Market snapshot
- ASX 200: +0.5% to 9,097 points
- Australian dollar: flat at 71.23 US cents
- Wall Street: Dow Jones: (+0.2%), S&P 500 (+0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%)
- Europe: FTSE (+0.1%), DAX (-0.1%), Stoxx 600 (-0.1%)
- Spot gold: -0.1% to $US4,516/ounce
- Oil (Brent crude): flat at $US91.62/barrel
- Iron ore: -0.2% to $US96.05/tonne
- Bitcoin: +0.7% to $US69,526
Prices current around 10:10am AEST
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
Construction leaders urge government to scale projects already working to tackle productivity problem
A warning has come from Australia’s construction industry, concerned the nation will struggle to meet its housing, infrastructure, energy and defence targets unless productivity improves.
The Australian Constructors Association (ACA) Foundations and Frontiers forum is being held at the Hyatt Regency Sydney today, bringing a coalition of industry stakeholders together, including government, project owners, contractors, consultants and suppliers.
The event is focused on identifying actions that can lift productivity and improve project delivery outcomes across Australia, reflecting on projects that have worked, and ways they can be scaled.
Some of the discussions include:
- Lessons from projects including Western Sydney International Airport, the New Bridgewater Bridge, Atlassian Central and Grange University Hospital in Wales
- Exploring data centre investment
- Modern methods of construction, procurement reform, design productivity, collaboration and industrial relations reform
Opening Foundations and Frontiers 2026, ACA President Annabel Crookes is calling on governments to stop treating productivity as an academic problem to study, and prioritise scaling the proven successes that already exist.
“A better industry won’t be built by endlessly analysing what is broken. We need to become just as good at studying success – understanding why it works, what conditions made it possible, and how we replicate it at scale,” says Ms Crookes.
“Construction has become very good at producing pockets of excellence. The challenge is ensuring they don’t remain isolated examples. To lift productivity, and deliver the infrastructure Australia needs, best practice cannot remain exceptional.
“Construction productivity is a national economic priority. If we can improve the way projects are delivered, we’ll build more homes, complete more infrastructure and get better value from every taxpayer dollar invested.”
Interest rate hikes and tax changes are flowing through to lower sales, says Stockland CEO
On the program last night, business correspondent David Taylor spoke to Stockland chief executive Tarun Gupta, who says the number of first home buyers coming into the property market hasn’t changed “markedly” since the government’s tax changes.
Instead, the three RBA rate hikes earlier this year are starting to dampen demand.
You can catch up on the interview below:
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Australia Post’s future must protect local services and small business
The peak body for small businesses COSBOA, and the Licensed Post Office Group argue Australia Post’s retail network needs to evolve to ensure it delivers value for small businesses and communities.
Each organisation has made a submission to the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee Inquiry into the management of, and plans for, Australia Post’s retail network.
As it stands, 88% of Australia Post customers are small businesses.
Local post offices are particularly important for communities in regional, rural and remote parts of the country, providing access to essential services that are becoming increasingly difficult to find face-to-face, including banking, identity verification, passport and government services.
COSBOA’s CEO Skye Cappuccio says discussions around changes to the Australia Post business model need to focus on how many post offices remain open, and what services they will continue to provide the community.
“For a small business, having to travel to another town or suburb to do banking, send freight, verify documents or complete an important transaction costs time and money, and takes someone away from running the business,” says Ms Cappuccio.
“We absolutely understand that Australia Post has to change, as the way Australians communicate, shop and send goods changes.
“We should be asking how we make the most of an extraordinary national network that already exists in communities across Australia – from banking and identity services to government transactions and parcels – while making sure the small business owners operating much of that network have a sustainable business model.”
Licensed Post Office Group Chair Scott Etherington agrees, and says the inquiry must examine the services available through the network.
“An outlet can remain on the map while the services available from the counter change significantly. The real measure is not simply presence – it is capability,” he says.
“Parcels are an essential part of Australia Post’s future and nobody is suggesting otherwise. But parcels and services should work together.”
‘This is fraud’: Explosive claims by the financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC
Australia’s financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC has uncovered mortgage fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars at 10 major banks.
