-year low and investors sold off stocks after US policymakers predicted just two rate cuts in 2025 – fewer than the market hoped for.

  • Updated
  • Cecile Lefort
Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell is walking a tightrope.

Inflation risk crashes into political risk

Market tantrums and the fall in the Australian dollar in response to the US Fed show that next year is likely to be even more volatile.

  • Jennifer Hewett
SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son jokes with Donald Trump during a news conference.

SoftBank woos Trump with $157b investment

The president-elect said he is embraced by business executives as technology leaders and founders flock to Florida ahead of his second term.

  • Updated
  • Akayla Gardner and Hadriana Lowenkron
Hunting down winter bargains in Beijing. Consumption remains weak in China.

Weak consumption drags on China as Trump tariff threat looms

Weaker retail figures come despite a boost from online shopping promotions and government-subsidised trade-in programs that have lifted sales in some sectors.

  • Kevin Yao and Ethan Wang
Xi Jinping

China’s ‘bazooka’ stimulus will have to wait - again

Beijing says “vigorous” efforts to boost domestic consumption are the country’s top economic priority, but details are once again lacking.

  • Updated
  • Jessica Sier
Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

The four charts that show what’s wrong with China’s economy

Key indicators reveal the challenges facing Chinese policymakers as they gather to deal with the task of balancing short-term stimulus with longer-term reforms.

  • Updated
  • Jessica Sier
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Chinese Premier Li Qiang is still talking the talk on stimulus, but action is less certain.

China is still all talk on stimulus – for one good reason

Beijing is again hyping its willingness to revive its spluttering economy. But action is unlikely to come until we know more about Donald Trump’s plans.

  • Updated
  • James Thomson
Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius.

Trump tariffs ‘not too disruptive’, Goldman’s top economist predicts

He expects the US president-elect’s slug on imports will be smaller than threatened, but warns they would hit growth hard if fully implemented.

  • John Kehoe
US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell speaks in New York.

Powell shrugs off Trump’s plan for a ‘shadow’ Fed chairman

The US central bank chief said his institution has “broad support” on Capitol Hill, and was confident of a solid relationship with the new Treasury secretary.

  • Colby Smith
French President Emmanuel Macron with Prime Minister Michel Barnier behind him.

France plunges into turmoil after government toppled

The parliament voted to oust prime minister Michel Barnier over his proposed deficit-cutting budget, throwing the country into deeper political turmoil.

  • Updated
  • Hans van Leeuwen
America’s market is over-owned, overvalued and overhyped to a degree never seen before.

The US market is a bubble ready to pop

Dominating the minds of global investors, America is over-owned, overvalued and overhyped to a degree never seen before.

  • Ruchir Sharma

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/global-economy-1n6f