Welcome to the weekend edition of The Fast Five Business News by Fear and Greed. I'm Michael Thompson and hello Sean Alma, Hello Michael Shawan. On weekdays, it's all about the Fast five, the top five business stories in just five minutes. On the weekend, we still keep it to five minutes, of course, but we're going to pick out the biggest business story of the week, the most remarkable story, a mystery category that we change every week just to keep things exciting, and then our favorite business related story. What was the biggest story you reckon this week?

Welcome to the weekend edition of The Fast Five Business News by Fear and Greed. I'm Michael Thompson and hello Sean Alma, Hello Michael Shawan. On weekdays, it's all about the Fast five, the top five business stories in just five minutes. On the weekend, we still keep it to five minutes, of course, but we're going to pick out the biggest business story of the week, the most remarkable story, a mystery category that we change every week just to keep things exciting, and then our favorite business related story. What was the biggest story you reckon this week?

I think it was about Donald Trump and his administration backing down on onerous tariffs against China, softening the language on the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Earlier in the week he called them the loser. By the end of it is he wasn't going to sack him. And of course the fact that chief cost cutter Elon Musk will now spend more time working his day job at he's struggling Tesla company unless in the White House. Financial markets reacted immediately. Shares jumped, gold fell, the safe haven asset fell, bitcoin, cryptos, they all jumped up. Pretty good week. For markets all in all, because there's just a sense that the Trump administration is being a little bit more rational sensible than they were a week ago.

I think it was about Donald Trump and his administration backing down on onerous tariffs against China, softening the language on the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Earlier in the week he called them the loser. By the end of it is he wasn't going to sack him. And of course the fact that chief cost cutter Elon Musk will now spend more time working his day job at he's struggling Tesla company unless in the White House. Financial markets reacted immediately. Shares jumped, gold fell, the safe haven asset fell, bitcoin, cryptos, they all jumped up. Pretty good week. For markets all in all, because there's just a sense that the Trump administration is being a little bit more rational sensible than they were a week ago.

That is a big story. The other big story happening at the same time domestically is the federal election campaign. We are nearing the end of this what feels like a very very long time Sean. We only got another week to go. We had campaign that I actually paused at the beginning of the week when the Pope passed away. The third debate did go ahead. It was a much more spicy affair. You would think that Peter Dutton, I would say, best performance yet. We've had new policies announced this week. We had Opposition leader Peter Dutton saying that he will fund a proposed twenty one billion dollar increase in defense spending through higher income taxes rather than spending cuts. We had Labour announcing a critical minerals reserve. The big thing here, though, is seawn that people are already voting. Early voting prepole voting opened this week. Five hundred thousand people voted on the first day on Tuesday. That is huge, seventy percent up on what happened three years ago. People have already decided, and the polls suggest at this stage that it is elbows to lose.

That is a big story. The other big story happening at the same time domestically is the federal election campaign. We are nearing the end of this what feels like a very very long time Sean. We only got another week to go. We had campaign that I actually paused at the beginning of the week when the Pope passed away. The third debate did go ahead. It was a much more spicy affair. You would think that Peter Dutton, I would say, best performance yet. We've had new policies announced this week. We had Opposition leader Peter Dutton saying that he will fund a proposed twenty one billion dollar increase in defense spending through higher income taxes rather than spending cuts. We had Labour announcing a critical minerals reserve. The big thing here, though, is seawn that people are already voting. Early voting prepole voting opened this week. Five hundred thousand people voted on the first day on Tuesday. That is huge, seventy percent up on what happened three years ago. People have already decided, and the polls suggest at this stage that it is elbows to lose.

I think, so, look, can't tell you about my most remarkable story because I'm still stunned by this. Mcquarie Group is selling out of its entire North American and European public asset management business. So I think fixed income thinks, international equities, multi asset investments. They oversee two hundred and eighty five billion dollars in assets in those places and they're getting out. Basically, the margin in public investments just isn't there anymore. Groups like black Rock, Vanguard, these huge low fee funds they're coming in. They invest passively, so it's actually cheaper for them to invest rather than stockpicking, which is what McQuary does. They will still be the group within McQuary's called mccurey Asset Management, will still operate within Australia. Instead, mcquarie will take the resources it had in North American and European public sector markets put it into private market investing. It just shows how important that sector of the market is nowadays.

I think, so, look, can't tell you about my most remarkable story because I'm still stunned by this. Mcquarie Group is selling out of its entire North American and European public asset management business. So I think fixed income thinks, international equities, multi asset investments. They oversee two hundred and eighty five billion dollars in assets in those places and they're getting out. Basically, the margin in public investments just isn't there anymore. Groups like black Rock, Vanguard, these huge low fee funds they're coming in. They invest passively, so it's actually cheaper for them to invest rather than stockpicking, which is what McQuary does. They will still be the group within McQuary's called mccurey Asset Management, will still operate within Australia. Instead, mcquarie will take the resources it had in North American and European public sector markets put it into private market investing. It just shows how important that sector of the market is nowadays.

