The laggards
Consumer staples shares weighed down the market, losing steam across the day. Woolworths dropped 1.8 per cent, while fellow supermarket Coles shed 0.1 per cent. Treasury Wines fell significantly in the second half of the day, losing 3.4 per cent of its share price.
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The energy sector performed well in the early trade, but slipped into the red at close. Woodside Energy lost 0.4 per cent, while Ampol was trading flat. Santos rose slightly, adding 0.4 per cent. The results come as petrol prices across most Australian capitals are slated to fall after the fallout from Donald Trump’s tariff announcements.
Collins Foods, the company which operates KFC and Taco Bell in Australia, plummeted by 7.7 per cent after announcing the intention to transition the Mexican restaurant chain to another brand owner.
A Taco Bell in Sydney’s Chatswood.Credit: Louie Douvis
The lowdown
Overseas on Wall Street, US shares started the week higher alongside bonds as a measure of calm returned after seven sessions of tumultuous trading spurred by US President Donald Trump’s disruptive trade war.
About 90 per cent of the companies in the S&P 500 rose, with the gauge up nearly 1 per cent. The S&P 500 rose 0.8 per cent, the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.6 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8 per cent.
Carmakers rallied as Trump floated exceptions for vehicle parts facing 25 per cent US levies. Treasuries snapped a five-day sell-off that drove up 10-year yields by the most in over two decades.
BlackRock Investment Institute analysts said in a note to investors that although the “near-term risk of a financial accident has eased,” there is still uncertainty within the global markets.
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“The 90-day pause of tariffs on most countries and exemption of key tech imports suggest the US administration is taking some account of financial risks and costs as well as a country’s willingness to engage,” the note said.
“Yet we expect ongoing risk asset volatility and potentially sharp reversals … We still think tariffs can hurt growth and lift inflation, and major uncertainty remains.”
Investors are still struggling to game out the economic spillovers of the trade war given the back-and-forth in negotiations. While US officials insist the tariff strategy is carefully constructed, critics see the trading order as subject to the whims of a transactional president.
“The worst may be over, but the coast is not clear,” said Michael Wilson at Morgan Stanley.
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Strategists at Citigroup led by Beata Manthey lowered their view on US equities, saying the case to diversify away from the asset class is strengthening as the trade war undermines economic growth and earnings.
Despite all the convulsions and uncertainty, most equities strategists still expect the S&P 500 to rally through the remainder of 2025.
The S&P 500 put up a strong performance last week, but is still down roughly 9 per cent for the year as Trump has placed substantial tariffs on goods imported from China, Canada, Mexico, the EU and numerous other US trade partners. The benchmark closed trading on Tuesday having lost 15 per cent in 2025, before reversing course on Thursday when Trump announced a 90-day delay on many of his tariffs.
The 15 per cent drop is historically significant. Going back to 1957, the S&P 500 has fallen at least that much through early April 16 times, and on only three occasions has it recovered to end December in the green, according to data compiled by Ryan Detrick at Carson Group. And in each of those instances — 2020, 2009 and 1982 — the market was rescued by the Federal Reserve, which stepped in to support a faltering US economy.
Tweet of the day
Quote of the day
“The Star Entertainment Group has confirmed it was almost down to its last dollar when US casino group Bally’s injected $100 million as part of a rescue deal last week. Star’s business remains under threat as revenue continues to decline across all three of its properties in the March quarter as casino reforms blunted its competitiveness.”
That’s Colin Kruger on the continued threat facing Sydney’s Star Casino. You can read more of that piece here.
With AAP, Bloomberg
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