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News.com.au
5 hours ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Hot Money Monday: WiseTech's $2bn power play, and one small logistics tech stock stirring interest
Cargo ships go smart with AI WiseTech muscles up with $2.1bn move on US freight kingpin Yojee's freight-tech play quietly takes aim at the big guys International shipping has always been the beating heart of global trade. For centuries, it was sailboats and steamers ferrying spices, silk and silver across oceans. Then came the age of steel hulls, steam engines, and containerisation ie; Malcolm McLean's game-changing box-on-a-ship idea that made global trade cheap and insanely efficient. But now, the industry's entering a whole new phase; less grease, more code. The modern cargo ship isn't just floating metal anymore, it's a data machine. IoT sensors beam back live engine diagnostics and cargo conditions. Ports run on automation and smart cranes. And while the crew's still onboard (for now), autonomous ships are already being tested. And that's just the beginning. Blockchain is also making paperwork disappear. Then there's the green push. With pressure mounting over emissions, shipping giants are rolling out LNG engines, wind-assist tech, and hybrid electric vessels. WiseTech's $2.1bn play to run global trade At the centre of this digital shipping revolution is one Australian company powering the pipes of global logistics. WiseTech Global (ASX:WTC) is the $36 billion Aussie tech powerhouse behind the curtain. Its flagship platform, CargoWise, is already the cockpit for freight forwarders, customs agents and supply chain operators in more than 170 countries. If something's moving across borders anywhere in the world, odds are, CargoWise is helping steer it. But WiseTech doesn't just want to be the brain behind the freight anymore, the company said it's gunning to be the "operating system" of global trade. To get there, the company made a monster move last week: a $2.1 billion cash deal to snap up US-based E2open, the biggest acquisition in WiseTech's history. The name might not mean much outside the freight world, but inside it, E2open is serious muscle. This is a company that connects over half a million businesses and tracks more than 18 billion transactions a year. What does it bring to WiseTech? The missing puzzle pieces ie; domestic logistics, trade compliance, carrier hookups, and planning smarts. WiseTech said the two firms fit together with barely any customer overlap. More importantly, it sets WiseTech up to build something far bigger: a true multi-sided marketplace. A place where ocean liners, freight brokers, warehouse managers and even small shippers can plug in, trade, and optimise in one unified system. Founder and chief innovation officer Richard White said, "Acquiring e2open is a strategically significant step in achieving our expanded vision to be the operating system for global trade and logistics.' 'This is a great deal for WiseTech's business and e2open's shareholders, for all our customers, the industry and ultimately the end consumer.' Yojee's making moves in freight tech, too Sure, WiseTech is the heavyweight in logistics tech, but it's not the only ASX stock worth watching in this space. Over the past 12 months, Yojee (ASX:YOJ) 's stock price has surged more than sixfold, a move that's turned a few heads in the small-cap crowd. While the $85 million-capped company is also in the logistics tech game, its focus is a bit different: freight forwarding. Freight forwarding isn't exactly known for its slick software. For years, the industry's run on a patchwork of spreadsheets, phone calls, and expensive old-school systems that don't talk to each other. Yojee is trying to change that by stitching it all together. The company's flagship software is called Mosaic, a next-gen freight forwarding platform. It's built to simplify the way forwarders and shippers manage cargo, giving users a single interface to book jobs, track shipments, and connect with partners across the chain. Mosaic is also designed with open architecture, so it can slot into existing business systems. That includes connections to things like accounting software (like Xero), or SMS services like Twilio. The platform runs on a 'pay-per-job' model, which means no big up-front licenses or lock-in contracts, making it a flexible alternative in a market that's historically been dominated by costly enterprise software. There's even an AI assistant called Tess already built in to help automate routine tasks. Customs is another pain point Yojee's now tackling. In April, the company launched a joint venture with SmartClear called Smart Yojee, aiming to bring real-time customs messaging and compliance tech into the Mosaic platform. And while all this is still rolling out, Yojee has already landed a notable pilot customer. In March, Germany's Röhlig Logistics, a major global freight and logistics firm, signed on to use Yojee's Transport Carrier Management System in Singapore. The rollout began in May and, if the pilot goes well, could expand further.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
European Stocks Set for Biggest Monthly Advance Since January
European stocks were set for the biggest monthly gain since January, as investors monitored the outlook for global trade. The Stoxx 600 was little changed by 8:08 a.m. in London. The insurance, utility and real estate sectors outperformed, while mining and technology were the biggest laggards.
