Afternoon Report | Bitcoin slumps, bond yields rise

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 closes up
2. Ex PWC chief suspended
3. Accenture cops a whack
4. Corporate Travel investigation
5. Airbus flags defects

Join our free daily newsletter here.

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 Tuesday, the second of December. I'm Michael Thompson, and
every afternoon we have the five big stories that you
need to know about that happened today. So let's get going.
Story number one. The S and PA s X two
hundred closed zero point two percent higher to eight thousand,
five hundred and eighty points today, helped in particular by

(00:23):
energy and mining companies in that order. Starting with energy, Woodside,
Santos and Beach Energy were all up about one percent,
with oil prices strong after a recent OPEC plus decision
about supply and of course the ongoing geopolitical situation. The
big miners had a good one today as well, BHP
up one point one percent, four to Q up one

(00:44):
point three percent, REO Tinto up one point seven percent.
At the other end of the market, the tech companies
Wisteed Global Technology one and monitoring app Life three sixty
were all off between two point three and two point
six percent today. Drone Shield fell more than four percent.
Had a bit of a turbulence run that one and
another worth a mention. Market operator ASX dropped one point

(01:06):
four percent today after morning Star downgraded the company after
yesterday's system failure that prevented company announcements being made. There's
a few things to factor into all of these market
movements arise in bond yields after the Bank of Japan
signal that might increase interest rates. This month, we saw
that overnight, an ordinary leading from Wall Street that really

(01:29):
kind of flowed on from there, and a major crypto slump.
Bitcoin dropped more than seven percent, now trading below eighty
five thousand US dollars, a unit that is off thirty
three percent in just the last couple of months, staggering
onto story number two now and former PwC Australia Chief
executive Tom Seymour has been suspended as a chartered accountant

(01:52):
for four years and find almost twenty five thousand dollars
over his role in the tax leak scandal. Chartered Accountants
a Z has ruled Seymour failed to act on clear
signs that confidential government tax information was being shared inside
PwC and allowed an unethical culture to flourish. He'd already
been deregistered as a tax agent by the Tax Practitioners

(02:14):
Board and banned from reapplying for four years. The ruling
says his conduct was quote objectively very serious given his
seniority and responsibility for PWC's culture. PwC has shrunk by
a third since the scandal broke, and the fallout continues
to reshape regulations and trust across Australia's consulting sector. Story

(02:36):
number three. Speaking of the consulting sector, Accentia has copped
a bit of a whack during a Senate estimates hearing
over the ninety six million dollar overhaul of the Bureau
of Meteorologies website. New Bureau Chief Executive Stuart Minchin, who's
only been in the job for less than a month,
fronted the Senate Estimates session last night, where the website

(02:57):
redesign was described as a quote case study of how
not to do something really important. The initial price tag
was four point one million dollars that blew out to
ninety six million dollars after the contract was issued in
twenty nineteen following a series of amendments. Part of the
work was done by Accenture, which saw its contract increase
from thirty three million dollars to seventy seven million dollars

(03:20):
over the course of ten amendments. Green Senator Barbara Pocock said,
and I quote, there's been a massive feeding on the
public sector by the big consulting firms. She went on
to say, no, this is a longer quote, but you
need to hear this. This project has been a nightmare
case study in contract failure, in management of contracts, failure

(03:40):
of leadership, and completely unacceptable and unethical behavior by the
big consultants who had been at the trough through the
Bureau of Meteorology. For his part, Bureau Boss Stuart Minchin
said the full ninety six million dollars went well beyond
the website to include basically end to end weather forecasting models.
Story number four. Corporate Travel, the ASX listed stock that's

(04:02):
been suspended since August after not being able to release
annual accounts because of irregularities in its UK business, is
now being investigated by Britain's Cabinet Office. London's mayor has
also ordered an urgent review into his counsel's contract with
CTM amid suggestions the group overcharged customers, including government clients.
CTM has committed to refund almost eighty million pounds at

(04:26):
about one hundred and sixty million dollars to clients, including
the UK's Home Office, which assigned two billion pounds in
contracts with the company to house thousands of asylum seekers
who were entered Britain illegally. Along with its work providing
migrant accommodation. CTM was awarded a three year deal last
year to become the major one stop shop for travel
for the entire UK public service. And finally story number five.

(04:50):
Airbus has told airlines that hundreds of A three to
twenty Neo aircraft will need inspections after potential structural defects
were discovered in panels supply during manufacturing. A total of
six hundred and twenty eight aircraft may be affected, including
one hundred and sixty eight that are already in service.
The issue involves exterior panels that may be too thin

(05:11):
or maybe too thick, and because the panels aren't individually traceable,
Airbus has had to water checks across the entire batch.
Most of the planes are still in production, some deliveries
have already been delayed. Quantas and Air New Zealand say
none of their aircraft are affected. It comes as days though,
after Airbus was forced to ground thousands of jets worldwide
because of a software issue. Airbus shares dropped almost six

(05:34):
percent overnight, with concerned the company may struggle to hit
its target of eight hundred and twenty aircraft deliveries this year.
That's it for the Afternoon Report for Tuesday, the second
of December. Make sure you're following the podcast and head
along to Fear and Greed dot com dot A you
to sign up for our free daily newsletter, AH Michael Thompson.
Have a good epit