ELECTIONS – UNITED STATES

Divided US wakes to stalemate

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Original article by Jacob Greber
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 12 : 8-Nov-18

The Republican Party is set to gain up to five seats in the US Senate and retain control of the upper house following the mid-term elections. President Donald Trump has described the elections as a "tremendous success" despite relinquishing control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats, with the party poised to gain up to 35 seats. CNN’s exit polls showed that Trump had a disapproval rating of 56 per cent, while the disapproval rating of Democrat House leader Nancy Pelosi was 55 per cent.

CORPORATES
REPUBLICAN PARTY (UNITED STATES), DEMOCRATIC PARTY (UNITED STATES), UNITED STATES. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, CNN

Dollar rides rollercoaster of US mid-terms

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Original article by Melissa Yeo
The Australian – Page: 17 & 27 : 8-Nov-18

The Australian dollar peaked at $US0.7272 in local trading on 7 November, after the Democrats gained control of the US House of Representatives in the mid-term elections. The currency had fallen to $US0.7217 after it became clear that the Republicans would retain control of the Senate, erasing the gains it had made earlier in the session. Shane Oliver of AMP Capital says the Australian dollar may also have benefited from a delayed market reaction to the Reserve Bank’s latest economic forecasts.

CORPORATES
AMP CAPITAL INVESTORS LIMITED, RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA, DEMOCRATIC PARTY (UNITED STATES), REPUBLICAN PARTY (UNITED STATES), BNY MELLON INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, RBC CAPITAL MARKETS, STANDARD AND POOR’S ASX 200 INDEX

Beware of a wounded Trump

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Original article by Jacob Greber
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 1 & 10 : 6-Nov-18

Australia’s former prime minister Kevin Rudd says US President Donald Trump may be less likely to seek a resolution to the trade dispute with China if the Republicans perform badly in the mid-term elections. Rudd adds that Trump may adopt a more "extreme" position on issues such as immigration, foreign policy and economic policy if the Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives. The Democrats and Republicans have spent a record $US5.2bn in total on the mid-term elections.

CORPORATES
REPUBLICAN PARTY (UNITED STATES), DEMOCRATIC PARTY (UNITED STATES), UNITED STATES. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, HIGH FREQUENCY ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, ASIA SOCIETY POLICY INSTITUTE

Power to the irresponsible

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Original article by Mark Ritson
The Australian – Page: 25 : 6-Nov-17

The extent to which Russian operatives attempted to influence the 2016 US presidential election and destabilise American society has been revealed by US social media companies. According to evidence presented by Facebook, Google and Twitter executives to Congress in the week ending 3 November, Russian operatives created close to 36,750 Facebook sites during the 2016 campaign, along with 1,000 YouTube videos, 36,000 bots and 2,752 Twitter accounts. Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel, basically conceded it really had no way of knowing the identity of all of its advertisers.

CORPORATES
FACEBOOK INCORPORATED, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, TWITTER INCORPORATED

‘Our source is not the Russians’: Julian Assange in rare interview

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Original article by Luke Henriques Gomes
The New Daily – Page: online : 4-Jan-17

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange insists that his organisation did not receive hacked Hillary Clinton campaign emails from Russia. More than 19,000 emails were released during the US presidential election. The affair could be a factor in Donald Trump’s victory. Assange declined to reveal whether the source was based in the US.

CORPORATES
WIKILEAKS, FOX NEWS, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE

America: What Now? An Autopsy of the 2016 Election. Today, Wednesday December 7: 6pm – 8pm at Morgans at 401. 401 Collins St.

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Original article by Roy Morgan Research
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 7-Dec-16

As the dust settles on the 2016 United States election, the complex process of preparing to govern a bitterly divided nation begins for President-Elect Trump. And the long, slow process of post-mortem begins for political scientists, who along with pollsters, pundits and experts, were shocked once again to find that Trump had proved them all wrong, defied expectations, and remade American politics in the process. Or at least, that’s the news headlines. But with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote and a small, fractious Republican Congressional majority, Trump’s victory is not all it seems. When Trump enters the White House in January of 2017 he will do so with an enormous weight of expectation upon his shoulders, an extremely challenging policy environment, and unprecedented unpopularity across the general population, and fair-weather allies in Congress. Full details: http://www.humanities21.com.au/event/america-what-now

CORPORATES
UNITED STATES. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, REPUBLICAN PARTY (UNITED STATES), HUMANITIES 21 INCORPORATED

Good news for Rupert Murdoch’s empire

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Original article by John Kehoe
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 17 : 18-Nov-16

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and 21st Century Fox will benefit from plans by president-elect Donald Trump to reduce the US corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 15 per cent. Trump’s vow to block the proposed merger of telco AT&T and media giant Time Warner will also be welcomed by Murdoch, who made an aborted takeover bid for the latter in 2014. Likewise, Trump’s election win has ensured that he will not establish a TV network that would target a similar audience to Murdoch’s Fox News.

