Yahoo Finance Yahoo Finance’s morning wrap on Friday
Good morning,
A senior executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei has been arrested, reigniting anxieties over a Sino-US trade war and triggering substantial falls on global markets.
Closer to home, the ASX is set to follow Wall Street to a softer open. The Aussie dollar also edged lower overnight, now buying 72.22 US cents. That’s down from 72.27 US cents yesterday.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has signalled that rate cuts are still an option, despite the current record low 1.5 per cent interest rate.
Deputy governor Guy Debelle said there is “scope for further reductions” and said the lesson for central banks from the GFC was to “go fast and go hard. Don’t die wondering.”
And, the Australian government has passed a bill forcing tech firms like Google, Apple and Facebook to give police access to encrypted data.
It’s the toughest law of its type in any western country.
“Let’s just make Australians safe over Christmas,” Labor party leader Bill Shorten said.
Luxembourg has become the first country to make its public transport completely free. The bold move is designed to curb the number of motorists in the tiny European nation.
And, did you know blockchain is about so much more than Bitcoin? Here we dive into the other major applications of the distributed ledger technology.
Enjoy your Friday.
