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I'm Roger Hearing and on this edition, the latest on U .S.
share markets after Monday's plunge caused by fears of America's economic future.
Tesla takes one of the biggest dives so is that down to the headwinds on the whole electric vehicle industry or Elon Musk's politics?
We'll hear from Greenland as the Danish territory holds elections under the shadow of the US president's bid to take it.
While Lego is building even higher, bucking the trend in global toy sales, and one of the world's biggest sports franchises is getting a new 100 ,000 seater home.
But can they afford it?
Manchester United would have run out of cash by the end of this year, by the end of 2025, after me having put $300 million in.
About first, let's see what's been happening on the US share markets.
But before that, let's just catch up on the latest on tariffs, because within the past hour, Donald Trump has doubled the tariffs.
He's threatening on Canada's steel and gas exports.
Well, joining me now is North America business correspondent Erin Delmore.
Erin, thanks for being with us.
First of all, what has Donald Trump said?
Roger, it's a bit of a breakneck day here, and I'll point out to you, the markets have only been open for two hours.
So, we saw the markets reacting to this slide from yesterday on the tariff news and more particularly on comments Donald Trump made over the weekend when he didn't rule out the possibility of the U .S.
entering a recession.
Well, that's Monday.
Enter Tuesday, where stocks ticked up slightly then went back down because Donald Trump said that steel and aluminum tariffs on Canadian imports will be doubled by 25 percent, bringing the total to 50 percent.
We're seeing stocks taking a hit on Wall Street and some reaction from Ontario?
Yeah, it can imagine.
I think Ontario has said they will actually cut off electricity supplies if needs be.
Indeed, and warned of a Trump recession, said that the measures will stand.
And just to bring everybody up to speed here, the measures from Canada are in itself a retaliatory action to blanket 25 % import tariffs on Canadian goods that President Donald Trump announced.
So we see 25 % tariffs from Trump, still in aluminum tariffs also more broadly then the reaction from Canada on these energy like we talked about and now another social media post from Donald Trump saying that he will increase tariffs.
Well indeed, and will is the point there isn't it.
Because I mean all this as I understand it still is potential because as we know the tariffs that were gonna come on then were paused then we're gonna go on again and have now been paused this is part of that pause, isn't it?
Right so one of the things we do in reporting is make clear what President Trump says and what he and other officials do.
So right now, what we're reporting is a social media post that President Trump put forward saying that he has advised his administration to double tariffs.
Now that's different than doing it, but I also cover the stock market here.
And the stock market takes what the President puts on social media very seriously and that's why you see a dip as well.
So it is important to make the distinction, it is absolutely newsworthy but at the snap of a finger or the press of a social media button, no it doesn't go into effect.
All right, Aaron, thanks for making that very clear.
Well, let's pursue further on what the stock markets are doing because you brought us up to speed a little bit with what's been going on.
But let's catch up with the global share markets, including what's been going on, of course, in the US.
And just a reminder, essentially, what it seemed to be was a reaction to possible suggestions that a US recession might be around the corner.
European Asian markets in fact have mostly stabilised.
Wall Street, which opened just two hours ago, has, well, let's hear what it has done.
I'm joined by Fyodor Cincotta, senior markets analyst at City Index in London, and Walter Todd, president of Greenwood Capital in South Carolina.
So Walter, let me come to you first.
Erin was suggesting that there has been something a reaction even to those events in terms of Donald Trump's social media posts about tariffs.
So just give us a sense of what's going on.
Yeah, well good morning from stateside.
Yeah. So, there's a new headline every hour, it seems, that the market is reacting to.
And as you noted, we have seen a pretty decent pullback since mid -February, about 10%.
We're down about half a percent or so today.
So, yeah, the market's trying to figure out what's going to be policy and what's just a headline.
And it's very difficult to do, quite frankly, on an hour -by -hour basis.
Yeah. I mean, everyone seems to be doing it, mind you.
So, let's get ourselves also up to speed what has happened in other markets.
Fiona, what's been going on in Europe, UK, Asia?
What's been the reaction?
Yeah. You know, similar in the sense that we have seen a negative response in these stock markets.
We're seeing share prices are lower today.
We saw a sell -off yesterday as well.
And I mean, it's, again, just that general uncertainty over what's happening, you know.
there is that phrase of the US sneezes and the rest of the world catches a cold.
So there are those concerns that should the US move towards a downturn or a contraction, what would that mean for the rest of the world?
There are obviously also concerns of trade tariffs in Europe, more tariffs on China potentially.
