Qantas has unveiled a record underlying profit of $1.5 billion for the December half and will buy back $150 million worth of shares. The national carrier said there is continuing strong demand for travel, though the international outlook is more problematic. That sent its share price down 9.2 per cent. Earnings from the international division fell six per cent amid intense competition, high operational costs and weak demand for the US. It has been quite a turnaround under CEO Vanessa Hudson, with the carrier’s customer satisfaction scores rebounding and staff engagement improving from its 2023 crisis under Alan Joyce. But as the share price reaction showed, there is still plenty of work to do.

Listen to today's episode 🎧 

News in brief

The S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.5 per cent yesterday to a new closing record of 9175 points. Tech stocks led the way after NVIDIA’s strong result on Wall Street.

There is plenty going on in politics, particularly tax policy. Yesterday it emerged the federal Treasury had done work on reducing the CGT concession for property investors from 50 per cent to 33 per cent. And Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn said a reduction was worth considering, though it shouldn’t be retrospective.

Mobile phones around the country will blast out a 10-second siren in late July as part of a national test of Australia’s new emergency warning system.

The board of BlueScope Steel has knocked back the $14.2 billon offer from the Stokes family’s SGH and Steel Dynamics but left the door open for more negotiations.

The US Justice Department withheld documents from files related to Jeffrey Epstein that allege Donald Trump sexually assaulted a minor, according to federal Democrats. More than 50 pages were discovered to be missing from the files that contain notes from several interviews the FBI conducted with a woman who claimed in 2019 she was abused by Trump and Epstein decades earlier, when she was about 13-years-old.

Fear-o-meter

AMP Chief Economist Shane Oliver on the ASX’s long term performance:

Over the very long-term Australian shares have been a strong performer. Since 1900 Australian shares have returned 11.6% per annum once dividends are allowed for versus 10.1% per annum for US shares.

However, Australian shares go through periods of relative out and underperformance or “mean reversion”.

Australian shares outperformed in the 1940s, underperformed in the 1950s, outperformed in the 1960s resources boom years, and underperformed in the high inflation 1970s and 80s.

The Australian market outperformed in the 1990s, although it underperformed in the second half of the 1990s when the tech boom raged. Once again is outperformed dramatically in the resources boom of the 2000s and underperformed in the 2010s and this decade so far.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On how Domain has changed under the ownership of US property giant CoStar, and what the next five years will mean for the platform:

 

“Domain is going to look like a fundamentally different business. I have three priorities...

 

We are going to transform the Australian residential market. We are going to bring data experiences that don’t exist, that haven’t existed. In a world of AI, we are going to invest heavily in unique data, data collection, differentiated data and experiences.

 

My second priority is a commercial business. We’re not talking about transforming — we’re talking about creating something that doesn’t exist and allowing people to really start understanding the Australian commercial property landscape at a level of detail and level of rigour and analytical capabilities that doesn’t exist before — fundamentally a service that can support those decisions.

 

And then the third one… is leadership. I’m merging an Australian business with deep cultural roots and really a cultural heritage that has been within large corporates… into a US organisation that is fundamentally a founder-led organisation and moves at that pace. So we’ll be a fundamentally different business operating in a fundamentally different way.”

Greed-o-meter

Thinking about chucking a sickie as you head into the weekend? Certainly not in Korea.

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