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Here’s what you need to know today

• Just 12 days to go until the Australian federal election. With early voting starting tomorrow (22 April), we really are at crunch time. Anthony Albanese spent the weekend at a Catholic mass and on the set of the Sunday Footy Show, while Peter Dutton was at a community barbecue in Queensland. The latest polls have Labor at 55 and the Coalition 46 in two-party preferred, so Dutton has his work cut out for him in this final stretch. (News.com.au)
  
  

• The US-China trade war did not pause for the long weekend. The US has upped its tariff on Chinese imports to 245%. China’s Commerce Ministry responded by calling Trump’s move a “meaningless tariff numbers game” and saying the move “fully exposes the fact that the United States has become irrational in instrumentalizing and weaponizing tariffs." (Newsweek)
  
  

• The US has also proposed levies on Chinese vessels docking at American ports. Chinese ships would face a fee based on the volume of goods carried per trip (on top of the tariffs charged on the goods themselves). (BBC)
  
  

• The fallout from the James Hardie acquisition of Azek continues. Twenty-one major Australian investors together managing more than $1 trillion have written to the ASX demanding answers on how the Australian company can be allowed to move its primary listing to the US without a shareholder vote. The theory is that James Hardie executives want a primary listing in the US to avoid ASX rules on executive pay and shareholder protections. (AFR)
  
  

• President Trump will fire the head of the Internal Revenue Service (America’s tax collection agency) just 3 days after appointing him. Gary Shapley was installed at the behest of Elon Musk but will now be removed after complaints by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. (NY Times)
  
  

• President Trump is also becoming more vocal in his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying Powell is “always too late and wrong” and that his “termination cannot come fast enough!” The President does not have the legal authority to fire a Fed chair. (Quartz)
  
  

• Ukraine has placed sanctions on three Chinese companies that it claims have been supplying weapons to Russia, including components used that were used in an airstrike on Kharkiv on Friday. China has dismissed the allegations as “groundless”. (Reuters)

What the…?

Chinese media issued a strange weather warning last week. With extreme winds expected, Chinese state media urged people to stay indoors warning that people weighing less than 50kg may be “easily blown away”.

With winds reaching up to 150km an hour hitting Beijing, let’s hope China’s lighter residents stayed indoors. (BBC)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

We have no idea what our future selves want

This is an excerpt from our book Don’t Stress, Just Invest. Pick up a copy on Amazon or wherever you buy books.

There is an additional [retirement planning] challenge here. When we make retirement plans in our twenties, thirties and forties, we are really flying blind. We have no idea who our future selves are or what they want.

There is a concept in psychology called the ‘end-of-history illusion’ that suggests people of all ages believe that they have experienced significant personal growth and that who they are in the present moment will not change substantially into the future. Basically, we are who we will become.

Think about who you were ten years ago: what you were doing, who you were doing it with, where you saw your life going, even some of your core values and preferences. Think about how much has changed since then. Compare that to where you think your life will be in ten years. Chances are you changed a lot more in the past ten years than you think you will change in the next ten.

That’s not how life works.

In the United States, just over a quarter of college graduates are working in a field related to their major. In Australia, that number is reported at one-third of university graduates. And in the United Kingdom, it is reported at half of all UK graduates. What most people choose to study when they are eighteen isn’t what they ended up doing with their lives.

Humans have a tendency to think they’ve reached their ‘end of history’ and that they won’t substantially change from this point forward.

But we will. We have no idea who our future selves are or what they want. The one thing we do know is whatever those future selves do want, odds are that money will help.

Whatever you think your retirement number is now, maybe raise it a little. Your future self may have more people to support, face unexpected challenges or may just have more expensive tastes.

Today’s sponsor is Fidelity

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Issued by FIL Responsible Entity (Australia) Limited, ABN 33 148 059 009, AFSL No. 409340. This is general information only and is not intended to be advice of any kind. Consider the PDS and TMD available at www.fidelity.com.au

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