So there is just a lot of uncertainty and that's being played out in the stock markets with negative sentiment.
And traders taking risk off the table.
And Walter very much as you said it, you know almost responding I suppose to the words that come out of one man's mouth And he's gonna be saying some more things a little bit later I think in the evening US time he's speaking to a group of bankers and businessmen seen as quite a significant moment Yeah Over two months into the year and I'm exhausted I'm ready for the end of the year to come but but yeah So when you look at it kind of you kind of peel back the market a little bit what you're seeing kind of you alluded to the recession call you're seeing defensive areas of the market like health
care consumer staples utilities outperform and technology and these other you know economically sensitive sectors sell off but that also speaks to you know the u .s versus the rest of the world and particularly europe because europe has much less exposure to technology than the u .s does and and you've seen a pretty significant outperformance of Europe and the rest of the world to the US so far this year.
Yeah and I suppose Walter the other thing is you've got a big piece of economic data coming tomorrow, Wednesday, the inflation reading, what are you guessing it's gonna be and how is everyone gonna react?
Yeah so that is a big number tomorrow on CPI and the issue with that is the Fed.
So the Federal Reserve meets next week for their official meeting on March 19th and the concern is if we're getting an economic slowdown, but yet inflation remains elevated because of tariffs or otherwise, then the Fed can't really react to the economic slowdown.
That's kind of the fear that you're seeing in the market right now.
That's kind of a worst case scenario that a slowdown that the Fed can't respond to.
So that's why that number's so key.
If we can get an Inline or Light CPI number, that would provide some relief that the Fed could actually cut rates in response to an economic slowdown.
And Fiona, we've talked about shares.
We talked about potentially, I suppose inflation readings and interest rates.
What's going on in the other sectors?
I'm thinking foreign exchange and also in terms of government borrowing, which of course, we know as a lot is coming from Europe at the moment.
What about government bonds?
How is all that playing at the moment?
Yeah. So it's been really interesting because what we've seen as well is a sell off in the US dollar.
The US dollar is sold off quite considerably.
It's trading down at multi month lows.
So that's interesting because the US dollar is often considered to be a safe haven.
And that sort of demand for a safe haven isn't playing out at the moment, and that's just a reflection of those concerns over the outlook for the US economy.
And the same, we've seen bonials fall as well in reflection of those concerns.
Interestingly, a standout performer has actually been the euro.
And that's really benefited from the sell -off, the weakness in the US dollar, but also the the idea of increased defense spending and infrastructure spending in Europe is how the euro rise as well.
Well, I was gonna pick up on that.
Oh, sorry, Walter, are you coming?
No, I just want to make a point on that, or just kind of follow up on that point is that, you know, that is unusual to see a market sell off and a dollar sell off with the equity market here in the US.
And I think as Fiona was alluding to, I think there's potentially a much bigger structural shift here happening.
If Germany is able to pass this law that changes their constitution allows them to spend money and go into debt to do that.
I mean, that's a monumental shift.
And so money flows, you know, as much as the US has underperformed the international markets this year, if you look at a 20 year chart, you can barely see it.
So in other words, there could be a lot more to go if this in fact is a structural shift in money flows from the US to the rest of the world, and particularly Europe.
It's interesting, isn't it?
And Fiona, I mean, just picking up on that point, the thing that was talking about there, of course, is this change in the German Constitution to allow it to borrow much more.
And that's a two -edged sword, I guess, because, you know, obviously it will help the money markets a bit, but also confidence may be not so high.
Yeah. But interestingly, the reaction to the news of that initial announcement last week was actually very positive.
We saw that stocks in Europe, the DAX rose to all time highs.
So, although it does allude to more, we will see more borrowing should it go through, it does feel like it's actually being well received by the market in the sense that it's being seen as potential more borrowing that will boost growth.
And given that we've seen Germany very much in a sort of stagnation as far as growth is concerned over the past few quarters and years, in fact, that has been considered good news.
And Walter, finally, I mean, what Donald Trump's been saying is this is a moment of change, So the other side of this is greenfields and a nice time.
Do the markets really believe that?
Well, they're showing some doubt in that belief.
I think that speaks to the self that we've seen for the past month.
So this is a very different tone than he's striking to this time versus his first term where he was obsessed with the stock market.
Now he seems to be more concerned about interest rates and tariffs and not as concerned about stock markets.
So I do think it's a change in tone and the markets struggling with that.
We'll see what does come up, the other side of this.
