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Here’s what you need to know today

• Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton delivered his budget reply last night. Headlines from the Opposition’s proposal includes cutting the fuel excise, introducing a national gas reservation scheme and cutting 41,000 public service jobs. (ABC | The Guardian | AFR)
  
  

• US President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on all vehicle imports. The White House said it expected to raise $100 billion annually and encourage more domestic manufacturing. Markets fell, with the S&P 500 down 1%. (ABC News)
  
  

• Nvidia shares fell 6% on Tuesday, now down 24% from its all-time highs in January, as China passed new rules discouraging tech companies from buying Nvidia’s less-powerful chips that it exports to China. This came on the same day that Apple announced it might be lodging a $1 billion order with Nvidia for cutting-edge servers to up its AI game. (Quartz)
  
  

• Australian discount retailer The Reject Shop has agreed to be bought for $259 million by Canadian discount retailer Dollarama. The acquisition price was more than double the Reject Shop’s share price and shares shot up 110% on the news. The Canadian giant has said it plans to double the number of Reject Shop stores in Australia over the next decade. (SMH)
  
  

• US real estate listing giant CoStar has lodged a ‘best and final’ offer with Domain, offering $2.8 billion for Australia’s second-largest listing portal. The new offer represents a 42% premium to the share price before CoStar first made an offer. (AFR)
  
  

• British chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her latest update to the UK Parliament confirming an additional £2.2bn for defence spending and £3.4bn in cuts to welfare benefits. Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility cut its growth forecast for 2025 from 2% down to 1%. (BBC)
  
  

• Sweden’s Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, announced the country would raise defence spending from 2.4% of GDP to 3.5% by 2030. Kristersson specifically called out “uncertainty with the transatlantic relationship” as the reason to boost defence spending. (Financial Times)

What the…?

Chip-maker meet chip-maker. In one of the more surprising AI initiatives, Nvidia has teamed up with fast food chain Taco Bell to revolutionise fast food with AI. What does that look like? The companies have said they would focus on 3 areas: voice AI ordering for drive-thus and call centres, computer vision to optimise back-of-house operations and AI-generated analytics. (Quartz)

In our view, these are the partnerships to watch. How non-technology companies generate value from AI will be the big determinant of whether the huge investments in AI infrastructure have been worth it. How it can drive incremental revenue for businesses or save consumers and businesses money will be the real way to justify these investments (and the lofty valuations of AI companies).

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Is India a core or satellite position?

This is an excerpt from a recent episode of Get Started Investing. You can listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Ren: So you don't see India, any of these passive ETFs or active managers as a core, put-it-in-the-bottom-drawer, set and forget holding?

Bryce: Not yet, no. The reason that we said earlier about it being an emerging economy, there's still so many elements that can lead to instability and there's a lot that can go into the performance of these companies. 

I wouldn't have confidence in having this as a 40% holding, as I do the S&P 500. And so then for me it's like, well, what's the best way to get performance in these economies? And I have a view that active management has a role to play. 

Ren: Yeah. Well look, I don't really disagree with any of that. I guess you've got a market cap weighted index ETF [ASX: NDIA], thematic ETF [ASX: IIND], and an active ETF [ASX: FIIN]. So however you want to approach this market, you have choices in Australia, which is the great thing about investing in 2025. 

I hear what you're saying about the active ETF. We always say “for small caps and emerging markets, stock picking makes sense”. I still think India classifies as an emerging market where you can screen out some of the slower growing industrials, prioritise some of the more interesting newer companies that are a bit smaller, but perhaps a bit more on the precipice of the new economy rather than sitting back in the old.

Bryce: I think back to what we said at the top, which is as an economy, it potentially is going to be the world's largest at some point in the future -

Ren: - It won't be the largest.

Bryce: It might. It's getting there. These ETFs are going to give you exposure to the broad rise.

Want more? Prefer to watch the conversation rather than listen? Check out the full episode on the Get Started Investing YouTube channel:

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