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Here’s what you need to know today

• US President Trump made multiple trade related threats on Truth Social over the weekend. He said the European Union would face 50% tariffs from 1 June as trade negotiations were “going nowhere” while also threatening Apple with 25% tariffs on any iPhones not made in America. (ABC)
  
  

• Australia’s Liberal Party and National Party are one step closer to re-forming the Coalition, after reports emerged that the Liberals have agreed in principle to four key demands from the Nationals: lifting the ban on nuclear energy, a $20 billion regional Australia fund, guarantees on mobile service in regional areas and divesture powers to break up big supermarkets. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Australia’s second largest private hospital operator, Healthscope, is in dire straights this week after negotiations with its lenders failed. The private hospital giant owns 38 private hospitals across Australia and is struggling to service its $1.6 billion in debt meaning it may fall into receivership this week. (AFR)
  
  

• Former AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan is looking to shake up TAB’s betting operations. Tabcorp has in-venue betting terminals in 3,700 pubs across Australia and the changes McLachlan is looking to make were summed up by the AFR as “Tabcorp goes to war with pubs”. (AFR)
  
  

• Shanghai hosted one of the world’s largest food trade shows last week, SIAL Shanghai, and Australia’s beef industry was front and centre. Australian beef exports to China are quickly rising, as recent data from the ABS showed Australia is on track to produce a record amount of beef in 2025. (ABC)
  
  

• US President Trump signed an Executive Order seeking to accelerate the expansion of nuclear energy in the US. Australian uranium stocks jumped on the news: Boss Energy up nearly 10%, Paladin Energy up 9% and Deep Yellow up 7%. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• The owners of OnlyFans are reportedly looking to sell the company for US$8 billion. Revenue at the subscription-based social network has risen from $375 million in 2020 to $6.6 billion in 2023. (Reuters)
  
  

• BYD has outsold Tesla in Europe for the first time ever. Last month, Tesla sold 7,165 vehicles while BYD sold 7,231. Tesla has long been the market leader for EV sales in Europe, with BYD only expanding operations beyond Norway and the Netherlands in 2022. (Quartz)
  
  

• The courts in the US have temporarily blocked the Trump Administration’s effort to stop Harvard University enrolling international students. Harvard has been one of the few institutions to resist the Trump Administration, however, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the government’s ban follows Harvard’s failure to provide records on alleged misconduct by foreign students. (ABC)

What the…?

Major American newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Sun-Times have had an embarrassing week after the ‘Summer Reading List for 2025’ they published turned out to be an AI-hallucination.

Only 5 of the 15 books published on the reading list are real books. The rest were made up by AI. This is your reminder to always check the outputs of AI (and, we write self-servingly, the ongoing value of human-written content). (NPR)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

PIMCO: There’s more rate cuts coming

This is an excerpt from our conversation with Rob Mead, Managing Director and co-Head of Asia-Pacific Portfolio Management at PIMCO, on Basis Points. (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

How do you view Australia's economic outlook for 2025, especially regarding monetary policy and potential rate cuts?

We're now in a phase where the RBA's engaged. Obviously one cut so far. That's a reflection of a few different things.

First thing is inflation's coming back down. It's coming back down slowly, I admit that, but it's coming back down nonetheless. If you annualize the most recent inflation prints on a core level, we're bang in the middle of the RBA's target. They're ready for more policy action. If you strip out the government sector from the economy, we're already on the cusp of recession. Things are pretty tough. We need some more policy support. Employment is getting looser. There's been this fear that employment markets are very tight, but that's loosening.

All of these things are aligning, in our view, for RBA to reengage. It's not just one and done. That's just not accurate.

We think there's probably another three cuts coming this calendar year. It's a little bit more than the market thinks, but we think it's necessary to provide some stability to economic outcomes, especially with all of this volatility being induced from some of these trade policy decisions.

Want to understand what trillion-dollar asset manager PIMCO sees next for Australia? All episodes of Basis Points are available to watch in full on YouTube:

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