I'm sure we'll talk to both of you as well.
Walter Adfieda, thanks so much for being with us.
Now, while Elon Musk is taking a chainsaw to what he sees as government waste in the US, the business that's made him the world's richest man, Tesla, has run into a bit of trouble.
On Monday, shares and electric vehicle makers saw their biggest one day falling four and a half years.
Stock has rebounded a bit in the last few hours, but Tesla's market capitalization has more than halved since hitting an all -time high of 1 .5 trillion dollars back in December.
There's been a boycott campaign in Europe and in the US over Musk's views and actions but it's the downturn more to do with competition on electric vehicles rather than politics.
Professor David Bailey is a car industry expert at Birmingham Business School.
A lot of it is to do with Musk and it's quite often to see stickers on Tesla's these days saying I bought this before Elon went crazy.
So, that is having an impact.
I think as well Tesla have specific problems.
Their model line up is aged and the competition has really heated up and they're being out competed by the likes of BYD.
There's that. Also, the take up of EVs more generally is slower than anticipated.
Put all that together, I think they're particularly exposed.
And is he in part also that Elon Musk has taken his eye off the ball.
He had other things to do, notably with a chainsaw at the moment.
Well yes, he's got the chainsaw X, of course, as well, Starlink, various other things.
You do wonder at what point shareholders of Tesla will begin to think at what point is this a liability and is he really fit to be CEO still?
Well it certainly seems investors are taking that view as we sit.
So what does Tesla need to do to change that?
I Yeah, it's a much tougher competition than it was two years ago for them, for example.
What they've really failed to do is to bring out an affordable car.
People have termed a Tesla Model Two at about $25 ,000.
They've not done that.
They've hinted that they'll do it.
Then they haven't. They've gone very heavily into autonomous cars, but really failed to convince analysts that they're really that far along.
They need to get cheaper More affordable cars to market in order to be able to compete with the Chinese brands.
Meanwhile Nissan another Company with it with a great profile in the past suffering badly It seems from whatever is going wrong with the Evie market.
Generally We've seen a shifting of the bosses and move around there But is there any of that gonna help Nissan this big name to come back into that market?
Potentially, I think this is going to be very important.
If it reopens the possibility, for example, of merger talks with Honda, which had been binned a few weeks ago, then I think we might see Nissan either lining up with Honda in some sort of joint venture or merger, or with another company.
Foxconn has been circling for a while now looking to try and pick up Nissan and actually get into making cars.
Because if that doesn't happen, then given the low share price, it could even be taken over by a private equity firm and dismembered.
So, I think it's going to be absolutely critical for the firm's survival.
What happens next? And, David, is all of this really because, well, in effectively moving the deck chairs around on the titanic, because the wealth of investment that China has made in EVs, the subsidies, the price, everything else, is simply going to overwhelm anyone else trying to compete with them.
I think that's very much the point.
There's been such an investment in China and for so long now, China's been at this for 25 years.
It has a huge cost advantage in making batteries and electric cars.
Something like 30 % to 40 % over Western producers, but it's very difficult for anybody else to compete with them.
In the case of Nissan, it might well be a Chinese firm that comes in, eventually in terms of providing the technology.
The other big factor of course is the sort of the things that have been happening with Donald Trump and the issue of possible tariffs the likes of Nissan have invested very heavily in Mexico, for example, they could take a very big hit if those tariffs come in Professor David Bailey there of Birmingham Business School Hello, I'm Robin Inks, and I'm Brian Cox and we would like to tell you about the new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage We're gonna have a planet off JUPITA It was very well done that because in the script, it does say wrestling voice.
After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series we're discussing history music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.
So listen wherever you get your podcasts.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
So talks are underway in Saudi Arabia between U .S.
and Ukrainian officials in an attempt to agree a ceasefire plan in the Russia -Ukraine war and repair the damage after the row between President Trump and President Zelensky, but much of the fracturing of relations between Kiev and Washington in recent weeks has centered on Ukraine's mineral resources and U .S.
access to them. Well, another mineral rich territory that Washington has in its sights at the moment is Greenland.
Donald Trump said he wants the US to own it.
He says because of defense issues as well as mining opportunities.
What the people of Greenland, which is a territory currently under the Danish crown, think of all this, is about to be tested.
They are voting in elections on Tuesday.
None of the major parties support joining the US, but they are all in favour of eventual independence.
So how accessible are Greenland's mineral riches deep beneath the ice?
Adrian Murray has traveled to one of their mines.
