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by John Kehoe

Donald Trump's first press conference in six months sent the Australian dollar surging through US74¢ against a weakening greenback and bond yields falling, as the President-elect largely omitted talking of his highly anticipated pro-growth economic policies that had sent stocks soaring since the election.

Shares of American pharmaceutical and defence companies also plunged, after the President-elect vowed to crack down on out of control pricing by the sectors.

Mr Trump, who will take office next Friday, affirmed his commitment to a "large border tax" on US companies "getting away with murder" by shifting factories and jobs offshore.

Stock indexes on Wall Street swung wildly before finishing the session up. Oil surged and the greenback fell during a broad-ranging 75-minute news conference by the President-elect in at Trump Tower in New York.

The Australian dollar touched as high as U74.68¢, soaring just over US1¢ from US73.67¢ just before Mr Trump spoke in the US on Wednesday.

BK Asset Management managing director of foreign exchange strategy Kathy Lien said the initial market reaction reflected "a lack of specific policy action and continued uncertainty".

"Investors seem disappointed by that and as a result they sent yields tumbling, the [US] dollar tumbling," she said from New York.

Stocks regained their footing in late afternoon trade. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.50 per cent to 19,954.28 and the S&P; 500 gained 0.28 per cent to 2275.32.

After vehemently rejecting as "fake news" and "phoney" uncorroborated claims being investigated by intelligence agencies that Russia has compiled compromising evidence on his personal life and finances, Mr Trump outlined how he would quit management of his international real estate company – but not ownership – to avoid conflicts of interest.

Markets were disappointed about Mr Trump's lack of talk of major corporate tax reform, regulation rollback and infrastructure investment, campaign policies that recently sent the S&P; 500 up more than 6 per cent and moved the Dow Jones Industrial Average within 1 point of a milestone 20,000 points since the November 8 election.

Government bond yields fell, with the 10-year Treasury bond interest rate dropping to 2.35 per cent, from 2.39 per cent, before partially recovering.

Reflecting a weaker US dollar, the price of Brent crude oil rallied more than 3 per cent to $US55.45 a barrell. 

The celebrity real estate developer attacked sections of corporate America, saying the prescription drug industry needed to return to the US from offshore and be subject to "new bidding" on skyrocketing prices.

"We're the largest buyer of drugs in the world yet we don't bid properly and we're going to start bidding and we're gonna save billions of dollars," Mr Trump said.

The remarks open up the possibility of the US government negotiating drug prices on behalf of consumers, a strategy that Australia and many governments do, but American pharmaceutical lobbyists oppose.

The Nasdaq biotech index slumped up to 3.5 per cent and the healthcare share index lost 1.3 per cent in intraday trade on Wednesday in the US.

"When he comments on healthcare I think that's extremely important," Fiduciary Trust chief investment officer Peter Anderson said.

Mr Trump said "we're gonna do that with a lot of other industries", singling out Lockheed Martin's joint strike fighter, or F-35, that is behind schedule and over budget for the US, Australia and other governments buying the defence jets. 

He signalled there would be more "competition" for defence procurement between Lockheed Martin's F-35 and Boeing's existing F/A-18 super hornets.

"We're gonna do some big things on the F-35 program and perhaps the F-18 [F/A-18] program and we're gonna get the costs way down," he said.

Lockheed's share price fell up to 1.3 per cent before closing down just 0.41 per cent, after a larger plunge last month in reaction to Mr Trump attacking its cost overruns on social media.

The estimated cost of the joint strike fighter program has doubled to almost $US400 billion. Australia has budgeted to spend $24 billion buying and maintaining 72 of the jets over a decade.