11m agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 11:32pmMarket snapshot

  • ASX 200: Flat at 8,993 points
  • Australian dollar: -0.1% to 65.06 US cents
  • S&P 500: +0.4% to 6,671 points
  • Nasdaq: +0.7% to 22,670 points
  • FTSE: -0.3% to 9,425 points
  • EuroStoxx: +0.7% to 469 points
  • Spot gold: +0.1% to $US4,212/ounce
  • Brent crude: Flat at $US61.91/barrel
  • Iron ore: -0.4% to $US105.30/tonne
  • Bitcoin: -0.2% to $US111,030

Prices current around 10:30am AEDT.

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

21m agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 11:22pmFinancial and real estate stocks lead moderate ASX gains

The Australian share market is off to a positive start but, like the US markets at the close, it isn’t shooting the lights out.

That’s not surprising after a hefty gain yesterday both here and across Asia.

Today it’s the banking and financial sector that’s leading the way.

AMP has the biggest gain on the ASX 200 with an 11.5% rise to $1.9625 after reporting a 3.6% rise in total assets under management in the third quarter compared to the second.

The fund manager is now looking after a total of almost $160 billion.

Macquarie had an impressive 2.1% jump to $222.29 a share after announcing the sale of 50 North and South American data centres in a $US40 billion (more than $60 billion) deal.

The buyers included Nvidia, Microsoft and BlackRock.

But gains on the ASX are not broadly based, with 127 of the top 200 stocks down and only 62 trading higher.

Overall, the ASX 200 index was up 0.1% to 8,999 points by 10:20am AEDT, while the Aussie dollar was flat at 65.08 US cents.

50m agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 10:53pm

Singapore at the front line of US trade war, even if it isn’t a major target

 A great story from the ABC’s global affairs editor Laura Tingle, taking a deep dive into how Singapore’s economy is being buffeted by Donald Trump’s trade war and its overtures to a closer economic partnership with Australia.

You can watch her video package from The Business:

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Or, if you’re more of a reader, you’ll find the full details online.

1h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 10:30pm

Impressions more impactful than data

I’ve read today another piece noting how Melbourne being the (COVID) ‘lockdown capital of Australia’ has contributed to a dead/dying central business district of empty shopfronts and fallow streets.

It’s not true: either in experience or data.

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Real estate giant CBRE’s latest figures for the first half of 2025 show Melbourne has a CBD retail vacancy rate of 6.9%.

That’s more than Sydney (5%) but vastly less than Brisbane (18.3%) and Perth (21%). Adelaide’s rose to 9.3%.

(Sorry Hobart, Canberra and Darwin, the data doesn’t include a look at your CBD retail vacancy rate).

Not just that, but the end of mega-construction and the opening of two metro-style train stations means vacancy rates are set to fall further.

“Melbourne’s CBD retail vacancy expanded by 89 basis points over the six months to June 2025 (H1 2025), reaching an average of 6.9%, which is in line with the vacancy rate recorded in H1 2024 (6.9%). Construction activity around Bourke Street and the Metro Tunnel, may have temporarily affected leasing activity and foot traffic. With completion anticipated in the second half of 2025, a subsequent reduction in vacancy rates is expected.”

So while Melbourne is not without its problems, the constant chatter about the ‘dead’ CBD and ’empty shopfronts’ is not consistent with the data.

So come on down!

You’ll often find me in Brunettis in Flinders Lane, a little bit of Italy in the city. Catch you there.

1h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 10:16pm

Unemployment data out this morning

The big local economic news today will be jobs data, out at 11:30am AEDT.

Economists are generally expecting around 20,000 additional people to have been employed last month, with unemployment ticking up from 4.2 to 4.3%.

We’ll obviously have that well covered here and with a break-out digital story.

1h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 10:02pm

Judge blocks mass layoffs, but US government shutdown costing $US15 billion per day

From our friends at Reuters:

A federal judge in California on Wednesday ordered US president Donald Trump’s administration to halt mass layoffs of federal workers during a partial government shutdown while she considers claims by unions that the job cuts are illegal.

During a hearing in San Francisco, US District Judge Susan Illston granted a request by two unions to block layoffs at more than 30 federal agencies while the case proceeds.

The decision is likely to be appealed quickly, but it offers a reprieve for federal workers facing a nearly year-long push by the Trump administration to slash their ranks.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Separately, Reuters has reported on comments from US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent about the cost of the budget standoff between the Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

Bessent told a news conference that the shutdown was starting to “cut into muscle” of the US economy.

“We believe that the shutdown may start costing the U.S. economy up to $15 billion a day,” he said.

The wave of investment into the US economy, including into artificial intelligence, is sustainable and is only getting started, but the federal government shutdown is increasingly an impediment, Bessent said.

“There is pent-up demand, but then President (Donald) Trump has unleashed this boom with his policies,” Bessent said at a CNBC event held on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.

“The only thing slowing us down here is this government shutdown,” Bessent said.

He said that incentives in the Republican tax law and Trump’s tariffs would keep the investment boom going and fuel continued growth.

“I think we can be in a period like the late 1800s when railroads came in, like the 1990s when we got the internet and office tech boom,” Bessent said.

2h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 9:41pm

Traders greedy? Never!

Morning Michael. I think the “sanguine markets “ you refer to are following Warren Buffett’s famous advice to be “fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful”. The traders genre seem to be greedy whilst economists are being fearful.

– Phillip

Yes, although Berkshire Hathaway’s near record cash pile of $US344 billion as at the end of June is a sign that Buffett is currently more fearful than greedy.

The only time the company had more cash or liquid assets (like US treasuries) was in the first quarter of 2025, but it’s cash pile shrank by less than $US4 billion.

He recently said that he is waiting for good value opportunities to buy, which come along very rarely.

Clearly, he and his investment team haven’t seen too many lately.

Other investors seem far less patient.

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2h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 9:29pm

Markets now pricing just a 40% chance of RBA rate cut in November

From Westpac’s Imre Speizer, looking at the bond markets overnight.

“The US 2yr treasury yield rose from 3.46% to 3.51%, while the 10yr yield rose from 4.00% to 4.05%,” he notes.

“Markets price a 90% chance the Fed funds rate, currently 4.125% (mid), will be cut by 25bp at the next meeting on 30 October, with around five more cuts in total in this easing cycle.”

The odds for an Aussie rate cut are much, much lower.

“Australian 3yr government bond yields (futures) rose from 3.47% to 3.51%, while the 10yr yield rose from 4.22% to 4.26%,” Speizer notes.

“Markets price a 40% chance the RBA cash rate, currently at 3.60%, will be cut by 25bp at the next meeting on 4 November, with only one more cut in this easing cycle.”

Based on initial reports of Michele Bullock’s comments during a Washington DC fireside chat (it isn’t yet on the RBA website so I haven’t had access to listen to her comments myself) that kind of pricing doesn’t seem too surprising.

2h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 9:17pm

Market snapshot

  • ASX 200 futures: +0.1% to 9,024 points
  • Australian dollar: -0.1% to 65.04 US cents
  • S&P 500: +0.4% to 6,671 points
  • Nasdaq: +0.7% to 22,670 points
  • FTSE: -0.3% to 9,425 points
  • EuroStoxx: +0.7% to 469 points
  • Spot gold: +1.6% to $US4,207/ounce
  • Brent crude: +0.1% to $US62.43/barrel
  • Iron ore: -0.4% to $US105.30/tonne
  • Bitcoin: -0.4% to $US110,708

Prices current around 8:15am AEDT.

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

2h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 8:58pmRBA governor describes interest rates as ‘marginally tight’

NAB’s FX strategist Ray Attrill has been keeping an eye on the latest Reserve Bank talk, this time from the governor herself, over in the US capital.

“RBA Governor Bullock has just been speaking in Washington, where she described policy as currently ‘marginally tight’ but ‘not much’,” he notes.

“She said she sees the economy as close to balance in terms of the output gap, 4.2% unemployment at the moment as ‘good’ but that her job is not done in regard to policy objectives. Inflation is described as ‘a little bit volatile’.

“And echoing comments being heard from other central bankers of late, she says she disagrees with the rosy view from markets.

“AUD/USD has drawn a (barely perceptible) lift from all this — a couple of pips.”

Nothing too surprising in there from Michele Bullock, hence the lack of currency movement.

I must say that I tend to agree with her worries about “sanguine” markets but, on recent evidence, it seems traders are nowhere near as concerned as many economists.

2h agoWed 15 Oct 2025 at 8:51pm’There’s fear out there’ but stocks rise further alongside gold

There’s some very weird stuff happening on global financial markets.

In the “buy everything” trend, we’ve again seen US shares push modestly higher at the same time as safe haven gold rocketed to a fresh record high.

Analysts have largely attributed the stock gains to some key positive corporate earnings results from Morgan Stanley and Bank of America in the US and France’s LVMH, which sparked a rally in the luxury goods sector.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 7 points, or 0.75%, to 986.

On Wall Street, stronger early session gains reversed as investors worried about the renewed increase in trade tensions with China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended very marginally lower, the S&P 500 rose 0.40%, and the Nasdaq climbed 0.7%.

At the same time, spot gold punched a fresh record of $US4,217.95 an ounce.

“There’s fear out there and we really don’t know how tariffs and the slower employment is going to affect consumer spending and company financials going forward,” Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia, told Reuters.

“I hope they get together and find a solution that is amenable to both parties, because this escalation isn’t good for markets. It’s probably not good for either economy.”

Exactly. So why on earth are stocks continuing to push towards fresh records?

It seems like a pretty big bet on TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).

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We’ll wait to see if investors end up with indigestion.