Jagger grave peaks appeared before us as the motorboat weaved through dramatic fields, a green and southern tip.
Now we're coming out of more rolling hills into more alpine landscapes, a very high mountain, pointy mountain onboard Elder Olobson the chief executive of mining firm Amarok Minerals, gestured ahead.
That alpine landscape is basically a gold belt that is about 50km wide and 200km long.
At a two -hour sailing, we stepped ashore near the base camp, a cluster of mobile buildings beneath Nalinak mountain where Amorok is drilling for ore.
Going by car, we drove into the gold mine and followed a dark tunnel that wound upwards inside the mountain.
That just turn on your headland.
Olufsen pointed to a seam in the blasted rock face.
You want to get a little bit of gold fever?
You see the gold here.
Oh, I see. And so, this is the court, and the gold sits within the court bit.
Gold, gold, gold, gold, all the way over.
Isn't that extraordinary?
In the nearby mountain range, the firm is hunting for valuable copper, nickel and rare earth elements.
All of the things Greenland's untapped mineral reserves are a huge opportunity.
The world has been mined for the past 100 -150 years and there are only a few countries that are really left.
I would argue that Afghanistan, Colombia and places like Greenland are talking about of any significant scale.
All of the resources are close to the surface and there are deep waterfure to get to these resources.
This is in a tier 1 jurisdiction and can be a supplier of all the minerals at least the western will need for decades.
Greenland is endowed with an abundance of valuable minerals among them rare earth elements and critical metals like graphite and lithium, all vital materials needed for technologies like mobile phones, chips and batteries.
Globally, there's a race to secure supplies, and that's fueled exploration efforts in this vast Arctic territory.
Christian Kjellsen is the director of Greenland's Business Association.
The geopolitical situation right now is driving more interest in Greenland.
You have a very strong China, I set very heavily on the critical raw materials.
Companies involved in this and the government involved around this are looking to safe places where they can access the critical raw materials.
And Greenland is a safe jurisdiction in many ways.
It's very close to Europe, it's very close to North America.
But despite the hype, any potential gold rush has been slow to get going.
And while dozens of exploration permits have been issued, so far only two mites are active.
Jakob Kleva Keiding is from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, which has mapped the territory's deposits.
We also have some challenge in Greenland because it's, you know, arctic terrain is not very easily accessible.
We have problems with harsh conditions in terms of the climate and limited infrastructure.
So, for those reasons, it's quite expensive to open a mine.
Nayo Nathanielsson, Greenland's Minister for Business, Trade and Rural Materials, hopes another three to five mines will be operating within the next decade.
We're used to being a hotspot for the climate crisis.
We want to be part of the solution as well.
And we do have a lot of the things needed for this transition to succeed.
The country's 3 billion economy is driven by the public sector and fishing.
Greenland's government wants mining.
The income could help reduce its reliance on subsidies from Denmark and boost its independence goals - an issue that dominates this Tuesday's pivotal election.
Jess Bertelsen, the head of local labour union, SIK, favours growing the sector.
The country needs more income and well -paying jobs he tells me.
Now, we only produce fish.
If that disappears, we'll have nothing else to earn money from, so we need more job creation in other professions.
Greenlanders are soon heading to the polls to vote on their country's future, all under the gaze of Donald Trump.
It's unclear what the US President Greenland Gambit will mean for mining, but there are hopes that this unprecedented attention will bring much -needed investment into the country.
Adrianne Murray reporting, well, something else that's still Danish, at least for the moment, is LEGO.
It's been a favorite toy around the world for many decades, and in a world of video games and AI, the simple plastic bricks still seem to be highly popular.
The company's latest earnings show it's made its highest ever sales, bucking a global toy industry that's declined 1 % in 2024.
And the CEO, Niels Christensen, says there's likely now to be a move into bringing its video game operations in -house, not relying on outside game makers, as it has up to now with games like Fortnite.
So why is LEGO so successful, and is it a good move to start being a game maker, too?
I asked Matthew Lothagen of the LEGO fansite Brick fanatics.
The short version is that they are doing very, very well for themselves.
So revenue is up 13 % to 7 .3 billion Danish kroner, which is 8 .4 billion pounds.
Consumer sales are up by about the same, about 12 % of operating profit is up 10 % net profit is up 5%.
They are doing very well, yes, as you say, at a time when everybody else seems to be struggling, seems that a large part of the success that they are seeing is being driven by adult fans of Lego, who are rediscovering this as a hobby.
long after they may have stopped playing with it as a child.