Reuters
4 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Dollar rallies after US court blocks Trump's tariffs
SINGAPORE, May 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar rallied sharply on Thursday after a court blocked President Donald Trump from imposing his so-called Liberation Day import tariffs, with the currency surging against the euro, yen and Swiss franc in particular. The Manhattan-based Court of International Trade said the U.S. Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries that is not overridden by the president's emergency powers to safeguard the U.S. economy. In response, the Trump administration filed an appeal. The move sparked a risk-on rally across markets, sending Wall Street futures up while the dollar jumped in a knee-jerk reaction to a potential reprieve for global trade. The greenback rose 0.6% against the yen to 145.72 and 0.65% against the franc to 0.8326. The euro slid 0.5% to $1.1232. Sterling fell 0.2% to $1.3432. The dollar index , which measures the U.S. currency against six major peers, climbed back above 100 for the first time in a week and was last at 100.40. "We're just trying to work out what it might mean basically but obviously the market is doing a kneejerk reaction so I guess it's reversing a lot of the moves that we've seen... All the direction of change has been opposite to what we have seen since Liberation Day," said Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at National Australia Bank. Trump's tariffs have undermined investor confidence in U.S. assets and prompted a rush of money out of the world's largest economy. That has in turn toppled the dollar, which is down nearly 8% for the year so far. Elsewhere, the Australian dollar was little changed at $0.6428. The New Zealand dollar fell 0.13% to $0.59595.
ABC News
5 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
'Panic' in some quarters as US dollar dive puts pressure on Australia's $4 trillion superannuation pool
The Reserve Bank cut interest rates earlier this month in part because it was worried about the risk of a "severe downside scenario" for global trade. Economists say that risk just increased with a recent steep fall in the value of the US dollar — the fallout of which all Australians could feel. The US dollar, the world's reserve currency, has been hovering around a 3-year low and its steep decline has veteran economist Saul Eslake worried. "The reason for the decline in the US dollar is that financial markets are becoming increasingly apprehensive about a number of aspects of the US economy as a result of things that the Trump regime is doing," he told the ABC. They include sweeping tariffs imposed on many of its trading partners, and the potential passing of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which could see US debt rise significantly over the next decade. The apprehension is also showing up in higher long-term US interest rates, including the 30-year government bond rate, which is now roughly 5 per cent. Bond yields or interest rates rise when investors demand a higher return for debt that has become riskier, or more challenging for the borrower to repay. It has led to the end, for now, of a close correlation between the US dollar and US long-term interest rates. The two are now diverging. "Apprehension is probably putting it at its mildest," Mr Eslake said. "In some quarters, there is, if not panic, then certainly alarm [about rising bond yields]." The distress relates to the connection between elevated long-term bond interest rates and the rising cost of millions of American mortgages. The risk, Mr Eslake says, is that enormous numbers of Americans could begin to struggle to service their mortgage repayments. "With the 30-year bond yield in the US now higher than at any time since before the global financial crisis, that means that even though inflation is coming down, in the US, at least, until Trump's tariffs come into effect, bond yields and mortgage rates are going up." This, he says, could seriously harm the world's biggest economy. Australian mortgage borrowers on fixed-interest loans are, Mr Eslake says, also in the firing line. "Because although our mortgages tend to price off the Reserve Bank's official cash rate, fixed rates for mortgages and for business loans, the longer out you go, the more influenced they are by US government bond yields." The falling US dollar, analysts say, is also pushing the Australian dollar higher. While that's good news for Australian travellers, FNArena's Danielle Ecuyer says it is a risk for anyone holding US investments. And that includes Australians with superannuation. "We know that a lot of Australian investors have been piling into US stocks and the one thing that I think probably a lot of them aren't even taking into account is even though [US stocks have performed well], over the same period the Australian dollar has actually gone up 10 per cent," she said. "So, in Australian dollar terms, you can say you're basically losing that 10 per cent on your performance. Mr Eslake sees financial dangers for the US economy rising. That is because the cost of US government debt, he says, is higher than America's economic growth rate which, he points out, can make servicing government debt incredibly challenging. "And history tells you in those circumstances that, especially if governments continue to run big budget deficits, as the US is planning to do, that can actually lead to exponential growth in government public debt," he says. "At its most extreme example, that's what happened to Greece 13 years ago. "Now, the US is nowhere near where Greece is, but it's heading in that direction." Official inflation data will be released later on Wednesday, which, if low enough, could open the door to some additional mortgage relief for Australian mortgage borrowers on variable interest rates.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Trump's Vision: One World, Three Powers?
