ASX set to edge up, Wall Street advances after US-Japan trade deal; $A stronger
The S&P 500 was 0.5 per cent higher, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones was up 431 points, or 1 per cent, in mid-afternoon trade, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3 per cent higher. The Australian sharemarket is set to inch higher, with futures at 5.03am AEST pointing to a rise of 6 points, or 0.1 per cent, at the open. The ASX added 0.7 per cent on Wednesday.
The Australian dollar was 0.7 per cent higher at 66.01 US cents at 5.18am.
Stocks jumped even more in Tokyo, where the Nikkei 225 rallied 3.5 per cent after President Donald Trump announced a trade framework that would place a 15 per cent tax on imports coming from Japan. That's lower than the 25 per cent rate that Trump had earlier said would kick in on August 1.
'It's a sign of the times that markets would cheer 15 per cent tariffs,' said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. 'A year ago, that level of tariffs would be shocking. Today, we breathe a sigh of relief.'
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Trump has proposed stiff taxes on imports from around the world, which carry the double-edged risk of driving up inflation for US households while slowing the economy. But many of Trump's tariffs are currently on pause, giving time to reach deals with other countries that could lower the tax rates. Trump also announced a trade agreement with the Philippines on Tuesday.
So far, the US economy has seemed to hold up OK despite the pressures on it. And tariffs already in place may be having less of an effect than expected, at least when it comes to the prices that US households are paying at the moment.
'The main lesson about tariffs so far is that passthrough to consumer prices is tracking somewhat lower than in 2019,' according to Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle.
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