Fast Five | 20 Dec 2024

Published Dec 19, 2024, 5:00 PM

Friday 20 December 2024

The top five business stories in five minutes, with Sean Aylmer and Michael Thompson.

  1. ASX tumbles on inflation fears

  2. Mesoblast’s 50pc jump

  3. international student numbers set to be cut

  4. Sydney-Melbourne now the fifth busiest air route

  5. Sashimi for Christmas

Plus don’t miss the latest episode of How Do They Afford That? - how to make the most of your Christmas bonus. Get the episode from APPLE, SPOTIFY, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

It's Friday, the twentieth of December twenty twenty four. Welcome to the Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed, where we give you the top five business stories you need to know in just five minutes. Are Michael Thompson and Good Morning, Sean Aylmer. Good morning Michael, Sean. Five big stories to get through in just five minutes. Story number one. The ASX tumbled by as much as two percent yesterday following Wall Street after the US FED downplayed the chances of several rate cuts in the world's most important economy.

It was a rough day all round. Eleven the eleventh sub indices ended lower. The tech stocks we hit hardest begin on Wall Street when the US Federal Reserve cut the official interest rate by zero point two five percentage points but said two further cuts rather than four, are likely next year. Cheered your own pals. The Fed was going to be more cautious in the future. That sent if the S and P five hundred tumbling three percent. The point here, maybe inflation hasn't quite been slayd as we thought. The reaction locally was swift. US focused companies got hit hardest. That includes James Hardy Promedicus, Zipco, Quantas. They all dropped markedly. By the close, the market was down one point seven percent to eighty one hundred and sixty eight points.

And s wasn't just equity markets that got hit, was It was pretty widespread?

Yeah, The AUSIE dollars certainly felt it, tumbling to just below sixty two US cents at one point. Its most recent low is sixty one point sixty nine US cents. During COVID, bitcoin also fell back towards one hundred thousand US dollars a unit on. All futures were lower, gold was lower. The Bank of England came out and made similar comments, dousing expectations of a big rate cut in that economy. You know, he's looking pretty good, the Reserve Bank. They've been criticized for not cutting rates, but maybe they knew something everyone else didn't Sean.

Story number two. One company that didn't fall yesterday certainly didn't fall was miso Blast. Its share price went the other way. It jumped more than fifty percent in one day.

By the close, fifty four percent. The US Federal Drug Administration gave the green light to misoblasts Sell Therapy Treatment or IKE and SILL it will be used to treat children for a life threatening complication that it can occur during bone marrow transplants. There hasn't been a treatment for the complications previously, and around fifteen hundred children receive a bone marrow transplant each year in the US, Many of those are at high risk to this. In January, the FDA recognized miso blast sell therapy river score that one treats heart disease in newborn babies companies up nearly nine one hundred percent over the past year. It's now worth three point two billion dollars after those two drugs came online this year.

Yeah, staggering, all right. Story number three. International student numbers will be cut after budget figures released earlier in the week show that the government is failing to meet its goal of lower migration homer Fairs.

Minister Tony Burke will sign a new Ministerial Direction allowing the government to slow visa process and limit the number of international students a university can enroll. The order would replace the existing Ministerial Direction one oh seven and effectively introduces measures that would have been legislated had the Coalition not opposed the bill in Parliament, which capital was aimed at capping international students. Education Minister Jason Claire yesterday said the new direction would be fairer for regional and out of metropolitan universities, as well as tapes. Under Ministerial Direction one oh seven lower risk universities, including the major group of eight institutions, we're given priority in a bid to weed out less ethical providers and education agents looking to lure students who were unable to support themselves.

Story number four sean. The aviation route between Sydney and Melbourne is once more the fifth busiest in the world according to data group OAG.

And it's a profitable route according to AAG because of these strong corporate demand from flights between Australia's two big cities. There are nine point two million seats on the Sydney Melbourne route in twenty twenty four. Now the top performing city pair was in Korea JJ to Seoul that had fourteen point two million seats according to almost thirty nine thousand daily seats. According to a report in The Australian, only two of the top ten roots in the world were outside of Asia, being Sydney Melbourne and Jedda Read which ranked as the sixth busiest. Three the top ten roots were in Japan. OAG expects demand for air travel to remain strong. Now corporate travel demand will gradually recover. That's compensating from any loss driven by revenge spend travelers. You know, we all traveled when we came out of COVID. That's slowing down, but corporate travel's picking up.

Final story story number five. Prawns and oiss shown a pretty standard fare at Christmas, but there is a new style of seafood expected on tables next week. Sashimi.

Yes, so there are big sales at the moment of kingfish, tuna and Atlantic salmon fish that often feature in traditional Japanese raw seafood play. They're in hot demand and retailers say it's all about sashimi. A report in The fin Review says the Sydney fish market, the largest in the country, expects to sell more than three hundred and fifty tons of seafood that's the equivalent of about three and a half blue whales in thirty six hours of round the clock trading before Christmas morning. Includes one hundred and twenty tons of prawn of prawn's and close to seventy thousand dozen oysters. Another one, Michael, before we leave, David Jones is reporting big sales of the Christmas pudding, so that's back as well.

Sean. I used to work next to the Sydney Fish Markets and I can vouch for the extraordinary traffic jams that you had encounter heading into the Sydney Fish Markets and the lead into Christmas, so I do not doubt these figures. Though I've never seen somebody trying cart away three and a half blue whales. It's quite an intriguing image. All right, there we go, the top five business stories in five minutes. Thank you very much, Sean.

Thanks Michael.

It is Friday, the twentieth of December twenty twenty four. Remember to hit follow on the podcast dy five minutes isn't enough. You can find our longer daily show called Fear and Greed wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Michael Thompson and that was the fast five business news by Fear and Greed. Have a great day.

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