ASX to rise, Wall St rallies broadly, Nvidia resets record high
Investors were paying less attention to the trickle of 'trade' letters being released by President Donald Trump on his social media platform, with tariff rates mostly in line with what he previously proposed.
Trump said he would levy a 30% rate on Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka, with 25% duties on products from Brunei and Moldova and a 20% rate on goods from the Philippines.
CNN's Fear and Greed Index edged back into 'extreme greed'. Mark Hackett at Nationwide told Bloomberg that the markets appears to be signalling an openess to risk. ' 'As the market reaction to the ebb and flow of tariff news has become muted, the next catalyst is earnings season.'
Major US banks will begin reporting their latest quarterly results late next week.
Market highlights
ASX futures are pointing up 41 points or 0.5 per cent to 8571.
All US prices as of 2pm New York time.
Today's agenda
It's a quiet day for data with the key print being weekly US initial jobless claims late on Thursday for another view on the strength of the labour market.
Top stories
Fundies could face fee threat if super funds rethink equities mandates | Carving out CBA and other bank shares from industry funds' active, fee-paying mandates means they cannot be underweight the ASX's largest financial stocks, writes Joyce Moullakis.
Death threats and targeting kids: report exposes CFMEU Qld's 'violent' abuse | An investigation into the CFMEU's Queensland branch contains shocking allegations of dozens of abusive incidents towards rival unionists, public servants and even children.
| Anthony Albanese and his advisers are determined not to let Donald Trump's fire-and-brimstone antics influence how Australia engages with China.
| This former ASX and affordable housing darling's long-time fee structure is under fire. Watch out.
| The administration wants to 'bring copper production home', but the most likely result is that manufacturers will have little choice but to pay more for it, writes Jennifer Hewett.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
28 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Europe tells Trump to stand firm against Putin on Ukraine ceasefire
London: European leaders have aired a potential deal to halt the war in Ukraine under plans to be put to Russian leader Vladimir Putin in talks with US President Donald Trump on Friday, signalling a negotiation over territory as long as a ceasefire comes first. The proposal emerged from an online meeting to set the terms for the talks on Friday, amid European concerns that Trump will trade away territory at his summit with Putin without pushing hard enough for an end to the hostilities and guarantees over future security. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the meeting, which included Trump as well as every major European leader, that Putin was 'bluffing' about his desire for peace and should be subjected to escalating economic sanctions. Trump described the call as 'very friendly' and later appeared to harden his message to Putin by threatening 'very severe consequences' for Russia if it did not agree to a peace deal, but he offered no detail about what this would mean. With Russian forces piercing some of the Ukrainian defences on the front line at the same time as Russian missiles bring destruction to Ukrainian cities, the Alaska summit represents the first significant opportunity for a ceasefire after months of intensifying attacks. Loading Zelensky told Trump on Wednesday, Berlin time, to heighten pressure on Putin with economic sanctions and secondary tariffs because the Russian leader was only pretending to consider a ceasefire. 'I told the US president and all our European colleagues that Putin is bluffing,' he said at a press conference after the online meeting. 'He is trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska along all parts of the Ukrainian front. Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine.'
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Trump turns history on head with Putin invitation to key US base
Donald Trump is turning history on its head with his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin -- inviting Russia's leader to land that once belonged to Moscow, and meeting him at a military base that monitored the Soviet Union. The location is all the more striking as Putin is under indictment by the International Criminal Court, with Friday's summit marking the first time he has been allowed in a Western country since he invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The two leaders will meet at Elmendorf Air Force Base, which goes by the motto "Top Cover for North America." Trump has said that Putin suggested the summit and it is unclear to what extent the Republican president thought through the symbolism of the base or Alaska, still yearned for by some Russian nationalists. But George Beebe, the former director of Russia analysis at the CIA, said the Alaska setting showed an emphasis on what unites the two powers -- history and the Pacific Ocean -- rather than on rivalry or the conflict in Ukraine. "What he's doing here is he's saying, 'This is not the Cold War. We're not replaying the series of Cold War summits that took place in neutral states'," said Beebe, now director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which supports military restraint. "We're entering a new era, not just in the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States, but also in the role that this relationship plays in the world," he said. Russia had settled Alaska from the 18th century but, struggling to make its colony profitable and crippled by the Crimean War, Tsar Alexander II sold it to the United States in 1867. Then secretary of state William Seward was ridiculed for the purchase, dubbed "Seward's Folly" due to the perceived lack of value of Alaska, but the territory later proved to be strategically crucial. The United States rushed to build what became Elmendorf Air Base after imperial Japan seized some of the Aleutian islands following their 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Then with the Cold War, Elmendorf became a key center to observe Soviet movements across the Bering Strait. As recently as nine months