Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Thursday, the thirty first of October twenty twenty four. I'm Sean Elmer. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about. Stratum one. The S and PASX two hundred fell one quarter of a percent today to eighty one hundred and sixty points. Fair bit of corporate news around. But before we get there, the banks were mixed, PHP Woollies, Ria were all lower, Wiset Global was higher. West Farmers held its AGM today. Chair Michael Cheney came out fighting. He said contributions of companies like West Farmers have been underappreciated in Canberra. He said some changes to employment laws, payroll taxes and environmental laws work against productivity improvements. Overall, he said the company generally was doing pretty well. JB High Fi share price jumped to five percent today after it released quarterly sales figures that were better than expectations, and Canvas Worth of mentioned it's not listed, but the software group to share sale. It valued the company at almost fifty billion Australian dollars. That's up about twenty three percent since it was last value that was in April. If it was listed, it would be the eleventh largest company on the AX, ahead of Telstra, bigger than Woolies and bigger than wires Tech. Story Number two Retail trade figures four September were released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the name number came in flat following a boom August. Now a month ago we were talking about unseasonably warm weather helping retailers. The spending has held up, though it hasn't grown. In fact, was actually up by zero point one percent for the month. Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services were the only industries to rise significantly in September. Department stores were the worst. If you look at the quarter, the September quarter, that's interesting because it's after those July one tax cuts energy bill relief. Well, volume was up, but revenue was flat. Spending per person actually fell for the ninth straight quarter in three years. That means people didn't splurge their tax cuts on goods and services. That's probably a good thing. Keeps a lid on inflation. Story. At number three, there are signs of life and a home building sector with approvals jumping. In September, building approvals were up four point four percent. That reverses the previous month. There was a big jump in compartments. The trend is great. For seven months, building approvals have been trending higher. They're currently at about thirteen percent above their lowest level. They're running at about one hundred and seventy thousand approvals a month below the two hundred and forty thousand approvals needed to meet the government's housing accord, but still the trend is our friend. In this instance. The long term key to solving the housing crisis is more houses, so the numbers are certainly welcome. Story number four. The US recorded decent growth last month and the labor market remains strong. That hit financial markets over the past twenty four hours. Bond markets trimmed bets of the size of rate cuts in the US in coming months. Now there's a meeting next week. It is expected to cut rates by twenty five basis points, but the strong economy in the US certainly will probably hold things back from any further rate cuts or any larger rate cuts. That pushed the Aussie dollar lower. It had been heading towards sixty six US cents. It's back down in about sixty five and a half US cents. Gold keeps shining brighter, hitting a new record today just below twenty eight hundred US dollars an ounce it's a safe haven. People like it ahead of the US selection. It's up more than thirty percent this year. Also, there were figures out of China today showing factory activity has responded to recent stimulus efforts. Good news for Australian exporters and story number five. Some of the big tech companies have reported September quarter earnings. Out of the past twenty four hours, Microsoft share price fell after its forecast slower cloud revenue growth. Microsoft basically can't get data centers online fast enough to keep up with demand for AI services. Otherwise, Microsoft's earnings report was pretty upbeat. Meta reported as well. They said they'd be ran up investments in AI and the metaverse. Its share price ended down three percent, and after hours, Training and AMD Advanced micro Devices said sales for its AI chips had slowed more than anticipated. That's in its share price down eleven percent. That's it for the afternoon report for Thursday, the thirty first of October twenty twenty four don't forget tip, follow on the podcast and find Fear and Greed on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok, and Facebook. Join Michael Thompson and I tomorrow morning for the Fast Five by Fear and Greed, the top five business stories you need to know in just five minutes. I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy your evening,

Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Thursday, the thirty first of October twenty twenty four. I'm Sean Elmer. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about. Stratum one. The S and PASX two hundred fell one quarter of a percent today to eighty one hundred and sixty points. Fair bit of corporate news around. But before we get there, the banks were mixed, PHP Woollies, Ria were all lower, Wiset Global was higher. West Farmers held its AGM today. Chair Michael Cheney came out fighting. He said contributions of companies like West Farmers have been underappreciated in Canberra. He said some changes to employment laws, payroll taxes and environmental laws work against productivity improvements. Overall, he said the company generally was doing pretty well. JB High Fi share price jumped to five percent today after it released quarterly sales figures that were better than expectations, and Canvas Worth of mentioned it's not listed, but the software group to share sale. It valued the company at almost fifty billion Australian dollars. That's up about twenty three percent since it was last value that was in April. If it was listed, it would be the eleventh largest company on the AX, ahead of Telstra, bigger than Woolies and bigger than wires Tech. Story Number two Retail trade figures four September were released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the name number came in flat following a boom August. Now a month ago we were talking about unseasonably warm weather helping retailers. The spending has held up, though it hasn't grown. In fact, was actually up by zero point one percent for the month. Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services were the only industries to rise significantly in September. Department stores were the worst. If you look at the quarter, the September quarter, that's interesting because it's after those July one tax cuts energy bill relief. Well, volume was up, but revenue was flat. Spending per person actually fell for the ninth straight quarter in three years. That means people didn't splurge their tax cuts on goods and services. That's probably a good thing. Keeps a lid on inflation. Story. At number three, there are signs of life and a home building sector with approvals jumping. In September, building approvals were up four point four percent. That reverses the previous month. There was a big jump in compartments. The trend is great. For seven months, building approvals have been trending higher. They're currently at about thirteen percent above their lowest level. They're running at about one hundred and seventy thousand approvals a month below the two hundred and forty thousand approvals needed to meet the government's housing accord, but still the trend is our friend. In this instance. The long term key to solving the housing crisis is more houses, so the numbers are certainly welcome. Story number four. The US recorded decent growth last month and the labor market remains strong. That hit financial markets over the past twenty four hours. Bond markets trimmed bets of the size of rate cuts in the US in coming months. Now there's a meeting next week. It is expected to cut rates by twenty five basis points, but the strong economy in the US certainly will probably hold things back from any further rate cuts or any larger rate cuts. That pushed the Aussie dollar lower. It had been heading towards sixty six US cents. It's back down in about sixty five and a half US cents. Gold keeps shining brighter, hitting a new record today just below twenty eight hundred US dollars an ounce it's a safe haven. People like it ahead of the US selection. It's up more than thirty percent this year. Also, there were figures out of China today showing factory activity has responded to recent stimulus efforts. Good news for Australian exporters and story number five. Some of the big tech companies have reported September quarter earnings. Out of the past twenty four hours, Microsoft share price fell after its forecast slower cloud revenue growth. Microsoft basically can't get data centers online fast enough to keep up with demand for AI services. Otherwise, Microsoft's earnings report was pretty upbeat. Meta reported as well. They said they'd be ran up investments in AI and the metaverse. Its share price ended down three percent, and after hours, Training and AMD Advanced micro Devices said sales for its AI chips had slowed more than anticipated. That's in its share price down eleven percent. That's it for the afternoon report for Thursday, the thirty first of October twenty twenty four don't forget tip, follow on the podcast and find Fear and Greed on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok, and Facebook. Join Michael Thompson and I tomorrow morning for the Fast Five by Fear and Greed, the top five business stories you need to know in just five minutes. I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy your evening,