News

Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on rare earths ahead of an expected meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping.

The partnership comes less than a month after Spotify said it cracked down on AI-generated music.

The Investing Club holds its “Morning Meeting” every weekday at 10:20 a.m. ET.

President Donald Trump this week said that he is considering sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine to ratchet up pressure on Russia to end the war.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress remain divided over the question of whether a bill to end the shutdown should extend enhanced Obamacare tax credits.

United States 4-Week Bill Auction remains unchanged at 4.03%

Carney was at the White House last Tuesday and there was hope for something a bit more concrete by now.

Canada is mainly aiming to lower steel and aluminum tariffs but there is also the talk of a revival of the Keystone XL pipeline, something that’s in the news again today.

The owner of the pipeline project is now South Bow, after a spinoff from TC Energy. It could stand to benefit from a revival.

I spoke with Reuters about the US-Canada trade negotiations yesterday:

“The market for CAD is pricing in some kind of deal but the contours of
that are impossible to estimate,” said Adam Button, chief currency
analyst at investingLive. “There’s a lot riding on this … this is the
dress rehearsal for the big negotiation.”

That’s referring to USMCA, which will be reopened in July.

Also of note from Carney:

• We are restarting a broad engagement with China
• Expects to meet the senior Chinese leadership in the coming month

This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.

The AUDUSD has been choppy today, swinging down, up, down, and back up again as traders test both sides of the range. On the downside, the pair continues to find support within a swing area between 0.6478 and 0.6481. On the topside, resistance remains firm near the falling 100-hour moving average and a swing zone between 0.6500 and 0.6505 — an area that has been tested and briefly broken several times in recent sessions, but each break has lacked follow-through, sending prices back lower.

The 0.6505 level is the key topside marker. A decisive break above could ignite bullish momentum, putting the 100-day moving average at 0.6532 in focus as the next target. Conversely, a move below 0.6478 would tilt the bias lower, exposing 0.64625 and then the weekly low at 0.6440. For now, traders are playing the range, awaiting a clear directional break.

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at investinglive.com.

Aluminum is at the center of several important dynamics right now.

One, it’s subject to 50% US national security tariffs. Two, it’s highly energy intensive at a time of rising energy prices. Three, it’s useful in EVs/green energy. Four, it’s going to be used in robotics. Five, it has a use case as a heat sink in data centers.

The Trump administration is trying to re-shore aluminum production but it will be competing for energy with the bottomless pockets of AI and datacenter demand.

The WSJ today writes about the dynamic, noting that aluminum prices haven’t climbed much yet but that the conditions are there even without the ongoing political dynamics, in part because China is curbing capacity.

Analysts at Citi expect a rapid decline in the global surplus of primary aluminum through 2026, and then a deficit of about 1.4 million tons, representing about 2% of primary consumption, starting in 2027. Wood Mackenzie expects a deficit starting 2028 and lasting about five years, according to Uday Patel, senior research manager at the energy research firm.

The challenging issue right now is the US-Canada trade deal as about 40% of US aluminum comes from Canada, primarily Quebec where hydro-electricity is cheap. This week, Canadian and US officials are working on a deal to lower the 50% tariffs.

The winner in that scenario could be Alcoa, which has about 75% of its North American production in Canada and trades at about 5x EBITDA and 13x earnings with minimal leverage. The company paid $95 million in Q2 tariffs and those have since escalated.

This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.

The Canadian Dollar (CAD) steadies against the US Dollar (USD) on Thursday as the Greenback remains under pressure amid escalating US-China trade tensions and growing expectations of further interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve (Fed).