Friday 22nd August 2025

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UIS trade policy has been turbulent, to put it mildly, since Liberation Day in April. Tariffs have moved up and down, some geographic, others sectoral. The reasons have fluctuated, from stopping fentanyl, to trade imbalance, to political concerns. The benefits have been argued as protecting jobs, brining industries back home to raising revenue.

Dmitry Grozoubinski runs Explain Trade from Geneva, training government officials on complex trade negotiations. He has been involved in many, having represented Australia at the WTO from 2014 to 2018. His latest book is ‘Why Politicians Lie About Trade’. He joins Phil to talk about this new trade environment, where deals take weeks not years. How should countries be negotiating in this new regime? How long will the current state of flux last? And is a high tariff trade environment the new normal?

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Friday 22nd August July 2025

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US equities closed in the red again today, with losses more broad-based than earlier in the week. In part it’s a response to Walmart’s results, which showed increased revenue but a cut in earnings, suggesting they were losing margin, perhaps because of tariff impacts.

NAB’s Taylor Nugent returns to the Morning Call to give his take on overnight market moves and the latest PMI numbers for Europe and the US. He says pricing for a September cut has reduced slightly ahead of Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole. Remember there’s always pressure on the Fed chair to say something new and meaningful at this event. Last year it was the dovish pivot.

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Thursday 21st August July 2025

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Tech stocks lost ground again overnight, for no immediately apparent reason, unless it’s still down to comments earlier in the week from OpenAI’s Sam Altman that some people are going to get their fingers burned. NAB’s Rodrigo Catril is back with Phil to talk through that, and all the other market moves and overnight news, including the Fed’s hawkish minutes and the RBNZ’s dovish cut. And President Trump’s out to get Lisa Cook fired from the Fed board over allegations of mortgage fraud, so can get another of his people in there.

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Wednesday 20th August July 2025

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NAB’s Ray Attrill says the RBNZ is expected to cut rates today, even as an upswing inflation is expected in their revised forecasts. One central bank that might not cut at all for the remainder of the year is the Bank of England, with fresh CPI data out later expected to support that case. US equities took a hit, driven by tech stocks. NVIIDA lost ground, in part because their hopes of shipping a new chip to China has been stalled by Scott Bessent’s comments that any new products will need to apply for a licence. President Trump’s decree that goods can be shipped to China as long as the government gets a 15%cut, that deal obviously has conditions attached.

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Tuesday 19th August July 2025

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Having met with Zelensky and Putin separately, President Trump is now aiming for a three-way meeting to try and reach peace in Eastern Europe. The odds are still quite low, though, because it is unlikely Ukraine and Europe will want to surrender territory as part of the process. NAB’s Tapas Strickland says market moves have been somewhat constrained, as we wait for the start of Jackson Hole. There are question marks around whether central banks are cutting too early, with worrying signs of inflation persisting. That’s particularly the case for the UK where yields have been rising noticeably, even beyond the Truss budget experiment in some cases. At home the government’s economic roundtable kicks off at Government House in Caberra, with Michelle Bullock talking first thing.

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Monday18th August July 2025

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US retail sales remain resilient, but the same can’t be said for China. But the worry from Friday in the US is that inflation expectations are ticking higher. Meanwhile Japan’s GDP was firmer than anticipated, supporting the case for a BoJ hike, but when? NAB’s Rodrigo Catril is back with Phil to talk through the end of the week data, the repercussion s of the Trump Putin meeting and to look at the week ahead, including the Jackson Hole Symposium. Incidentally, it was a week out from Jacksom Hole that we launched the Morning Call in 2016 so this is, more or less, our ninth birthday.

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Friday 15th August 2025

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The Japanese economy woke from years of stagnation to an inflationary environment that gave businesses the opportunity to raise prices and for workers to demand more money. It provided a growth opportunity that had been missing from the economy, now reflected in the growth in the value of equities and a rising number of M&As.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that enthusiasm would disappear as the country faced unprecedented tariffs from their biggest export partner. Yet the toned-down tariff deal this month, which has still not been written into a formal agreement, has seen the Nikkei reach new highs and M&As are still being signed.

This week Harry Ishihara, an independent macro strategist based in Tokyo, returns to the Weekend Edition to give his views on the Japanese economy now, how companies are working their way round tariffs, the practicality of the $550billion investment that the US is expecting and what it all means for the Bank of Japan.

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Friday 15th August July 2025

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NAB’s Rodrigo Catril joins Phil on this morning’s podcast. Phil suggests there are three signs that tariffs are having an impact. First, producer prices were up more sharply than expected in the US. Second, the UK trade deficit fell sharply. And European industrial production fell too. They also look ahead to Japan’s GDP, retail sales for the US and China, pricing data from New Zealand, the US government’s plan for a stake in Intel and the atmosphere ahead of the Trump Putin meeting this time tomorrow.

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