It's Thursday, the 25^th of September 2025. Inflation jumped in August reflecting the end of some electricity rebates, and while the uptick was enough to ensure the Reserve Bank board won’t cut interest rates when it meets next week, financial markets have still priced in a rate cut later in the year. For the year to the end of August, headline inflation was 3 per cent while underlying inflation was 2.6 per cent. Both headline and trimmed mean inflation remain within the RBA’s 2–3 per cent target band.

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News in brief

As the United Nations General Assembly winds down, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese managed to chat to US President Donald Trump, take a selfie, and set up a formal meeting in a month’s time. It has been a wild few days in New York, not least thanks to Trump using the gathering to blast Europe’s immigration policies, call climate change the greatest con job ever perpetrated, and claim the UN has done nothing to end conflicts.

Westpac will cut 200 bank teller jobs across its branch network, replacing them with concierges who will help customers use the bank’s app, ATMs or website. It is part of a major restructure at the country’s second largest bank, and the plan is to reduce the number of tellers but increase by 200 the number of home and business lending roles.

Optus has appointed former investment banker and NBN director Dr Kerry Schott to lead an independent review into last week’s failure that prevented more than 600 people from calling Triple Zero and was associated with four deaths. Chief executive Stephen Rue yesterday acknowledged that Optus’ reputation had been damaged by the outage and indicated that he had no plans to step down.

The latest trust rankings show the big banks climbing up the rankings, Bunnings still at number one followed by Aldi, Kmart, Apple and Toyota, and the two major supermarket chains stuck as the most distrusted brands, according to Roy Morgan.

More than 70 per cent of ChatGPT users are asking for help with personal matters and how to get stuff done, rather than work-related tasks, according to a study using millions of anonymised messages. Non-work queries were most commonly for advice about writing, personal issues such as fitness, and making information requests. The remaining 27 per cent of questions were work-related and included asking for writing help, decision support, information processing and technical help.

Fear-o-meter

There was something for every economist in yesterday’s inflation reading. Those who don’t think the Reserve Bank should cut rates said the rise in inflation to three per cent for the year ending August gives reason to pause.

Those pushing for a rate cut said underlying inflation fell to 2.6 per cent, close to the midpoint of the RBA’s target band, and given the employment market is weakening, albeit from a strong position, cuts are needed.

While the RBA’s mandate is price stability and full employment, it also worries about economic growth.

The Australian economy is running at a growth rate of about two per cent (though the official figure to the end of June is just 1.3 per cent). That’s not good enough and in coming months we will start hearing more about economic growth from the central bank.

It’s why more rate cuts are likely over the next 12 months.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the outlook for commodities, including just how high the gold price might climb:

 

"Whenever we've come out with a forecast, we think it's reasonable. And whenever we put it out there, we just say with upside risk. And the reason being is that it has been very difficult to find a reason for gold to sell off materially. And it's almost like it finds good reasons to rally. And whenever you have typical negative reasons, like say a stronger US dollar, which is typically weighed on gold, it has just taken it in its stride and just stayed flat in response to something like that.

 

So this commodity has been very strong to date. There are key structural drivers that we think are really elevating the price right now, but we think this has more to run. And our call right now is about $4,000 an ounce by the second quarter next year."

Greed-o-meter

Where have we seen the largest growth in prices over the last 12 months? Electricity is top of the list, as power bill rebates come off. But eggs are still right up there, amid a bird flu-induced shortage.

Source: ABS, AMP

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