But one of the things you might think would be going against them is that they have factories for example in Mexico supplying the US.
And we know tariffs are in there.
I know there is a factory being planned I think in Virginia, but are they not subject to the kind of problems everyone else seems to be having?
Oh absolutely. I imagine that a lot of the the knock -on effect from these tariffs and the dent that will have to their sales won't kick in until obviously the TARIS actually start.
But in the meantime, the Chief Executive of the Lego Group, Niels B.
Kristiansen has said, and I love this quote, in the big picture, TARIS are not what keeps me awake, that's been relevant.
And I think that's very much what the Lego Group has seen here.
If you imagine a lot of toy companies across the world at the moment are struggling because the economy is in a position where a lot of people are not wanting to spend a lot of money on toys.
Before that, people were struggling because of COVID and there were all kinds of supply and pipeline issues and there was the cost of raw materials increasing that again was hurting the Lego Group and hurting a lot of these other companies.
But because the products that they were making were connecting with their consumer base, consumers were purchasing them anyway, in as much as they could, even as prices were rising.
It's interesting what Christensen said, wasn't it, about relevance?
I mean, what does relevance mean?
I mean, for example, I think there's a suggestion.
now they are going to bring the video games attached to the LEGO Brown in house, or some of them, and get into the making of games themselves, is that part of relevance?
I would imagine so.
The LEGO Group has been trying for many years now to combat their big competitor, which is really, not any of the other toy companies.
It is the screens of the world.
It's the iPads, it's the game controllers.
It's trying to convince kids in particular to put down these devices and play with LEGO bricks instead.
What they've really seen in the past years that has been very interesting is they can go to the video game manufacturers, the makers of these video games, and say, would you like to partner with us?
And so we've got Lego Mario, we've got Lego Fortnite, which is a very big new theme for the Lego group.
The Lego video game entire franchise is one of the 10 biggest video game franchises in history.
It's one of the 10 biggest sellers.
When they when they faced bankruptcy in 90s one of the things that they did was involve licensing out a lot of their Lego brand for these video games and now I think the Lego Group has got to the stage where they feel we are comfortable enough to be able to bring this all back in -house, invest in developing the kind of talent that we need to make these games in -house and therefore not need to work with third -party partners anymore.
Matthew Lofhagen there, of Brick Fanatics.
Now it's probably the best known name in football worldwide Manchester United, but the club hasn't been having the best time recently, with changes in management and ownership and some disappointing results.
There were demonstrations by angry fans before a recent match, but MU has just announced something pretty spectacular, plans to build a new 100 thousand seater stadium, they say it could create 92 ,000 jobs and bring in $9 billion a year to the UK economy.
They've been in their current stadium, Old Trafford of course, for 115 years.
Our reporter James Wickham is outside Old Trafford now, so James, what are the details?
Well, Roger, I can tell you that I'm currently looking at the side of the stand which says Manchester United in Big Red Letters, as you say, this has been their home for 115 years, but possibly not for much longer.
5 years they think it will take, if that, to build this brand new stadium.
And let me give you a bit of a potted history as to where we are.
United, of course, dominated domestically even after the Glazer takeover back in 2005.
That's an incredibly controversial deal because it was financed primarily through loans secured against the club's assets.
It was something like a takeover of a billion dollars or so.
It leveraged Manchester United with a debt of around $680 million just like that.
they were in the red for the first time since 1931.
Well, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has come in, taken part of a stake, 27 .7 % stake in Manchester United, now these big proposals.
So, I suppose the big question is Roger, can they actually afford it?
Well, Dr Dan Plumlee is an expert in the finance, economics and governance of professional team sports.
He thinks it will be possible.
If you look at the revenue line, they've managed to keep pace with their rivals in Europe.
their revenue is bigger than Liverpool, than Arsenal for this the most recent set of accounts in 2024.
And despite that on -pitch dip that we've seen from the club in recent seasons, they still managed to keep pace at the top of the revenue tree.
So I think they will be able to finance this.
And that was Dr. Dan Plumley their expert in finance, economics and governance of professional team sports.
And I'm speaking, of course, to our very own James Wycombe.
And that's pretty much it from World Business Report from me and the rest of the team.
Bye -bye. Hello, I'm Robin Inks.
And I'm Brian Cox, and we would like to tell you about the new series of the Infinite Monkey Coach.
We're going to have a planet of Jupiter versus Septon.
Well it's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice.
After all of that it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series we're discussing history music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.
So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.
