Afternoon Report | ASX bounces back, Google soars

This is the Fear and Greed Afternoon Report - everything you need to know about what happened in the markets, economy and world of business today, in just a few minutes.

1. ASX rebounds

2. Domino’s boss doubles down

3. Ben Roberts-Smith’s legal bid rejected

4. Bill aims to ban PwC

5. Alphabet shares jump

Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report
for Thursday, the fourth of September twenty twenty five are
Michael Thompson. Every afternoon, We've got the five stories that
happened today that you need to know about. Let's go
storry number one. The local share market bounced back today,
the SMPA SEX two hundred, climbing one percent to eight
hundred and twenty seven points. It didn't quite make up

(00:24):
all the ground at lost yesterday on its worst day
since April. That's probably what halfway there. Nine of the
eleven sectors were up today, boosted by news out of
the US, where weaker job starta increased the likelihood of
an interest rate cut in the world's biggest economy. Great
day for the banks. Comwealth Bank was up two point
one percent, Both NAB and Westpac climbed around two percent,
A and Z one point three percent higher. For the

(00:47):
tech stocks, Cloud Accounting Group zero led the way, reversing
yesterday's losses, climbing four point eight percent and higher. Iron
All prices gave four to Skew and Rio tinto a boost,
up one point eight percent and two point three percent, respectively.
Actually dropped, but that's largely because it went ex dividend today, which,
as I've mentioned before, is the point at which new
investors won't receive the dividends announced last month. Oil prices

(01:11):
dropped a little on reports that OPEC plus might consider
boosting output again next month. That's all. Woodside and Santos
both drop. Gold prices were down as well after a
very good week which hit the gold miners on just
story number two. Now in Dominoes, executive chairman Jack Cowen
has doubled down on these struggling pizza chains turnaround, buying
five million dollars worth of shares through his investment vehicle.

(01:33):
Eighty three year old Cowen bought three hundred and thirty
five thousand shares, lifting his stake in the business to
twenty seven percent. He took over day to day control
of Dominoes in July after the abrupt exit of CEO
Mark Van Dyck, who lasted less than a year. Cowen's
turnaround plan is basically to scrap the heavy discounting and
vouchers that they currently offer in favor of an everyday

(01:56):
low pricing model, something he says is going to bring
back stability and restore margins, much like the Bunnings approach
in hardware. Domino's closed the day up one point four percent.
Story number three. The High Court has rejected ben Robert
Smith's bid to appeal his defamation loss, signaling the end
now of a seven year legal battle that has cost

(02:17):
tens of millions of dollars. Australia's most decorated living soldier
had sued the Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The
Canberra Times over reports that he was a war criminal,
but in twenty twenty three, Justice Anthony Bussenko in the
Federal Court found to a civil standard that Robert Smith
was complicit in the murder of four unarmed Afghan prisoners

(02:38):
while serving with the SAS. Robert Smith then sought special
leave to appeal that decision, which the High Court today denied.
The Full Court said it found no error in the
judgment of the Federal Court. Robert Smith has also been
ordered to pay the newspaper's legal costs. Story number four.
PwC could be banned from government work for five years

(02:58):
under a bill being introduced by the Greens. The proposal
follows the scandal where PwC partners misused confidential tax briefings
to help clients. Green Senator Barbara Pocock says her bill
would give the Commonwealth quote the teeth it currently lacks
to deal with future scandals, and would exclude contractors found
guilty of misconduct by the AFP, the Tax Practitioners Board,

(03:21):
or the National Anti Corruption Commission. PwC remains under investigation
by the AFP, although a temporary ban by the government
on PwC tenders expired in July. Finally, Story number five
shares in Google's parent company, Alphabet, jumped more than nine
percent after a US judge decided not to force Google
to sell its Chrome browser. The case was the biggest

(03:43):
against big tech in three decades and centered on claims
that Google illegally monopolized search by paying billions to Apple
and others to make its search engine the default search engine.
The court agreed that Google did abuse its dominance, but
stopped short of enforcing a breakup, instead of ordering much
milder remedies, such as sharing search data with rivals and

(04:05):
ending some exclusivity deals. Investors were clearly delighted with the
somewhat lighter than expected outcome, sending Alphabet stock to its
highest level in nearly five months. That's it for the
Afternoon Report for Thursday, the fourth of September twenty twenty five.
Make sure you follow on the podcast and we'll be
back tomorrow morning with the Friday edition of Fear and Greed.
A'm Michael Thompson. Enjoy your evening.