ago, an electronic surveillance plane from Elmendorf as well as other US planes scrambled to track Russian planes flying off Alaska's coast. - Mixed takes in Anchorage - With more than 800 buildings and more than 10,000 military personnel, Elmendorf is the largest military installation in Alaska -- and is also known as a refueling stop for the US president and secretary of state when they travel to Asia. In anticipation of Putin's arrival, some local residents have painted Ukrainian flags to place on their roofs, in the off chance that the Russian leader sees them on his aircraft's descent. Putin "is a criminal and he's coming here to a military base. There was a time when that would have been unthinkable," said teacher Lindsey Meyn, 40, as she used spray paint to color a homemade blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag. She said the summit was part of Trump's strategy to "overwhelm with craziness" and distract from other issues. "It's terrifying a little bit. I was thinking, is Trump going to offer our state back to Russia? I don't think that's going to happen but that's the first thing that came to my mind," she said. Alaska's Russian heritage is still visible in isolated ways, including through a domed blue Russian Orthodox cathedral in Anchorage that was built in the 1960s. But Alaska has also become home to Ukrainians, both before and since Putin's invasion. Zori Opanasevych, who has helped resettle 1,300 Ukrainians in Alaska with the non-profit group New Chance Inc., said that people she talked to wanted to hold out hope for the summit. "If there is any way that President Trump can influence Putin to stop the killing, we'll believe in that. We have to believe in that," she said.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Everything we know as Trump meets Putin in Alaska
US President Donald Trump has acknowledged his high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin may fail, and said any Ukraine deal would come through a future three-way meeting with Kyiv to 'divvy things up'. Russian President Vladimir Putin flies to Alaska on Friday at the invitation of Trump in his first visit to a Western country since he ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that has killed tens of thousands of people. The Kremlin said that the two presidents planned to meet one-on-one, heightening fears by European leaders that Putin will cajole Trump into a settlement imposed on Ukraine. What Trump has said ahead of the meeting Trump, on the eve of the summit, insisted that he would not finalise any deal with Putin and that he would include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in any decisions. 'This meeting sets up the second meeting, but there is a 25 per cent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,' Trump told Fox News Radio. 'The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that's going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don't want to use the word 'divvy' things up. But you know, to a certain extent, it's not a bad term,' Trump said. Zelensky has refused any territorial concessions to Russia, which has ramped up attacks and made sharp gains on the battlefield just ahead of the summit. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said any future deal needed to ensure Ukraine's security. 'To achieve peace, I think we all recognise that there'll have to be some conversation about security guarantees,' Rubio told reporters in Washington, saying he was 'hopeful' about the summit. Trump has previously ruled out letting Ukraine join NATO and backed Russia's stance that Kyiv's aspirations to enter the transatlantic alliance triggered the war. Ukraine and most of its European allies reject Putin's narrative and point to his remarks denying the historical legitimacy of Ukraine. Trump had boasted that he could end the war within 24 hours of returning to the White House in January. But his calls to Putin — and intense pressure on Zelensky to accept concessions — have failed to move the Russian leader and Trump has warned of 'very severe consequences' if Putin keeps snubbing his overtures. What Putin has said ahead of the meeting Putin on Thursday welcomed US efforts to end the conflict and said that talks could also help yield an agreement on nuclear arms control. 'The US administration … is making quite energetic and sincere efforts to end the fighting,' Putin told a meeting of top officials in Moscow. The talks are set to begin at 5.30am AEST on Saturday at the Elmendorf Air Force Base, a major US military installation in Alaska that has been crucial in monitoring Russia. 'This conversation will take place in a one-on-one format, naturally with the participation of interpreters,' Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow. He said that delegations would continue discussions over a working lunch and that Putin and Trump would hold a joint news conference. The White House has not confirmed any plans for a joint press appearance. Trump faced heated criticism over his joint news conference after his 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki where he sided with Russia over US intelligence in accepting Putin's denials of interfering in the 2016 US election to help Trump. What other European leaders are saying Zelensky, who will not join Friday's summit in Alaska, met Thursday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, after talks a day earlier in Berlin. Starmer greeted the Ukrainian leader with a warm hug and handshake on the steps of his Downing Street residence and later voiced solidarity. European leaders expressed relief after a call with Trump on Wednesday, saying he appeared focused on a ceasefire rather than concessions by Ukraine. What is the latest on the Ukraine-Russia war A day before the summit, Ukraine fired dozens of drones at Russia, wounding several people and sparking fires at an oil refinery in the southern city of Volgograd. Russia meanwhile said its troops had captured two new settlements in eastern Ukraine, where it has been advancing for months. Diplomacy since Russia's invasion has largely failed to secure agreements beyond swaps of prisoners. Russia said Thursday it had returned 84 prisoners to Ukraine in exchange for an equal number of Russian POWs in the latest exchange.