For President Trump, anytime is a good time for deal-making, but never more so than now with the leaders of China and Russia. Last week, Mr. Trump said he wanted to normalize commerce with Russia, appearing to lessen the pressure on Moscow to settle its war with Ukraine. And he is trying to limit the fallout from his own global trade war by urging China's leader to call him. 'We all want to make deals,' Mr. Trump said in a recent interview with Time magazine. 'But I am this giant store. It's a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there.' Mr. Trump may have something even bigger in mind involving Russia and China, and it would be the ultimate deal. His actions and statements suggest he might be envisioning a world in which each of the three so-called great powers — the United States, China and Russia — dominates its part of the globe, some foreign policy analysts say. It would be a throwback to a 19th-century style of imperial rule. Mr. Trump has said he wants to take Greenland from Denmark, annex Canada and re-establish American control of the Panama Canal. Those bids to extend U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere are the clearest signs yet of his desire to create a sphere of influence in the nation's backyard. He has criticized allies and talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from around the globe. That could benefit Russia and China, which seek to diminish the American security presence in Europe and Asia. Mr. Trump often praises President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China's leader, as strong and smart men who are his close friends. To that end, Mr. Trump has been trying to formalize Russian control of some Ukrainian territory — and American access to Ukraine's minerals — as part of a potential peace deal that critics say would effectively carve up Ukraine, similar to what great powers did in the age of empires. Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin spoke about Ukraine in a two-hour phone call on last week. 'The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent,' Mr. Trump wrote on social media. Monica Duffy Toft, a professor of international politics at Tufts University's Fletcher School, said that the leaders of the United States, Russia and China are all striving for 'an imaginary past that was freer and more glorious.' 'Commanding and extending spheres of influence appears to restore a fading sense of grandeur,' she wrote in a new essay in Foreign Affairs magazine. The term 'spheres of influence' originated at the Berlin Conference of 1884-5, in which European powers adopted a formal plan to carve up Africa. Some close observers of Mr. Trump, including officials from his first administration, caution against thinking his actions and statements are strategic. While Mr. Trump might have strong, long-held attitudes about a handful of issues, notably immigration and trade, he does not have a vision of a world order, they argue. Yet there are signs that Mr. Trump and perhaps some of his aides are thinking in the manner that emperors once did when they conceived of spheres of influence. 'The best evidence is Trump's desire to expand America's overt sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere,' said Stephen Wertheim, a historian of U.S. foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But setting up a sphere of influence in the post-imperial age is not easy, even for a superpower. Last month, Canadians elected an anti-Trump prime minister, Mark Carney, whose Liberal Party appeared destined to lose the election until Mr. Trump talked aggressively about Canada. Leaders of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, have rejected the idea of U.S. control. Chinese officials are threatening to stop a Hong Kong company from selling its business running two ports in the Panama Canal to American investors. 'China will not give up its stakes in the Western Hemisphere so easily without a fight,' said Yun Sun, a China analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington. Even so, Mr. Trump and his aides persist in trying to exert greater American influence from the Arctic Circle to South America's Patagonia region. When Mr. Carney told Mr. Trump this month in the Oval Office that Canada was 'not for sale,' Mr. Trump replied: 'Never say never.' In March, Vice President JD Vance visited a U.S. military base in Greenland to reiterate Mr. Trump's desire to take the territory. And it is no coincidence that Secretary of State Marco Rubio's two most substantial trips since taking office have been to Latin America and the Caribbean. In El Salvador, Mr. Rubio negotiated with Nayib Bukele, the strongman leader, to have the nation imprison immigrants deported by the U.S. government, setting up what is effectively an American penal colony. Mr. Rubio also pressed Panama on its ports. As a senator representing Florida, Mr. Rubio said at a hearing in July 2022 that focusing more closely on the Western Hemisphere was 'critical to our national security and our national economic interests.' 'Geography matters,' he said, because 'proximity matters.' During that trip to the region, Mr. Rubio was asked by a reporter whether administration officials had discussed setting up spheres of influence, which would entail negotiating limits on each superpower's footprint, including in Asia. Mr. Rubio, who has more conventional foreign policy views than Mr. Trump, asserted that the United States would maintain its military alliances in Asia. Those alliances allow it to base troops across the region. 'We don't talk about spheres of influence,' he said. 'The United States is an Indo-Pacific nation. We have relationships with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines. We're going to continue those relationships.' Some analysts say Mr. Trump's approach to the war in Ukraine is consistent with the concept of spheres of influence. The United States is talking to another large power — Russia — about how to define the borders of a smaller country and is itself trying to control natural resources. Mr. Trump has proposed terms of a settlement that would mostly benefit Russia, including U.S. recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and acknowledgment of Russian occupation of large swaths of eastern Ukraine. This week, Mr. Trump even seemed to back off his demand that Russia agree to an immediate cease-fire with Ukraine. Earlier, he got Ukraine to sign an agreement to give American companies access to the country's minerals. Supporters of Mr. Trump's settlement proposal say it reflects the reality on the ground, as Ukraine struggles to oust the Russian occupiers. But Mr. Trump's praise of Mr. Putin and of Russia, and his persistent skepticism of America's role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has inflamed anxieties among European nations over a potentially waning U.S. presence in their geographic sphere. The same is true of Taiwan and Asian security. Mr. Trump has voiced enough criticism of the island over the years, and showered enough accolades on Mr. Xi, China's leader, that Taiwanese and U.S. officials wonder whether he would waver on U.S. arms support for Taiwan, which is mandated by a congressional act. Mr. Trump says he wants to reach a deal with China. Whether that would go beyond tariffs to address issues such as Taiwan and the U.S. military presence in Asia is an open question. 'Beijing would love to have a grand bargain with the U.S. on spheres of influence,' Ms. Sun said, and 'its first and foremost focus will be on Taiwan.' Trump administration officials have not detailed how far the United States would go to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. At his confirmation hearing, Elbridge A. Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, was asked by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, why Mr. Colby's stance on defending Taiwan appeared to have 'softened' recently. Mr. Colby said Taiwan was 'not an existential interest' for the United States, and affirmed a vague commitment to Asia: 'It's very important the core American interest is in denying China regional hegemony.'
