Here’s what you need to know today

• The Australian stock market fell yesterday, with the ASX 200 down 2% and nearing correction territory (defined as falling 10%) as it is now down 9.3% since its all-time high in February 2025. The sell-off was broad-based with most large Australian companies falling. (AFR)
  
  

• The Trump Administration has ruled that Australia will not be getting an exemption to US government’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium. Australia currently exports roughly $1 billion of steel and aluminium to the US every year. (ABC News)
  
  

• Australian leaders arguing for an exemption have pointed out that Australia is one of the few countries that has a trade deficit with the US (i.e. we buy more US products than they buy from us). That argument was undermined in January for the first time ever as a surge in gold exports saw Australia record its first monthly trade surplus with the US. (The Guardian)
  
  

• President Trump also briefly doubled tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium to 50% in response to the Canadian province of Ontario putting a 25% tariff on electricity exports to the US. Then both sides backed down, Trump reducing the Canadian tariff back to 25% and Ontario removing their electricity tariff. (BBC)
  
  

• The Trump-Canada beef continues however, with Trump claiming he would “permanently shut down” Canada’s auto industry. Also, reports surfaced in US media, that soon Canadian’s staying in the US for over 30 days will be required to register with the US government and supply fingerprints. (CNN | NY Times)
  
  

• A recent report by Morgan Stanley has found that both Meta and OpenAI are struggling to get their hands on enough chips to train their AI models. All roads lead back to Nvidia… (Quartz)
  
  

• Ukraine has agreed to a US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire in the war with Russia. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will now present the proposal to Russia. With Ukraine’s agreement, the US has resumed military aid and intelligence sharing and has also renewed negotiations on a minerals deal. (CBS News)
  
  

• Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in Manila over killings carried out during the war on drugs he carried out during his Presidential term. The arrest came after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant. Reports are that Duterte has already been flown to The Hauge, Netherlands, the location of the ICC. (BBC)

What the…?

The White House was home to a strange press event yesterday, as President Donald Trump inspected a line of Teslas, deciding which one he would buy.

The event came after Tesla shares fell 15% on Monday, and Trump posted that he would buy a Tesla as a “show of confidence and support for Elon Musk”. The market responded well, with Tesla shares up 9% from when Trump posted. (Quartz)

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Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Are investors getting diversification wrong?

This is an excerpt from our conversation with Adam Bajcarz, Head of Portfolio Management at Apt Wealth for our new show Basis Points. You can listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

I think this is an interesting one. Diversification. I don't think it's actually explained very well in the industry or it's not practiced, so everyone talks about it, but let's say a client comes in, especially someone who has an investment property, a residential property, they own four bank shares.

I see these portfolios all the time, especially coming from others that sell themselves. I'm like, you're taking the same risk on the other side. Same with the younger people. They might buy an NDQ, like a Nasdaq ETF, and then they own Google, Alphabet, and Nvidia. And I'm like, again, great, but you're diversified on principle. You've got a number of investments, but you're taking a lot of the same risk.

That is probably one part. And they're probably more on an academic level with asset consultants and things. This whole part of looking for uncorrelated assets reduces the volatility of a portfolio, but I think somewhat gets lost in that, is to make sure that that investment stacks up on its own to drive a total return. It's not there just to be uncorrelated with the other assets. It is actually serving a portfolio goal, you're going to get a total return in 10 years that you're going to be happy with, not just because it's going to minimise the volatility of a portfolio.

Prefer to watch rather than listen? Check out our conversation with Adam on YouTube:

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