The attack on Bondi Beach on Sunday appears to have been inspired by terrorist group Islamic State, according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The two gunmen travelled to the Philippines, known as a home to extremist groups, a month before they staged the massacre. After the shooting, police found two homemade ISIS flags and improvised explosive devices in their vehicle. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said an AFP investigation had found the massacre was the “alleged actions of those who have aligned themselves with a terrorist organisation, not a religion.”

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News in brief

A surge in consumer confidence has proven short-lived with sentiment tumbling as expectations of rate cuts recede.

Google is testing homes-for-sale ads at the top of search results, effectively becoming an online real estate agency, a decision which has sent the share price of online property groups lower.

Businesses in capital cities are finding it tougher than the regions, with high commercial rents combining with soft consumer demand to push up insolvency rates in the cities.

A ruling granting workers’ compensation to an employee who hurt herself by tripping over a pet fence while working from home has been overturned in a judgment significantly narrowing employers’ liability for remote work accidents.

Nasdaq, the teach heavy, second largest exchange in the US, has asked for regulatory approval to trade 23 hours a day, during the working week.

Fear-o-meter

If the Nasdaq, and potentially the New York Stock Exchange, start trading 22 or 23 hours a day, as requested, that is good news for Australian investors.  

Nasdaq asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to add an additional trading session from 9pm to 4am. That’s on top of pre-market, regular and post-market trading times.

It would mean trading the Nasdaq, during Australian opening hours, would become more attractive. Local traders can buy and sell immediately on the information available, rather than having to wait hours to execute orders.

It’s inevitable that major exchanges will trade near 24 hours a day. That could prove a boon for the Australian market.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the latest Business Risk Index, which shows capital city business closing at a higher rate than regional businesses:

 

"They’ve been under quite considerable pressure for really twelve to eighteen months. When we try to model insolvencies, the two dominant factors have been interest rates and costs — effectively inflation. We hear a lot about the cost of living affecting consumers, obviously, but the other side of the coin is that anything that’s a cost of living is also a cost of doing business. Insurance, electricity, energy, all of those factors affect businesses as well. And then, of course, wages have gone up a lot in that period too."

Greed-o-meter

As AI use booms, so does the energy needed to power the platforms. Investing research platform BestBrokers has crunched the numbers on ChatGPT, where each query is estimated to consume 18.9 watt-hours, more than 50 times the energy used by a standard Google search (0.3 Wh). According to those calculations, ChatGPT’s annual energy use amounts to 17.23 tera-watt-hours, enough electricity to power New York City for 113 days (nearly 4 months). It's also the equivalent of the power consumption of these countries below:

Source: BestBrokers.com

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