Afternoon Report | Westpac surges, market hits high

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. Westpac soars

2. Strong jobs numbers

3. Ampol’s $1b purchase

4. Setback for DeepSeek

5. David Stratton dies

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report
for Thursday, the fourteenth of August twenty twenty five. Are
Michael Thompson. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that
happened today that you need to know about. So let's
go with story number one. Another day, another record for
the local share market, the S and p ASX two hundred,
setting a new intra day high for the fourth consecutive day.

(00:25):
The market closed zero point five percent higher to eighty
eight hundred and seventy four points. The high it hit
earlier in the day was just a whisker shy of
eighty nine hundred points. The start of the show today
was definitely Westpac. It delivered a fourteen percent rise in
net profit to one point nine billion dollars for the
third quarter. Its share prices took off, powering six point

(00:47):
three percent higher. That is its highest level in a decade.
A and Z and NAB both climbed around two percent,
but Commonwealth Bank continued to slip after yesterday's big drop,
down another one point one percent. The other company worth mentioned, Telstro,
reported a thirty one percent increase in annual net profit
of two point three billion dollars. The results were in

(01:09):
line with expectations, and the Telco share price closed two
point six percent lower. Story number two. The case for
interest rate cuts at consecutive RBA meetings took a little
bit of a hit today after a pretty strong set
of labor force figures. The unemployment rate fell from four
point three percent to four point two percent in July,
with more than twenty four thousand jobs created. Behind that

(01:32):
figure was an increase of about sixty thousand full time
jobs and the loss of thirty six thousand part time roles.
It's a sign of a fairly resilient economy, with economists
suggesting that were less likely to see another rate cut
at the next RBA meeting next month in September, and
more likely in November or December. Story number three. Ampol

(01:54):
has agreed to buy eg groups petrol station network for
about a billion dollars. That is, five hundred forty service stations,
the same ones that were worth sold in twenty nineteen
for one point seven billion dollars. Ampire looks to be
doubling down on selling petrol just as the world largely
is kind of transitioning towards evs. It's also a major refiner,

(02:15):
importer and distributor of fuel, so this is essentially a
vertical expansion that cements its position in retailing as well.
Story number four today, Chinese AI startup deep Seak has
hit a little bit of a roadblock. It tried to
train its new model on Chinese tech company huawees Ascend chips,
but the hardware couldn't cope, according to the Financial Times.

(02:38):
As a result, the company went back to Nvidia for
training and use Huawei only for inference, the two kind
of major roles of the AI platforms. It is a
major setback for deep Seek, which caused an upset in
January this year when it first launched because it claimed
to be doing much the same job as other AI
providers like Chat GPT, but doing it using much less

(03:00):
processing power. But the new model has been delayed, showing
that Chinese made chips are still lagging behind US rivals.
It comes after reports this week that Beijing demanded Chinese
tech companies justify their order of chips from Nvidia, reportedly
to encourage them to focus on those locally made alternatives.
And finally, story number five, it's not a business story

(03:21):
as such, but Australia has lost an icon with the
death of film critic David Stratton at age eighty five,
who was best known to TV audiences as the host
of the Movie Show on SBS and at the Movies
on the ABC alongside Margaret Pomerantz. Prime Minister Anthony Alberanizi
has led tributes to Stratton's dry humor and sharp insight,
saying everyone who watched him on television respected him for

(03:44):
his deep knowledge and for the gentle and generous way
he passed it on. That's it for the Afternoon Report
for Thursday, the fourteenth of August twenty twenty five. Make
sure you hit follow on the podcast and we'll be
back tomorrow morning with the Friday edition of Fear and Creed.
Are Michael Thompson Enjoy your evening.