Reserve Bank decision at 2:30pm AEDT
1m agoTue 4 Nov 2025 at 1:37am
Australian data firm secures $14.8bn deal with Microsoft
Australian data-centre operator IREN has sealed a $14.8 billion deal with Microsoft to provide AI cloud capacity, including access to Nvidia’s advanced chips.
The news sent shares of NASDAQ-listed IREN up 24.7% to a record high on Monday, local time, with the stock last up nearly 10%.
AI-server maker Dell was also up about 1%, as it would provide IREN with Nvidia’s GB300 chips and other equipment that Microsoft will use for about $US5.8 billion.
The five-year Microsoft deal shows the AI industry’s growing hunger for computing power to run applications such as ChatGPT.
It followed earnings from major tech companies last week that underscored capacity shortages were limiting their ability to fully benefit from the boom.
Partnering with IREN would allow Microsoft to expand computing capacity without building new data centres or securing additional power — two of the biggest hurdles slowing its ability to meet surging AI demand.
It will also sidestep heavy capital spending on chips that will lose value as newer, more powerful processors arrive.
IREN, which had a market value of $US16.52 billion as of last close after a more than six-fold surge in its shares this year, has multiple data centres across North America with a total capacity of 2,910 megawatts.
The company said the Nvidia processors are scheduled for phased deployment through 2026 at its 750-megawatt Childress, Texas, campus, alongside new liquid-cooled data centres designed to deliver about 200 megawatts of critical IT capacity.
Reporting with Reuters
ASX in the red ahead of RBA meeting
A quick check in on how the local share market is tracking at lunchtime (Eastern Daylight time, at least…).
The ASX 200 is down by 0.6%, with most sectors in the red, except healthcare slightly higher and technology right on the flatline.
Here are the worst-performing stocks so far:
Eagers Automotive -5.8%Iperionx -5.4%Boss Energy -5.2%Judo Capital -3.8%Paladin Energy -3.8%
And the best performers:
DroneShielf +5%Domino’s Pizza +3.8%NEXTDC +3.6%Austal +2.8%Light & Wonder +2.7%
34m agoTue 4 Nov 2025 at 1:03am
‘Green gold rush’ as avocado exporters eye China deal
The avocado industry is looking to expand export markets to avoid a market glut — with China in its sights.
National avocado output for the 2024/25 financial year came in at 131,385 tonnes, shy of the national record of 150,913 tonnes set in 2023/24.
Australia’s annual output is projected to hit 171,163 tonnes within the next two years.
West Australian avocado growers are eyeing the Chinese export market as the “green gold rush” of the fruit shows no sign of slowing, write reporters Rachel Boothman and Jacqueline Lynch.
Orchardists have begun harvesting what could be a record-breaking crop in the South West region of WA.
Avocados Australia WA director Brad Rodgers said securing access to new markets was crucial to ensuring the industry’s growth.
“We’re rewriting our national strategy plan and export will be a big focus,” he said.
“We’re working hard to secure new market access, particularly to China.”
Due to its pest-free status, WA already has trade access to the Japanese and Thai markets, but China remains the coveted prize.
Read the full story here:
47m agoTue 4 Nov 2025 at 12:50am
Readers’ thoughts about housing and renting
In relation to the comment from Jeffrey about renting being cheaper and being better off financially if investing the difference vs owning. that is the key thing. most people don’t save. any money not spent on rent is spent on buying other things, whether it’s a necessity or not. buying a home is a forced saving and is the biggest reason why people that own their home are generally better off to those that rent.
– Landlord
If I may also reply to Jeffery – It goes further, our pension system (Including Super) also assumes that you own your own house. I might add, the pricing of a rental is also at the whim of the landlord…which can also add to insecurity at best & unaffordability at worst. Talking to the younger of the people at work about rentals and just how much the increases were over the last few years & how much they struggle is staggering. It makes me glad I bought my place, because even with the increase in interest rates I could afford to not have to change my budget as a result (I am lucky enough to be able to pay way more than the minimum, so the increase in interest expense was just absorbed into the total).
– Allan
Thank you for these great comments to the blog.
Market puts chance of RBA hold above 90%
About 2 hour and 45 minutes until the (likely non-)decision that stops the nation.
The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy board is tipped to keep the cash rate hold at 3.6%.
According to LSEG data, market pricing puts the chance of no change today at 92.3%, so less than 8% chance of a 0.25 percentage point rate cut.
1h agoTue 4 Nov 2025 at 12:35am
Culture Club
All this talk about being priced out of the housing market is just media spin. Majority of developed countries’ major cities such as Paris, Milan, Beijing and etc, no one thinks about owning and the mindset is always to rent. Why is it such a big deal that we must own our own home in Australia?Alot of studies done (Rent or Buy? We do the sums | Stockspot) have shown individuals are financially better off at retirement by renting and investing the difference over the long term but news article keeps suggesting owning your home is the way to go instead of talking about the benefits of not buying. This creates angst in the community and driving up FOMO propping up the property market further.
– Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
Every country has its own culture, and Australia’s culture around housing has its own norms and values, and its own history.
We do not treat renters well in Australia. We never have. From a policy perspective renters are second-class citizens behind owner-occupiers and landlords.
But that part of our culture is now chaffing against the phenomenon of “forever renters,” where younger Australians are not only stuck in the private rental market for much longer than past generations were, but where many are now facing the reality that they may never own their own home.
Our legislation hasn’t kept up with that reality.
Researchers say we’re going to have to change our legal and cultural frameworks to accommodate the rise of those “forever renters.” And that means allowing renters to put picture frames on their walls, to own pets, and to have the option of signing long-term leases so they’re guaranteed a semblance of stability.
Many of those things already exist in European cities, where renting for life is part of their culture. But they don’t exist in Australia to the same degree.
Australians instinctively know this.
And that’s why so many of us still aspire to own our own home so we’ll finally have our “castle” where we’ll be free from the whims of landlords, and where we can finally – finally! – put down roots in our local community.
In the last 40 years, Australian governments have tried really hard to convince more of us to think of housing as an “asset” rather than a “home,” but it’s been incredibly difficult to shake the old cultural dream of owning a quarter acre block.
How long will it take for our culture to catch up with the reality of forever renters and start treating renters the same as home owners and landlords? Decades?
Plenty of people don’t want to wait that long and they’d prefer to own their home so they can escape the mess of the private rental market and everything that comes with it.
So, you may be the type of person who thinks of housing in purely financial terms. But millions of people don’t. Housing means different things to different people.
Straker hits over 5-month high on European Union contract
Shares of Straker rise as much as 24.4% to $0.535, their highest level since May 2023.
The language and subscription services provider heading for third straight day of gains.
That’s because the company has won an European Union contract for providing translation and post-editing services, specifically for English text into French.
It says the deal has an estimated contract value of 0.525 million euros ($0.93 million).
The recent gain has helped to cut its annual share price losses to around 17%.
with Reuters
Australia slips in global rankings of digital competitiveness
Australia has ranked 23rd in a global ranking of digital competitiveness, which is the worst result in nine years.
The Swiss-based Institute for Management Development’s (IMD’s) World Competitiveness Center ranks the digital competitiveness of 69 nations across three main factors — knowledge, technology and future readiness — since 2017.
This year, Australia was down from 15th in 2024, with a decline in performance across the board.
Melinda Cilento, chief executive of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), said it was particularly concerning to see big falls in education and training.
“We tumbled to 60th on employee training and 59th on international experience of talent. In other words, Australia is neither adequately training employees, nor properly recognising international qualifications and experience,” she said.
“This risks leaving us behind in the adoption of technologies amid rapid change brought on by AI.
“Put simply, we are moving further away from global excellence in the key areas that will drive future opportunity and prosperity.”
Australia’s worst performance was on business agility, ranking just 65th, while companies’ ability to respond quickly to opportunities and threats dropped from 37th place to 57th.
Globally, Switzerland topped the ranking this year, while the United States was second and Singapore came in third.
1h agoMon 3 Nov 2025 at 11:44pm
Betting on CEO utterances takes financial market insanity to new levels
Most mornings I try to find time to read the Money Stuff newsletter written by Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine.
He’s a genius at finding and dissecting the most ridiculous aspects of Wall Street, financial speculation and corporate shenanigans.
Today, he’s set his sights on a relatively new phenomenon, which is a form of ‘futures trading’ that looks an awful lot like pure gambling.
“Kalshi, a commodities futures exchange registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, offers contracts on various unconventional commodities like election outcomes and football games,” he observes.
“Last month you could buy futures contracts on commodities like a Coinbase Global Inc. representative saying the words “prediction market” or “Bitcoin” or “Web3” on its third quarter earnings call.
“Why? I don’t know. To hedge your risk that Coinbase wouldn’t say those words? To help people understand and price the future states of the world in which Coinbase did or didn’t say those words? Because you were bored and liked to gamble, probably.”
And guess what happened on Coinbase’s earnings call?
Right near the end, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said:
“I was a little distracted because I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase will say on their next earnings call. And I just want to add here the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, staking, and Web3 to make sure we get those in before the end of the call.”
So what’s Matt’s view on this?
“If you and your buddy have a $20 bet on whether or not your boss will say some words in a meeting, and your buddy prods her into saying the words, and she says the words and your buddy wins the bet, I think you would probably be like “ahhh you got me” and hand over the $20. Your buddy would be kind of cheating, but not really. That is the sort of dumb bet that you and your buddy make because you are bored in a meeting and like gambling.”
In short:
“The main point I want to make here is that this is all so dumb and I hate it.”
