00:00The Aussie dollar was last above 65 US cents in November, when it was on the way down from
00:07a peak of 69.4 in September. It bottomed in January as the US dollar peaked just before
00:14Donald Trump's inauguration, since when the American currency has declined 10%, pushing
00:18the Aussie back up to where it was six months ago, which tonight is 65.3 US cents. During
00:25Trump's first term as president, global investors were happy to lend money to the US government
00:30for 20 years at 3% interest. Now they want 5% and they're not even sure about that. Last
00:36week there was an auction of 20 year government bonds, which didn't go very well at all. And
00:41that's because investors got a look at the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it's officially
00:46called, which wraps an entire legislative program into one bill that, among many other things,
00:53extends the tax cuts from Trump's first term. According to the Congressional Budget Office,
00:57it adds up to more than $3 trillion of extra deficit over 10 years. I mean, a trillion
01:03here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. The share market was
01:08basically flat today, with gains balancing falls, and that followed a small drop on Wall
01:14Street on Friday. A mixed performance is in Asia today, and on commodity markets, gold, copper,
01:18and oil went up 1% or more, while iron ore fell 1%. And finally, Morgan Stanley has had a go
01:25at predicting how many humanoid robots there will be in the world in 25 years. They reckon
01:30there will be a billion of them. At that growth rate, there will be more humanoids than humans
01:3625 years later. And that's finance.
Comments