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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed the week Ahead. I'm Sean Almer,

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Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by economist Stephen Cooculis. You'll

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Speaker 1: find Hrem at the cook dot com, t h e

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Speaker 1: k o uk dot com and on X using the

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Speaker 1: handle the Kirk Stephen. Good morning, very good morning, Sean. O.

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Speaker 1: To be an investor. How much fun must it be

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Speaker 1: on the back of what's going on in the US?

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Speaker 2: Well, we're in a funny time zone here, so I

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Speaker 2: think it's the question that I've been speaking to a

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Speaker 2: lot of friends and people in the markets about. Well,

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Speaker 2: some of them get up in the middle of the

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Speaker 2: night to see what on earth has happened. But normally

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Speaker 2: for more sensible people they get up. But what they

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Speaker 2: do do They look on their phone? What did he

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Speaker 2: say and do overnight? And he being Donald Trump, tariff's

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Speaker 2: on off taking over different parts of the world. Maybe yes, No,

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Speaker 2: what's he doing with tax policy? Elon Musk with his

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Speaker 2: access to government spending files and what's going to be

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Speaker 2: cut boy, oh boy? Investors? Though, the volatility in the

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Speaker 2: markets has been something to behold. But it's a lot

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Speaker 2: of fun in the sense if you're not involved in

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Speaker 2: the fallout from what President Trump is doing.

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Speaker 1: How do you approach economics when you've got this stuff

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Speaker 1: going on? But I mean we went to air, you know,

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Speaker 1: like at four am. We recorded one day during the week,

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Speaker 1: and the tariff at Mexico was off and he was

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Speaker 1: mending through down a few hours. By the time most

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Speaker 1: people got up. The tariff's in Canada, we're off too,

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Speaker 1: but you know, we missed it. It's how do you

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Speaker 1: do your job?

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Speaker 2: Really difficult? And I think, well, in fact, a couple

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Speaker 2: of things that when I talk to people in my

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Speaker 2: other job, I used to say, I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: make any firm commitments because I don't know, and not

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Speaker 2: does anybody else. And I suspect even Donald Trump doesn't

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Speaker 2: know what he's going to be laying out in terms

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Speaker 2: of all of those issues on tax, tariff's, international geopolitical events.

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Speaker 2: He doesn't know. And so if he doesn't know, how

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Speaker 2: can I know? And for the old folk out there,

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Speaker 2: it's a bit like Jeff Thompson, the fast bowler. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he was once asked, you know, how do you know

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Speaker 2: where you get a goal? I said, oh, I don't

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Speaker 2: know how I'm going at bowl. So God help the batsman.

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Speaker 2: If I don't know where I'm going to bowl the ball,

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Speaker 2: they don't know what it's going to come either, So

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Speaker 2: that's why he was so erratic, so brilliant, so strange.

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Speaker 2: But Trump is making our job as economist and certainly

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Speaker 2: the investors job, really hard because the news value of

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Speaker 2: what he's saying in many instances is really market moving,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's why we're seeing these gyrations in stocks.

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Speaker 2: In particular, bonds have rallied a bit over the course

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Speaker 2: of the last week or two. That's because of the

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Speaker 2: downside to growth, i think from tariffs to except they're

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Speaker 2: going to be rolled out. So yeah, it's just a

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Speaker 2: huge amount of noise, and for this next couple of months,

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Speaker 2: probably a time to just put away the textbook, downplay

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Speaker 2: a little bit of the macroeconomics and the economic data

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Speaker 2: that's come out, although I'm shedding myself on the foot

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Speaker 2: there and more what might be done in the US,

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Speaker 2: and then the retalitory action from other countries too.

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Speaker 1: And maybe I'm not sure whether the surveys coming out

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Speaker 1: this week are going to capture some of that, but

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Speaker 1: at some point they will because we have the nab

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Speaker 1: confidence and sentiment survey for business. We also have the

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Speaker 1: Westpac Consumer centement coming out.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but both really important surveys. I let me think

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Speaker 2: that I think the consumer sentiment number will capture the

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Speaker 2: mood of last weekend, the end of last week and

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Speaker 2: last weekend, so I'll have a little bit of this

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Speaker 2: noise from the Trump's first week ten days in office.

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Speaker 2: The NAB survey I think might just sort of capture

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Speaker 2: his first few days since he was inaugraded onto the

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Speaker 2: twentieth of January, so there might just be a little

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Speaker 2: bit of noise about that too. But again, how is

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Speaker 2: the Australian business sector going to react to it? What

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Speaker 2: are they seeing? Do they have an exposure in the

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Speaker 2: Canadian economy or in Mexico probably a little bit, not much,

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Speaker 2: But do they have an exposure to China? You bet

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Speaker 2: they do. And I think that's that sort of question.

