Opinions will always differ but my view is still overall...

Opinions will always differ but my view is still overall positive.

China is curbing production which has supported the recent rise in coal prices. China is forced to cut coal output as safety and environmental and economic concerns are becoming a heightened political focus. They are trying to curb production in an attempt to shift from a manufacturing centric focused country and this transition is having the expected positive impact on coal prices.

Trump is suggesting that the US will support its coal industry. There is a question around how this will be achieved. Obama had veiwed the coal industry negatively and focused on market dynamics to shut it down. One way he tried to do this was by incentivising old coal fired power plants to be replaced by new natural gas and renewable energy production. I believe Trump will focus on reversing Obama's Clean Power Plan and other emission promises to achieve this. This would lead to increase forecast demand for coal as a smaller amount of capex is needed to maintain an old coal fired plan than the capex involved to build new energy production. US Coal miners receive the pricing benefits of supplying coal into a US market and Trump may introduce import tariffs on foreign coal. However, Australia is naturally disadvantaged to supply coal (or any other resource) to the US due to geographic location. Hence there is a much larger focus on Asia.

Many ways to interpret economic commentary and above is my view. DYOR