10 things you need to know this morning in Australia

Buy porg merch, you must. Picture: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Good morning.

1. First, to markets, and the US ones hit all the record highs yet again. Deutsche Bank notes the S&P 500 could post positive total returns in every month this year, the longest such streak since 1995. So can Trump claim credit? Maybe. Better still for Trump, the US dollar is still under pressure, while back home, the Aussie dollar is still threatening to break back above US78 cents. Worries about oversupply continues to cripple iron ore.

2. A day in the media life.

• NBC reports Donald Trump asked for a tenfold increase in US nukes, prompting US secretary of state Rex Tillerson to call him a “moron”.
• US defence secretary Jim Mattis says that was “absolutely false”.
• Trump says it’s “disgusting” that the press “is able to write whatever it wants“.
• Trump tweets veiled threat about revoking network licences for “fake news” outlets.
• Trump tweet turns out to be an empty threat.
• News cycle complete.

3. Any semi-serious Star Wars fan would know that Porg is the sewer-hiding bounty hunter who fatally brought a vibro-ax to a blaster fight on Nar Shaddaa. But from yesterday, a porg is now a curious, puffin-like creature native to the planet of Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker has been hiding since his Jedi Academy was destroyed. Here are all the other things you need to know about Disney’s awkwardly inserted merchandise shifter for Christmas.

4. When he outlined his updated plans to colonise Mars in Adelaide recently, Musk’s “one more thing” was a daisy. Why not use the Big F…ing Rocket for international flights? You’d get to “anywhere on Earth in under an hour,” Musk said. So we asked a real astronaut if real people could handle a spaceflight, and found out some fun stuff about cost, G-forces and a special kind of vomiting.

5. There’s a 400,000-person long line in the wait for the Tesla Model 3. But if you want to skip it badly enough, you might consider paying three times the price for it:

Craigslist

Apparently, it “meets all the hype”. But in the US, you could also get a Model S P100D for that price. Or nearly three of Audi’s high-performance SQ5 3.0T quattro tiptronics, one of which we drove. And it was splendid.

6. Here’s an even better deal. If you’d got a limited edition packet of Szechaun nugget sauce from McDonald’s, you might be able to trade it for a VW Golf. Like Rachel Marie did:

Facebook via @VueronScreenshots show how the deal went down.

Everyone has their price.

7. Harvey Weinstein thinks his brother Bob is responsible for the New York Times story that has caused him to lose his job, company and wife and sent him packing for sex rehab in Europe. But it’s not Bob’s fault, it’s Harvey’s. Although Bob did just say he believes his brother is “a very sick man”. And now Harvey’s gone, the spotlight is on Ben Affleck, who, after denouncing Harvey, is being reminded of this footage in which he allegedly groped a former MTV VJ.

8. There were 27 possible outcomes between the US, Honduras and Panama going into the final three CONCAF World Cup qualifying ties last night. Only one – Honduras somehow toppling Mexico, Panama reaching its first World Cup, and the US losing to Trinidad and Tobago – would have ditched the US from next year’s tournament. And guess which one of those 27 outcomes eventuated?

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

The Socceroos face Honduras next month. US fans weep until 2022.

9. How to make a killing in five days, according to Goldman Sachs – buy straddles five days before an earnings call, and you might make the 22-year market average of 24%. How to make a killing in 6-10 months, according to a former manager at $US72 billion investor Fortress – buy Bitcoin.

10. Here’s something you don’t see every day:

National Hurricane Center

Tropical Storm Ophelia will almost certainly be upgraded to a hurricane in the next 24 hours, but instead of crossing the Atlantic towards the Caribbean, is heading for the Irish coast.

BONUS ITEM: Outlook:

See you Friday.

You can get 10 things direct to your inbox each morning by punching your details into the form below.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.