Afternoon Report | ASX rallies, CBA outage

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 jumps 1.1pc

2. CommBank suffers major outage

3. Opposition urges action on BHP-China iron ore row

4. ARN boss steps down amid Kyle & Jackie O turmoil

5. Trump accused of weaponising shutdown

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report
for Thursday, the second of October twenty twenty five. Oh
Michael Thompson. Every afternoon, We've got the five stories that
happened today that you need to know about. Let's go
story number one. The SMPA SEXT two hundred climbed one
point one percent today to nine hundred and forty six points,
a solid rally led by the materials sector, helped along

(00:25):
as well by sharp rise in bank stocks. The price
of gold set another record today the US government shutdown,
sending investors looking for safe havens. Honestly, I could have
just copied and pasted that from yesterday afternoon's report. It
is the same story again. Locally, it saw the gold
miners surge. West Gold was up more than eight percent,
Bellevue Gold, Northern Star and Evolution Mining all climbed between

(00:47):
three and four percent. I mentioned the banks. All the
big four closed hire today, led by A and Z
up two percent, and Commonwealth Bank climbed one point seven percent.
A good day at last for healthcare stocks. The second
rallied in the US, helping the S and P five
hundred there to record high, and that flowed through to
the local bourse too. CSL rose almost four percent. Clarity

(01:09):
Pharmaceuticals jumped twelve percent after it said it would present
data on a new cancer treatment at an upcoming conference.
At the other end of the market today though, was
Drone Shield. After rising almost fifty percent in the first
three days of the week, it kind of ran out
a puff today dropped nearly ten percent. Still, it is
a long way ahead of where it started the week

(01:30):
on expectations that defense spending in Europe is just going
to keep ongoing. On de story number two now and
Commonwealth Bank has restored services after a major outage took
down online banking, the app and some ATMs as well.
The disruption began around midday today, with more than seven
thousand outage reports logged online at the peak. Combank has

(01:53):
confirmed that services were progressively restored by two thirty this afternoon.
The bank has apologized to customers but is still investigating
the cause of the outage, which saw social media flooded
with complaints from customers locked out of urgent payments, also
reports of not so urgent payments just not being able
to pay for their lunch. Some joint accounts reportedly showed

(02:13):
mismatched balances, so a fair bit for the bank to
work through there. Story number three. The Abbadezer government is
under pressure to step into the escalating standoff between BHP
and China after reports Beijing has banned state owned steelmakers
from buying the miners Pilborough iron ore as a pricing maneuver.
Opposition Finance spokesman James Patterson says Australia must back BEHP

(02:36):
in this fight, warning the government as taking a hands
off approach to a dispute threatening billions of dollars in
export revenue. Shadow Resources spokeswoman Susan McDonald says the Prime
Minister's diplomatic efforts had failed to improve trade ties, accusing
the government of making it harder for miners by rushing
to renewables. Iron Ore is, of course, Australia's largest export's

(02:57):
worth more than one hundred billion dollars a year, critical
to freed r at state budgets. BHP has declined to
confirm the band, but shares rose one point one percent
today after a significant dip yesterday. Story number four. More
turmoil in the Australian media. The chief executive of radio
company ARN has resigned after sixteen years. Kieran Davis was

(03:20):
running the company when at Leeward Kyle and Jackie O
from Rivals TODAYFM more than a decade ago. That was
a hugely successful move. Less successful has been the decision
to syndicate Carl and Jackie O's Breakfast Show into Melbourne,
a decision that came with job cuts and a two
hundred million dollar contract for the star duo. Ratings growth
in Melbourne has been very sluggish, though Sydney has remained dominant.

(03:43):
AARN is also grappling with repeated breaches of broadcast decency
standards tied to the program. Kieran Davis is being succeeded
by operations boss Michael Stevenson, the former head of sales
at nine. He is set to take over the top
job in January, and finally story number on five, The
White House is using the US government shutdown to punish

(04:03):
political enemies, freezing billions in funding for democratic led states
and preparing mass layoffs of civil servants. According to the
New York Times, twenty six billion dollars in previously approved
spending has been paused or scrapped, including eighteen billion dollars
for new York transport projects. President Donald Trump described the
shutdown as an opportunity to slash agencies and target Democrats,

(04:27):
while unions have launched legal action over potential mass firings.
The stalemate has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers
without pay, and there is no clear end in sight.
That's it for the Afternoon Report for Thursday, the second
of October 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 Are Michael Thompson. Enjoy

(04:49):
your evening