Speaking to The Business’ David Taylor last night, AUSTRAC’s CEO Brendan Thomas said the investigation uncovered system-level fraud.
“These are people inventing false sources of income, false types of employment, and backing that up with fraudulent documentation in their loan application,” he said.
The investigation kicked off when the Commonwealth Bank approach AUSTRAC with concerns of significant fraud across mortgage applications.
That information was then shared with other major banks across the country to understand if they too had been impacted.
“It varied, but it was still there quite significantly,” Mr Thomas said.
“What we found is this kind of application fraud right across banking institutions in Australia.”
You can watch the full interview below:
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ASX trading higher— let’s break it down
The Aussie share market has begun Thursday morning trading up +0.5% to 9,095 points.
Of the major sectors, Basic Materials is up the top, while Financials is down the bottom.
Of the top movers, Zip Co Limited is trading up a massive +16.9%
Of the bottom movers, infrastructure services company Downer EDI is trading down -10.6%.
The Aussie dollar is trading above 71 US cents.
ASX opens in the green
The ASX 200 has opened in the green, up +0.5% to 9,097 points.
More to come.
Wall St sees mixed results — the figures
As Wall Street wrapped up for Wednesday trading, we saw some major exchanges in the green and one in the red. Let’s take a closer look.
The S&P 500 finished up +0.2% to 7,708 points.
Of the top movers, Moderna Inc finished up a massive 177% on the announcement of a new cancer vaccine.
Of the bottom movers, Seagate Technology Holdings finished down -7.9%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up +0.2% to 53,463 points.
Of the top movers, Merck & Co Inc, which created the new cancer vaccine with Moderna, finished up +12.6%.
Of the bottom movers, Caterpillar Inc finished down -2.9%.
Finally, the Nasdaq Composite finished down -0.2% to 29,426 points.
Of the top movers, Strategy Inc finished up 12.7%.
Of the bottom movers, Nebius Group NV finished down -9.9%.
Tim Wilson criticises national debt ticking over $1 trillion, backs current GST deal
Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson has accused the government of being “addicted to spending” as government debt ticks over $1 trillion.
Wilson says the debt will only be passed onto future generations of taxpayers, and could become a part of an “intergenerational legacy”.
“This government is addicted to spending. It’s addicted to inflation, and it’s constantly focussed on how it spends that spending … [that] stokes the economy, stokes the inflation,” Wilson says.
While he’s there, the shadow treasurer has been asked about the Productivity Commission’s take on the GST carve-up.
The commission has criticised the WA GST deal in an interim report, calling it a “costly mistake” and recommending the government scrap it.
Wilson has backed the current deal, saying the government needs to make sure the incentives are in place to ensure states develop their natural resources instead of being a “begging bowl”.
Medibank full year results
The latest Medibank results have seen 6 million people trust the private health insurer with their health and wellbeing. Let’s break down the numbers:
- There were $6.9 billion total claims paid
- Group operating profit was up 6.7%, with solid growth in resident Health Insurance, momentum in Medibank Health, and controlled corporate costs
- Underlying net profit after tax was up +2.9% to $636.8 million
- Dividends were up +6.7% to 19.2 cents a share.
- Net investment income was down $28.9 million, including a $7 million reduction in both the growth and defensive portfolios.
- Medibank delivered $10 million in productivity savings, bringing the total to $132.4 million in under a decade.
Medibank’s CEO David Koczkar says while the pressure on households is clear, Australians continue to prioritise their health.
“The system is under more strain. That’s why we need to shift from funding illness to funding health, and why accelerating the health transition has never been more important,” he says.
“Reform isn’t about achieving perfection. It’s about acting with greater urgency. People cannot afford another decade of waiting.
“We take this responsibility seriously and as we grow as a health company we will continue to advocate for and invest in the changes needed to keep Australia’s health system one of the best in the world.”
Australia’s debt hits $1 trillion
The Australian government hits a new milestone, with federal debt now at $1 trillion, sparked by $4 billion of syndicated 2038 Treasury Bonds by the Australian Office of Financial Management.
It comes as US debt has topped $US40 trillion for the first time, drawing fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is brewing as ballooning costs for social safety net programs and interest payments far outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts.
