It’s Tuesday, the 2nd of September. Local gold stocks have soared as investors flock to the precious metal as a safe haven, worried about the Federal Reserve's independence and potential policy shifts after US President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social that “Prices are ‘WAY DOWN’ in the USA, with virtually no inflation." Meanwhile, Australia’s former finance minister and now OECD chief, Mathias Cormann, has taken aim at China’s industrial subsidies, and implied Donald Trump’s tariffs have caused a loss of trust in global trade.
ANZ is reportedly planning to cut as many as 5,000 jobs as new chief executive NunoMatos accelerates a radical restructure aimed at simplifying operations and removing duplication.
The ACCC has launched Federal Court action against four major vegetable suppliers, alleging they ran a cartel to fix prices of household staples sold in Aldi stores across NSW, Victoria and Queensland from 2018 to 2024.
Tesla is preparing to launch its full self-driving feature in Australia, as the company says the feature is “very close” to being made available on right-hand drive cars.
A Wagyu heifer has sold at auction for $350,000, making it the third-most expensive bovine sold in Australia. The 13-month-old was purchased by cattle IVF company GeneFlow, which plans to collect embryos and produce up to 30 calves annually.
Amid ongoing discussions around flexible work, the Netherlands is quietly showing the world what a four-day work week can look like. Dutch workers put in just 32 hours a week, the shortest in Europe, yet the country remains one of its richest in the EU in terms of GDP per head, thanks to high productivity and strong employment rates.
Fear-o-meter
Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD and former finance minister, spoke yesterday at the Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry:
"There has been a loss of faith in the ability of our global trading system to discipline or prevent the increased incidence over recent decades of non-market trade distortions. China is the largest and most pervasive provider of industrial subsidies in the world.
Steel firms in China, on average, receive 10 times the level of support provided to their OECD competitors. These subsidies have enabled Chinese firms to make significant gains in global market share at the expense of OECD-based firms, especially in solar photovoltaic cells, semiconductors, shipbuilding and steel.
These impacts of this loss-of-market share have been felt around the world, including in Australia.
Export restrictions on critical raw materials are on the rise, having increased more than fivefold since 2009. Global demand for these minerals is set to quadruple over the next two decades.
Australia will play an important role in meeting this demand, and there are a range of new opportunities to be seized, including further developing midstream refining and processing capacity, which is relatively concentrated in global supply chains.
Australia and like-minded economies around the world need to seize the opportunities."
Fear & Greed Q+A today
On his three key lessons from a very volatile earnings season:
"I think the first one is... what we've seen from results is the economy is shifting from being resilient, which is a word we've used a lot recently, certainly since the pandemic, to early signs of a recovery.
Consumers are responding positively to easier financial conditions, for example, lower interest rates and stabilising inflation. We've seen improved sales updates since June 30. So companies like Harvey Norman have said that FY26 is off to a strong start. The same can be said for Super Retail Group, which owns Super Cheap Auto and Rebel. JB Hi-Fi is doing well in Australia, as is the Good Guys. And Nick Scali is off to a very good start with good orders early in the year. So we've seen the sales updates relatively optimistic. And most consumer discretionary stocks showed beats. In other words, they beat expectations. And that was driven by a rebound in spending on non-essential items."
Google, Canva, and Amazon have been ranked as the top three places where young Australians want to work. Jobs platform Hatch surveyed nearly 2,000 Gen Z and Millennial professionals, with the twenty companies below all nominated for their reputations for innovation, culture, and opportunities for growth.