His take is that increasing swathes of the financial markets have basically morphed into something like sports betting, rather than investments into real businesses or commodities.
Hard to argue with that conclusion.
2h agoMon 3 Nov 2025 at 11:30pm
Top and bottom movers at open
Education (-0.9pc), utilities (-0.6pc) and energy (-0.5pc) stocks are dragging the benchmark index lower at open.
Here are the top and bottom movers in the first half hour of trade.
(LSEG)
2h agoMon 3 Nov 2025 at 11:22pm
Market snapshot
Prices current at around 10:20am AEDT
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
ASX opens lower
The Australian share market has opened lower in the first 15 minutes of trade.
The ASX 200 index was down 16 points or 0.2% to 8,878, by 10:15am AEDT.
At the same time, the Australian dollar was flat at 65.35 US cents.
Why Michele Bullock is relieved she is keeping rates on hold
Last week, the RBA governor issued a blunt warning on the state of financial markets and as markets continue to shift from traditional valuation methods, plenty of cool heads are getting nervous.
Michele Bullock will endure some tough questions today on why the RBA didn’t see the higher inflation numbers coming.
But she will be secretly counting her blessings that she isn’t cutting rates during a stock-market boom, and with Australian real estate prices in record territory and once again gathering pace.
Read this analysis from chief business correspondent Ian Verrender.
3h agoMon 3 Nov 2025 at 10:28pm
Investors and first home buyers flock to property market
IAG calls for climate action as severe weather drives premiums up
Insurer IAG says Australians should expect rising home premiums, with increasingly frequent and damaging weather events a factor.
An executive from the insurer says climate change will play a rising role in gradually increasing premiums unless urgent action is taken.
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A new report has found that severe storms, including hailstorms, are predicted to hit the most populated regions in the southern parts of Australia.
Read this article from me and business reporter Yiying Li.
S&P 500, Nasdaq end higher
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed higher on Monday, with artificial intelligence-related deals driving much of the gains, even as the Federal Reserve’s near-term monetary policy grew increasingly foggy due to the scarcity of official US economic data.
Tech and tech-related firms helped boost the Nasdaq to the biggest gain, while healthcare companies UnitedHealth Group and Merck held the Dow in negative territory.
Among the major drivers to the upside, Amazon jumped after the company announced it struck a $US38 billion ($58 billion) deal with OpenAI to allow the ChatGPT maker to run and scale its artificial intelligence workloads on Amazon Web Services’ cloud infrastructure.
Nvidia shares gained after US President Donald Trump said the AI chipmaker’s most advanced microchips will be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries.
Over the weekend, the White House released details about the agreement reached by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to de-escalate the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
“The Amazon deal and other M&A news have boosted the market, and then you know we came into the week after getting marginally positive news over the weekend, both about the China trade situation and some dovish Fedspeak,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky.
“[But] it’s definitely a market led by big tech semiconductors and it has been for almost this entire bull market.”
with Reuters
What the RBA’s next move will be?
HSBC’s chief economist for Australia, Paul Bloxham, has told The Business host Kirsten Aiken that the Reserve Bank of Australia will keep the official cash rate on hold through next year.
He also explains why a hike — eventually — is likely to be the RBA’s next rate move.
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Stock indexes climb after Amazon-OpenAI deal
Most major stock indexes were higher on Monday following news Amazon will supply cloud-computing services to OpenAI, and the US dollar hovered near a three-month high versus the euro due to waning expectations for hefty US rate cuts.
The multi-year $US38 billion ($58 billion) Amazon-OpenAI deal provided some support to equities, with Amazon shares more than 4% higher.
The Federal Reserve last week cut interest rates as expected. But chair Jerome Powell said another cut in December was “not a foregone conclusion”, contrary to some investors’ beliefs that it was essentially a done deal.
Some Fed officials on Friday aired their discomfort with the central bank’s decision to cut rates, even as influential Fed Governor Christopher Waller made the case for more policy easing to shore up a weakening labour market.
Investors have been without most US economic data releases given the ongoing US government shutdown.
“Investors are optimistic about AI and progress with China with respect to the trade truce. But as the market opened, we’re seeing a tale of two tapes,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York.
“The AI and tech stocks are up today and just about everything else is down. Clearly, the narrowing of leadership continues in a very apparent way,” he said.
The US Supreme Court is considering the legality of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, with arguments set for Wednesday. Under one legal authority or another, Trump’s tariffs are expected to stay in place long-term.
Tech and tech-related firms helped boost the Nasdaq into the lead, while healthcare companies UnitedHealth Group and Merck were off 3.0% and 3.1%, respectively, dragging the Dow into negative territory.
with Reuters
How has the RBA’s cash rate tracked?
The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy board is forecast to keep the official cash rate unchanged at 3.6% later this afternoon.
So how did we get here?
Here’s how the cash rate has tracked over the past few years: