You are both correct on the timing of Yellen's departure. Trump apparently placed a priority on having a dovish Republican in the Chair.
Curves & spreads ..... if you asked me 30 years ago I would give you an complex answer but I've forgotten most of the jargon. Spreads are sometimes correlated to how the man with a mortgage is faring so it's a maybe to Dopey BUT for now my focus will remain on local private debt distress and lending availability.
If we ever get to the point where the Federal Government must pay part of Mr & Mrs Average's mortgage God help us but Keen probably can't see another alternative to close in on and nor can I. The Averages will claim they were duped, someone will need to stay in their underwater houses, they vote and Keynesian Treasury economists will seek to keep spending up. .... even if everything else is toast.
As soon as lending policies tighten the velocity of money floating around to keep people employed will drop. Only simple maths is required to work that one out.
Moving on, I am thinking that the local agriculture sector may do better than most other sectors in a severe downturn. The downside for agriculture is that it's not well represented on the ASX ...... there is a lot of interesting stuff there but it's in private hands.
My unlicenced & potentially crazy advice would be to consider those firms (big, small or tiny) that have diversified OS revenue streams. Why? An Australian asset price collapse may(??) take much longer to recover than OS markets generally.
Agricultural products and certain other products will remain in demand regardless of where the DOW goes.
