Afternoon Report | ASX slips; Trump & Putin speak

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 drops

2. Rate cut hopes grow

3. Wayne Swan to step down as Labor president

4. Trump cools on Tomahawk push

5. Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley dies

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report
for Friday, the seventeenth of October twenty twenty five. I'm
Michael Thompson, and every afternoon we've got the five stories
that happened today that you need to know about. Let's
get cracking with story number one.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
At local markets. The SMPA SX two hundred fell zero
point eight percent today to nine hundred and ninety five points,
with eight of the eleven sectors losing ground over although
the ball is still posted a gain of zero point
four percent for the week, so we'll call that a win.
Energy and tech stocks led the ASX lower today, tracking
app Life three sixty was down eight percent. Drone Shield

(00:39):
continued its recent slump down eight percent as well. On
the energy side, Woodside and Santos were more than two
percent lower. But once again the story of the day
was the price of gold. Another day, yet another record.
This is out of control. The price of the precious
metal hit four thousand, three hundred and seventy eight year

(01:00):
US dollars per ounce today. Unsurprisingly, the local gold miners
did well out of that Newmont up almost three percent,
Northern Star up two point three percent, again. It's being
driven higher by the trade tensions between US and China,
but also concerns about broader systemic stress in credit markets,
hence the rush to the safe haven of gold. While

(01:21):
we're talking commodities, at copper, lithium, rare earth miners, they
all had an ordinary day to day, with Linus rare
earths down five point seven percent, Paladin energy off almost
seven percent. That's all ahead of the Prime minister meeting
US President Donald Trump on Monday, where they will be
discussing critical minerals, and just quickly, the big four banks

(01:43):
close the day lower as well. On to story number
two now and bond traders are ramping up bets that
the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates in November after
yesterday's surprise jump in unemployment. We did talk about this yesterday,
but markets are now pricing in an eighty percent chance
of a rate cut on Melbourne Cup Day. Keep in

(02:04):
mind that just days ago it was forty percent. Yesterday
it was seventy percent. Today it's eighty percent, So these
expectations are growing by the day. Realistically, though, the deciding
factor is likely to be the September quarter inflation figures
which come out in what about a week and a half.
A December move is fully priced in, with another cut
though expected then by May. Story number three one from Politics,

(02:27):
Former Treasurer Wayne Swan will step down as Labour's national
president next year, triggering what is expected to be a
factional battle over the party's organizational leadership. Wayne Swan beat
left heavyweight Mark Butler for the job seven years ago,
but says it is now time for a younger leader
to build membership and win quote the battle of ideas.

(02:49):
He helps the party rebuild after its twenty nineteen election loss,
and said growing support among women, young people and migrants
must now be a priority. Story number four. President Donald
Trump has signaled he may block Ukraine's request for long
range Tomahawk missiles ahead of a High States meeting with
Vladimir Zelenski at the White House tonight. The Ukrainian president

(03:11):
has been pushing for the weapons capable of striking targets
that are up to sixteen hundred kilometers away to hit
key Russian infrastructure and strengthen his negotiating position, but after
a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump
appeared to have cooled somewhat on the idea, saying the
US needed to retain at stockpile. He said, and this

(03:32):
is a quote. We have a lot of them, but
we need them. I mean, we can't deplete our country.
Putin did warn the President that arming Ukraine with tomahawks
would not change the war's outcome, but would cause substantial
damage to US Russia relations. Trump and Putin have now
agreed to meet face to face in Budapest to continue
discussions on hopefully ending the war. And finally, one from

(03:55):
the world of entertainment. Ace Frehley, the original guitarist for
glam rock icons Kiss, has died aged seventy four, after
a recent fall. Frailey's on age persona was known as
Space Ace, and he helped define the band's very theatrical
style and global success in the nineteen seventies, but it
went well past that. Kiss sold tens of millions of

(04:18):
albums and licensed their image for a vast array of products,
are very successful in the world of business, before selling
their back catalog and brand for more than three hundred
million US dollars last year. Freiley's death is the first
among the band's founding members that is it for the
Afternoon Report for Friday, the seventeenth of October twenty twenty five.

(04:39):
Make sure you hit follow on the podcast and sign
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dot au am Michael Thompson to enjoy your evening