It’s Friday the 4th of April, and Donald Trump's tariffs cause chaos on global markets, ANZ is chastised by the regulator, and sales of electric vehicles in Australia tumble. Plus job vacancies in Australia fall sharply and Coles gains ground on Woolies. 

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News in brief

• Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs have sent sharemarkets tumbling, pushed the Aussie dollar lower and opened the way for several interest rate cuts in Australia later this year. Meanwhile Bitcoin has lost ground, and the price of gold hit a new record.

   

• ANZ will be forced to hold an extra $250 million on its balance sheet, after the banking regulator said it has long standing concerns about the bank’s risk management and culture.

   

• Sales of Tesla electric vehicles in Australia plunged 53pc in March and are down almost 60pc in the first three months of 2025. Sales for Polestar were up 114pc while sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles jumped 380pc last month.
  
  

• Job vacancies in Australia fell by 4.5pc in February, to 329,000, reversing a jump in previous months. It is more consistent with a softening labour market and the number of job vacancies is down nearly 10pc from a year ago. However vacancies remain sharply higher than pre-COVID.
  
  

• Earlier this week we heard Woolies has reduced prices more than Coles, but now a report from UBS says Coles has become shoppers' main supermarket. UBS surveyed 1,000 people and 38pc described Coles as their primary supermarket, while Woolworths was at 37pc. It is the first time that Coles is above Woolworths in the survey.

Fear-o-meter

Spare for a thought for ASX-listed Breville. It manufactures 95 per cent of its kitchen appliance range in China and sells 45 per cent into the US, which will now attract a 54 per cent tariff.

It gets worse.

Breville has been working ferociously to diversify its manufacturing base away from China, fearing tariffs from the Trump Administration. Breville pushed into Mexico, Indonesia and Cambodia - all low cost manufacturing countries which as of yesterday, now attract very large tariffs.

Yesterday's announcements triggered large sell-offs in companies that sell into the US like protective equipment maker Ansell and luxury goods retail Cettire.

In contrast, BlueScope Steel's share price rose yesterday because it owns a big steel plant in Ohio. Healthcare groups CSL and Cochlear both said they are in holding patterns until they understand the detail around the tariffs.

The moral of the story is while the market is selling off, there are always winners and losers. Always check with a financial adviser first, but there are some real opportunities in the market. 

Who's talking today?

"It's very unclear...how the tariffs charged have been calculated and indeed the discounted rate that's been applied to different countries as well... This process might have the appearance of being very scientific, let's remember that there is always going to be... an element of arbitrariness to it. And what that necessarily means is that there's scope for us to play in the grey area. And we should continue to do that by putting forward our case as strongly as possible."

Greed-o-meter

The price of gold has hit another record, surging past $US3,100 an ounce as nervous investors flock to the precious metal as a safe haven. The history of gold's milestones reads like a history of financial upheaval.

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