Afternoon Report | ASX jumps, new gold record

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 rallies

2. Comyn to stay at CBA

3. Housing target missed

4. ACCC probes Southern Cross–Seven merger

5. Trump warns Hamas: disarm or be disarmed

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report
for Wednesday, the fifteenth of October twenty twenty five, Am
Michael Thompson. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that
happened today that you need to know about. Let's go
a story number one. The S and p ASX two
hundred climbed one percent today to eighty nine hundred and
ninety points. Ten of the eleven sectors gained ground. It

(00:24):
came after a bit of optimism that the US Federal
Reserve will cut rates again, perhaps twice this year, although
that enthusiasm then was tempered a little bit by more
unrest in the trade relationship between the US and China,
and that uncertainty led to yet another say it with
me record in the price of gold, the precious metal
hitting four thousand, one hundred and eighty five US dollars announce.

(00:48):
Most of the local gold miners benefited from that one. Today.
Elsewhere on the ax, let me see the banks had
a great day. Comwealth Bank was up one point five percent,
NAB nearly two percent, v A and Z up zero
point five percent. The best was Westpac, though it shot
up two percent after APRA removed a five hundred million
dollar capital penalty that it had placed on it in

(01:11):
the wake of a money laundering scandal. A good day
too for the big iron ore miners BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue,
all up around two percent. One more company worth a mentioned,
Telix Pharmaceuticals, shot up more than sixteen percent today after
the biotech company upgraded its profit guidance. Plenty going on
under story number two and Commonwealth Bank Chief Executive Matt

(01:32):
Common will remain in the top job for at least
another three years, according to Chairman Paul O'Malley. O'Malley told
the bank's annual general meeting today in Brisbane that the
decision on common successor would be a matter for the
next chair now. O'Malley is seeking re election for a
final three year term, which likely then pushes Common's departure
out to twenty twenty nine, by which time he will

(01:54):
have served eleven years in the role. There's been plenty
of speculation around leaderships succession at our biggest bank. It's
been swirling for months now. The chair though, added that
the board has been pleased with commons performance, perhaps unsurprising
given the meteoric rise in the company's share price in
recent years. Story number three. Australia has fallen almost sixty

(02:15):
six thousand homes short of the annual pace needed to
meet the government's goal of one point two million new
homes by twenty twenty nine. Just one hundred and seventy
four thousand and thirty new dwellings were built in the
year to June. That is a twenty seven percent miss
on the first year's targets, the weakest result in three
years and underlines the difficulty of hitting really what is

(02:37):
a very ambitious housing target. Industry groups are calling for
urgent reforms to planning, zoning and taxes to speed up construction,
saying that without these major policy changes, supply is going
to continue lagging well behind demand. For her part, Housing
Minister Claire O'Neil has admitted that the target is quote aspirational.

(02:58):
Story number four. The Competition Regulator has launched an investigation
into Southern Cross Media's proposed merger with seven West Media,
warning the deal could reduce competition for advertisers and audiences.
The deal would see the owner of the seven network,
the West Australian newspaper and other assets joined with the
owner of the HIT and Triple M radio networks and

(03:19):
other things as well. The Ahrible C says it is
examining how closely the two companies compete in areas such
as entertainment, sport, news and advertising, and whether the tie
up could limit consumer choice, flagging interestingly regional Western Australia
as a particular area of concern. Finally, story number five,

(03:40):
US President Donald Trump has warned her Mass to disarm
as the group faces fresh accusations of violating the Gaza
ceasefire deal. A video verified by Reuter's showed her Mask
fighters executing a group of men in Gaza City, while
Israel accused the group of failing to return the bodies
of all dead hostage. Israel responded to that by harving

(04:03):
the number of AID trucks entering Gaza and keeping the
Egypt border closed. Trump says that the next phase of
his peace plan involves demilitarizing Hamas, offering amnesty to those
who disarm, and deploying an international stabilization force. He was
questioned about this today and said they're going to disarm
because they said they would. He then added that if

(04:24):
they don't, we will disarm them. And when asked how
that would happen, he said quickly and perhaps violently. That's
it for the Afternoon Report for Wednesday, the fifteenth of
October twenty twenty five. Make sure you hit follow on
the podcast and we'll be back tomorrow morning with the
Thursday edition of Fear and Greed. A'm Michael Thompson. Enjoy
your evening,