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Speaker 2: Where for us in Australia, what happens with the tariff

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Speaker 2: war between China and the US is going to have

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Speaker 2: even if we're not directly involved, the first derivative of

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Speaker 2: that trade conflict will be hitting us. So yeah, whether

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Speaker 2: it shows up in the NAB business confidence homes, which

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Speaker 2: by the way, have been pretty subdued. Just the last week.

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Speaker 2: I've been a bring off as the economy slowed down.

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Speaker 2: This is for the month of January. Maybe it'll have

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Speaker 2: a bit more of a bit of softness there, although

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Speaker 2: on the consumer side, we're all a little bit more optimistic.

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Speaker 2: And last week with the retail sales numbers two which

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Speaker 2: are a little bit better, in the household spending numbs

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Speaker 2: which were a little bit better. Yeah, maybe it's we

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Speaker 2: consumers are starting to breathe a sigh of relief. You know,

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Speaker 2: we got those income tax cuts that we didn't spend

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Speaker 2: initially spending them. Now we're looking forward to the your

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Speaker 2: RBA interest rate decision. Well not far away now I'm thinking, well,

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Speaker 2: if they cut rates, I'm going to be a lot happier,

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Speaker 2: certainly financially.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what about the rate decision, We're still two weeks away,

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Speaker 1: or less than two weeks, about ten days away from that.

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Speaker 1: Do you think what's happening in the US is going

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Speaker 1: to play much of a role.

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Speaker 2: Not for this meeting, not for the eighteenth of February.

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Speaker 2: I think the rate cut will be you know, it's

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Speaker 2: effectively priced into the markets, and when things are priced

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Speaker 2: in the RBA doesn't like to surprise the mark, or

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Speaker 2: they didn't want to do it. I'm sure they'd be

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Speaker 2: whispering to a couple of the journeys out there to

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Speaker 2: just sort of hose people down a little bit. And

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Speaker 2: that hasn't happened today. That hasn't happened, So I think

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Speaker 2: that rate up there. More of a question is what

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Speaker 2: happens beyond that, what happens to the middle of this

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Speaker 2: year and in the second half of the year when

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Speaker 2: ye as we're just saying before, you know, the RBA

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Speaker 2: doesn't know what's going to be the fallout from this

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Speaker 2: Trump policy agenda, so that they'll probably tread cautiously. You know,

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Speaker 2: we do know that the RBA, when there's a high

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Speaker 2: amount of uncertainty, they do nothing. They don't cut, they

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Speaker 2: don't hike. They prefer to just sit back and then okay,

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Speaker 2: then we can move. And in the past, outside pandemics

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Speaker 2: and those sort of things, they have occasionally done a

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Speaker 2: fifty if if not only fifty bases point move when

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Speaker 2: they think, oh, we should have gone last time, but

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Speaker 2: we didn't. Oh god, yep, here we go. We've got

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Speaker 2: the weakness confirmed or the strength confirmed. They'll go fifty

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Speaker 2: basis points. Now, I'm not from moment suggesting that, but

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Speaker 2: that is the potential catch up. If we do get

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Speaker 2: to the second half of the year, economy slowed down,

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Speaker 2: all inflation is nice and low, and even though unemployments

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Speaker 2: still relatively low, it's ticking up. We might see them

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Speaker 2: be a little more aggressive. But for the here and now,

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Speaker 2: I think the eighteenth of February, oh, as near as

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Speaker 2: you can be certain about these things, yep, it's going

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Speaker 2: to happen, and then the more cautious approach in the

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Speaker 2: meetings after that.

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Speaker 1: We'll find out in a week. We'll talk again in

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Speaker 1: a week. But in a Trump world, seven days is

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Speaker 1: a long long time, so hopefully you're right, though a.

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Speaker 2: Few hours is a long time. And in the corner

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Speaker 2: of my screen, I've usually got the US futures open

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Speaker 2: during our daytime, US nighttime, and according to sort of

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Speaker 2: little utterances or leaks to the Wall Street Journal or

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Speaker 2: the Ft or something, it says, oh gosh, it's just

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Speaker 2: moved like zero point five percent, which is a big

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Speaker 2: move in a soccer market overnight. Yeah, yeah, you think,

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Speaker 2: what the hell happened? You check the headlines? Oh, Trump

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Speaker 2: said something he tweeted, or he tweeted night from his

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Speaker 2: from his bedroom or whatever.

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Speaker 1: It was amazing. Enjoy your week, Stephen, now was kind

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Speaker 1: of mess. Stephen Coculus, better known as the Cook. You

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Speaker 1: can find him at the cook dot com and follow

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Speaker 1: him on X using the handle of the Cook.

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Speaker 2: D A G K O U K.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure I am this is hearing. Greet the week Ahead.