The US federal government’s debt has now more than doubled in less than a decade, from $US19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump was sworn in for the first time in January 2017.
Roughly one-third of that increase occurred during two years of frantic government borrowing to fund the COVID-19 pandemic responses undertaken by Trump and former President Joe Biden, while the fiscal policy choices of both presidents combined with long running tax and spending imbalances to account for the rest.
– Reporting with Reuters
Three ships hit in the Strait of Hormuz as price of oil trading higher
Last night business reporter Jasper Wells (alongside wires), reported three ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz were attacked in recent days.
The ships were struck by unknown projectiles, resulting in two casualties, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency.
An association of cargo shipowners reported that a sailor aboard the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Minoan Dynasty was killed on Monday.
While hostilities between Iran and the United States have eased in recent weeks, a string of attacks on vessels passing through the strait has unsettled investors, pushing oil prices to a three-week high.
Brent crude futures jumped more than 3% over the past week, to $US91.38 by 5:45pm AEST on Friday.
As of 7:50am AEST today, Brent Crude is trading up +0.7% to $US91.67/barrel.
Business leaders urge focus on skills not numbers in migration debate
Political pressure is mounting for drastic migration cuts, with One Nation and the Coalition arguing the government’s current permanent migration intake is too high.
But business leaders warn this could result in critical worker shortages in areas ranging from aged care to construction, and is urging the public debate to shift away from numbers.
You can read the full piece from business reporter Nassim Khadem below:
ICYMI: Wednesday finance with Alan Kohler
Shares in the Chinese robot company, Unitree Robotics, jumped more than 600% when it floated yesterday.
Here are the headlines from yesterday with Alan Kohler.
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Moderna stock price soars on cancer vaccine announcement
The US biotechnology company Moderna has seen its share price soar +177% after announcing its personalised cancer vaccine with partner Merck & Co.
The vaccine is designed to keep melanoma at bay, and unlike chemotherapy, which kills both healthy and cancerous cells, or immunotherapy, which revs up the immune system, personalised cancer vaccines train the immune system to specifically target mutations found only on a person’s tumour.
Merck and Moderna say their vaccine helped prevent the return and spread of disease in a large trial involving more than 1,000 melanoma patients.
They had localised tumours that were removed surgically, but had a high risk of recurrence. Moderna expects that thousands of melanoma patients could benefit within the first few years of approval.
“It is a big deal for the field in general,” says Dr Ryan Sullivan, director of the Centre for Melanoma at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute.
“With this positive study, there is hope (and likely investment to follow) that these approaches may change the way we treat cancer more broadly.”
Moderna’s share price as of Wednesday afternoon when Wall Street closed, was about $US174 a share.
– Reporting with Reuters
On the agenda: jobs data
At 11:30am AEST the latest jobs figures will be published from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, providing a snapshot of the working landscape in July.
In June, we saw Australia’s unemployment rate remain at 4.4% in seasonally adjusted terms.
An extra 76,000 people gained employment in June, driven by a 47,000-person rise in part-time employment.
ASX to open in the green
Good morning everyone and happy Thursday,
Business reporter Adelaide Miller here to guide you through the morning on the markets blog, where we cover the latest finance, economics and business stories across Australia and around the world.
To start with, it looks like the Aussie share market will open in the green, with Futures pointing up +0.3% to 9,032 points.
The Aussie dollar is also strong this morning, trading above 71 US cents as of 7:15am.
Wall Street closed with mixed results, I will provide a breakdown shortly.
But for now, grab yourself a coffee, tea or juice and see you back here soon!
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Market snapshot
- ASX 200 Futures: +0.3% to 9,032 points
- Australian dollar: +0.6% to 71.23 US cents
- Wall Street: Dow Jones: (+0.2%), S&P 500 (+0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%)
- Europe: FTSE (+0.1%), DAX (-0.1%), Stoxx 600 (-0.1%)
- Spot gold: +4.3% to $US4,521/ounce
- Oil (Brent crude): +0.5% to $US91.49/barrel
- Iron ore: -0.2% to $US96.05/tonne
- Bitcoin: -0.1% to $US69,036
Prices current around 7:00am AEST
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