CORPORATES
NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS, 21ST CENTURY FOX INCORPORATED, AT&T CORPORATION, TIME WARNER INCORPORATED, FOX NEWS, UNITED STATES. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, REPUBLICAN PARTY (UNITED STATES), DEMOCRATIC PARTY (UNITED STATES)

Shares to feel the jolt as ‘bondcano’ fires up

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Original article by David Rogers
The Australian – Page: 31 : 17-Nov-16

The yield on 10-year Australian government bonds has retreated from a high of 2.74 per cent in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election win. The so-called "bondcano" has seen the yield on 10-year bonds rise by 51 per cent since August 2016, and Credit Suisse estimates that the recent sell-off is the 13th biggest since 1970. Hasan Tevfik of Credit Suisse expects bond yields to keep rising over the long-term, and identifies stocks such as Sydney Airport, APA Group and Healthscope as those most at risk from higher yields.

CORPORATES
CREDIT SUISSE (AUSTRALIA) LIMITED, SYDNEY AIRPORT – ASX SYD, APA GROUP – ASX APA, HEALTHSCOPE LIMITED – ASX HSO, ASX LIMITED – ASX ASX, BWP TRUST – ASX BWP, TELSTRA CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX TLS, WESTFIELD CORPORATION – ASX WFD, SCENTRE GROUP – ASX SCG, TRANSURBAN GROUP LIMITED – ASX TCL, STANDARD AND POOR’S ASX 200 INDEX, CROWN RESORTS LIMITED – ASX CWN, AUSNET SERVICES LIMITED – ASX AST, VICINITY CENTRES – ASX VCX, CHARTER HALL GROUP – ASX CHC, QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED – ASX QAN, NUFARM LIMITED – ASX NUF, MYER HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX MYR, FORTESCUE METALS GROUP LIMITED – ASX FMG, LEND LEASE GROUP LIMITED – ASX LLC

Gary Morgan’s comment on October unemployment: Donald Trump’s victory in US Presidential race shows electors believe real unemployment is higher than official statistics suggest

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Original article by Gary Morgan, Roy Morgan Research
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 15-Nov-16

US President-elect Donald Trump consistently stated during his campaign that real unemployment in the US was well over 20% or even 25% rather than the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) U3 figure – now at 4.9% for October 2016. In May Trump stated: "We have tremendous deficits. Don’t believe the 5 per cent. The real [unemployment] number is 20 per cent. The United States is dying from within, its domestic infrastructure is crumbling and successive administrations have wasted $5 trillion in the Middle East instead of using the money to create jobs and prosperity at home." Trump’s successful candidacy shows that many Americans agree with the new President that the official unemployment figures are considerably under-stated. There is a clear lesson for Australian politicians in Trump’s success.

CORPORATES
ROY MORGAN RESEARCH LIMITED, UNITED STATES. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

Stocks bounce back, buoyed by Trump’s fiscal optimism

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Original article by Vesna Poljak
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 23 & 34 : 11-Nov-16

The Australian sharemarket posted its largest single-day gain in more than five years on 10 November 2016, while Wall Street defied expectations of a big fall after the election of Donald Trump, finishing in the black. The Australian dollar also rallied, while local and US 10-year bond yields rose. Financial markets have scaled back the odds of a reduction in Australia’s cash rate by mid-2017, while there has been a slight easing of expectations of a rate rise in the US in December 2016.

CORPORATES
STANDARD AND POOR’S ASX 200 INDEX, STANDARD AND POOR’S ASX ALL ORDINARIES INDEX, NIKKEI 225 INDEX, HANG SENG INDEX, DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE INDEX, STANDARD AND POOR’S 500 INDEX, EURO STOXX 50 INDEX, PM CAPITAL LIMITED, RESERVE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND, UNITED STATES. FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD, QIC LIMITED, UNITED STATES. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT