59m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:53pmMarket snapshot<\/p>\n
Prices current around 7:40am AEST<\/p>\n
10m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 10:42pm<\/p>\n
Alan Kohler on gold prices, AI and market shocks<\/p>\n
In case you need a refresher before the ASX opens today, I can certainly recommend Alan Kohler’s finance report.<\/p>\n
Alan talked about Myer’s disastrous financial performance, Nvidia and OpenAI investing $US100 billion in each other (which he described as a “money-go-round”), and the price of gold surging to a new record, above $US3,700 per ounce.<\/p>\n
He says gold is being driven higher by “US rate cuts and Donald Trump doing what he said he would do, which is increase tariffs and cut immigration, a demand shock combined with a supply shock”.<\/p>\n
“Global investors see it as a bit like the combination of nitro
\nand glycerine, and they’re getting out of there before it blows.”<\/p>\n
Loading…31m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 10:21pmOptus failure may not have been prevented by incoming triple-0 reforms<\/p>\n
Efforts to beef up regulation of the telecommunications sector likely wouldn’t have prevented last week’s Optus outage, even if they were in force, according to experts who warn more significant changes are needed to avoid repeat catastrophes.<\/p>\n
Instead they argue an investigation into the network’s infrastructure and the addition of conditions into the telco’s operating licence, along with stricter enforcement mechanisms, would go further to prevent serious outages.<\/p>\n
The network failure, according to Optus’s version of events, began early on Thursday morning but it was not reported to the communications regulator until more than 10 hours later.<\/p>\n
Those initial reports were “perfunctory and some were inaccurate”, Australian Communications and Media Authority chair Nerida O’Loughlin revealed on Monday.<\/p>\n
For more, here’s the story by Keane Bourke and Maani Truu.<\/p>\n
48m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 10:04pmCould AI and a universal basic income eliminate ‘meaningless jobs’?<\/p>\n
Australia essentially did it during COVID. The world’s richest man thinks it’s inevitable. And a growing body of research suggests it could be the answer to AI shattering long-held high rates of employment.<\/p>\n
A Universal Basic Income, or UBI, is a regular, obligation-free payment to everyone. There are different models, but those key elements endure in research studies and pilot projects around the world.<\/p>\n
When the pandemic forced people to stay home, millions of Australians were able to remain in their jobs thanks to JobKeeper payments.<\/p>\n
In addition, a further 2.2 million people who received some form or welfare payment (such as JobSeeker, colloquially called ‘the dole’) enjoyed a top-up payment called the coronavirus supplement that massively boosted \u2014 in most cases essentially doubled \u2014 their income.<\/p>\n
At one point, more than 43 per cent of the adult population was receiving a regular, obligation-free payment from the government.<\/p>\n
So with artificial intelligence threatening to shatter complete sectors and occupations, my colleague Daniel Ziffer asks whether\u00a0it’s time to talk about a universal basic income to secure our future?<\/p>\n
59m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:53pmWall Street falls after Powell says share prices are ‘fairly highly valued’<\/p>\n
One reason why the ASX is likely to open lower is because it normally follows the direction of larger stock markets (particularly Wall Street).<\/p>\n
US markets retreated from their record highs overnight as doubts about the artificial intelligence (AI) bull market weighed on investors’ minds.<\/p>\n
Some of the biggest drags on the market were tech giants like Nvidia (-2.8%), Microsoft (-1%), Amazon (-3%), Meta (-1.3%), Tesla (-1.9%) and Oracle (-4.4%).<\/p>\n
This led to a significant fall on the US tech index, the\u00a0Nasdaq\u00a0Composite<\/b>, which fell 1% to 22,573 points. Meanwhile, the\u00a0Dow\u00a0Jones Industrial Average\u00a0<\/b>slipped 0.2% to 46,298 points, and the\u00a0S&P 500\u00a0<\/b>dropped 0.6% to 6,657 points.<\/p>\n
The latest comments from US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell also contributed to the falls.<\/p>\n
During a speech on Tuesday (local time), Mr Powell was asked how much emphasis his colleagues placed on market prices during their interest rate deliberations.<\/p>\n
The Fed chair responded by saying:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe do look at overall financial conditions, and we ask ourselves whether our policies are affecting financial conditions in a way that is what we\u2019re trying to achieve,\u201d Powell said. \u201cBut you\u2019re right, by many measures, for example,\u00a0equity prices are fairly highly valued<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
He also offered little hint of when he thinks the central bank might next cut interest rates.<\/p>\n
Instead, Mr Powell stressed that the Fed needs to balance inflation concerns with a weakening job market.<\/p>\n
He also said the decision on whether to cut rates again was a “challenging situation” and unclear.<\/p>\n
1h agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:51pmGold hits new record high, ASX to slip ahead of inflation data<\/p>\n
Good morning, and welcome to the ABC’s finance blog! I’ll be your guide for the next few hours.<\/p>\n
The local share market is expected to fall slightly when trading begins in a few hours. (ASX futures<\/b> are pointing to a 0.3% drop in morning trade).<\/p>\n
In economic news, the focus will be on the latest ABS inflation figures (for the month of August).<\/p>\n
Here’s what NAB’s senior FX strategist Rodrigo Catril is forecasting:<\/p>\n
\n“We expect the headline\u00a0CPI [consumer price index] indicator to remain steady at 2.8% yoy [year-on-year]<\/b>.<\/p>\n
“Key movers in the month will be a fall in electricity prices as rebates in NSW are reintroduced, though base effects from a year ago will see the yoy rate tick higher.<\/p>\n
“The release will also include updates on inflation for a range of market services \u2014 these were relatively benign in Q2 [the second quarter] and are expected to remain moderate.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The Australian dollar, meanwhile, was steady at about 65.95 US cents.<\/p>\n
And spot gold <\/b>has lifted to another record high. The precious metal’s value rose 0.5% to $US3,764 an ounce.<\/p>\n
It appears to have driven by the latest remarks from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, who raised concerns about the state of the US economy.<\/p>\n
“Near-term risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside \u2014 a challenging situation,” Mr Powell said at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce 2025 Economic Outlook Luncheon in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
“Two-sided risks mean that there is no risk-free path.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"59m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:53pmMarket snapshot ASX futures: -0.3% to 8,854 points ASX 200 (Tuesday close):…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[208,3397,79,3396,212,18,1742,19,17,188,3393,9951,1084,1746,7222,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-81968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-asx","9":"tag-aud","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-dollar","12":"tag-dow-jones","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-gold","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-markets","18":"tag-nasdaq","19":"tag-oil","20":"tag-sp","21":"tag-sp-500","22":"tag-usd","23":"tag-wall-street"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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