Very quick, that is a massive story, Sean, A very quick mention of another story that's kind of remarkable is the rise and rise of the Chinese fast fashion group Shean, which we learned this week that they've had one point two five billion dollars of sales in the last year, which is just huge, the amount of people that are now buying clothes through this organization. But you talk about kind of skinny profit margins, they only made it about what fifteen million dollars in profit from that, which is just extraordinary. Let's move on to our mystery category, the best science fiction story. Go for it, because we had a couple of good ones. Life on another planet.

Very quick, that is a massive story, Sean, A very quick mention of another story that's kind of remarkable is the rise and rise of the Chinese fast fashion group Shean, which we learned this week that they've had one point two five billion dollars of sales in the last year, which is just huge, the amount of people that are now buying clothes through this organization. But you talk about kind of skinny profit margins, they only made it about what fifteen million dollars in profit from that, which is just extraordinary. Let's move on to our mystery category, the best science fiction story. Go for it, because we had a couple of good ones. Life on another planet.

Oh, that's good one.

Oh, that's good one.

It is very it's hard to beat. Really now we're talking about life here. Sean. K two one eight B is a planet eight point six times bigger than Earth. It's orbiting a red dwarf star. It is one hundred and twenty four light years away. That's the boring stuff, Sean. The exciting stuff is the fact that in its atmosphere organic molecules the kind of molecules that can be found here on Earth, and the key to it is that they are only produced by living organisms. Scientists at Cambridge University say this week that a planet with an ocean teeming with life is the most likely scenario here. I find that exciting. It's like something out of Star Wars, except it's real.

It is very it's hard to beat. Really now we're talking about life here. Sean. K two one eight B is a planet eight point six times bigger than Earth. It's orbiting a red dwarf star. It is one hundred and twenty four light years away. That's the boring stuff, Sean. The exciting stuff is the fact that in its atmosphere organic molecules the kind of molecules that can be found here on Earth, and the key to it is that they are only produced by living organisms. Scientists at Cambridge University say this week that a planet with an ocean teeming with life is the most likely scenario here. I find that exciting. It's like something out of Star Wars, except it's real.

Yes, fascinating. My favorite science fiction story of the week was the half marathon race. Twelve thousand Australians, so twelve thousand humans twenty one robots competing. Unfortunately, only six of the robots made it. Some didn't actually get off the starting lines, others had their heads falling off, others just collapsed. It was pretty funny. The best finishing robot did it in three hours forty minutes. The best finishing human did it in one hour two minutes.

Yes, fascinating. My favorite science fiction story of the week was the half marathon race. Twelve thousand Australians, so twelve thousand humans twenty one robots competing. Unfortunately, only six of the robots made it. Some didn't actually get off the starting lines, others had their heads falling off, others just collapsed. It was pretty funny. The best finishing robot did it in three hours forty minutes. The best finishing human did it in one hour two minutes.

A favorite story Sean, I just love that. I just love this image of the heads falling off the robots that's falling over. Okay, but favorite story evs Ye were talking about EV's for a sec massive week for electric vehicles. We had Tesla obviously reporting a seventy one percent drop in first quarter profit. Elon Musk kind of stepping back from doge to kind of get back into Tesla and help build the company back up again. Hybrids a lot of hybrids have been selling in Australia, but some research this week shows that some of them actually use more fuel than internal combustion engine, so a bit of a blow to reputation there. Then huge news to finish off the week from Chinese battery maker CATL. They make batteries for Tesla and Volvo and a bunch of other companies. The new EV battery that claims to be capable of making of one thousand kilometers of range from a single charge and you can do five hundred and twenty k's of range in just five minutes of charging. Massive developments in EV's this week.

A favorite story Sean, I just love that. I just love this image of the heads falling off the robots that's falling over. Okay, but favorite story evs Ye were talking about EV's for a sec massive week for electric vehicles. We had Tesla obviously reporting a seventy one percent drop in first quarter profit. Elon Musk kind of stepping back from doge to kind of get back into Tesla and help build the company back up again. Hybrids a lot of hybrids have been selling in Australia, but some research this week shows that some of them actually use more fuel than internal combustion engine, so a bit of a blow to reputation there. Then huge news to finish off the week from Chinese battery maker CATL. They make batteries for Tesla and Volvo and a bunch of other companies. The new EV battery that claims to be capable of making of one thousand kilometers of range from a single charge and you can do five hundred and twenty k's of range in just five minutes of charging. Massive developments in EV's this week.

Sean, absolutely, I'm with you on that. My favorite story of the week.

Sean, absolutely, I'm with you on that. My favorite story of the week.

Two and Sean, that's five minutes and pretty much everything you need to know in the world of business. Thank you very much, Thank you, Michael. We'll be back on Monday morning with the top five business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to hit follow and join us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and X. I'm Michael Thompson and this is the fast five business news by Fear and Greed

Two and Sean, that's five minutes and pretty much everything you need to know in the world of business. Thank you very much, Thank you, Michael. We'll be back on Monday morning with the top five business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to hit follow and join us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and X. I'm Michael Thompson and this is the fast five business news by Fear and Greed