Afternoon Report | China start-up spooks markets

Published Jan 28, 2025, 6:07 AM

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. Nvidia $US600b loss

  2. Banks support ASX

  3. Chalmers confidence

  4. Chemist Warehouse sales surge

  5. Nuix tumbles

Welcome to the Fear and Greek Business News Afternoon Report for Tuesday, the twenty eighth of January twenty twenty five. I'm suan Alma. Every afternoon, We've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about. Straight number one. The local share market ended the day down ten points to finish at eighty three hundred and ninety nine points. But that belies the crazy twenty four hours we have just had. A Chinese startup, Deep Seak has produced a chatbot to rival chat GPT and reportedly spent just six million US dollars doing it. That's erber cheap compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI and while the veracity of the claims is still untested, the idea of having a much cheaper technology out of China spooked Wall Street. The tech heavy NASDAK closed down three percent, with the biggest casualty being chip maker and video. It lost nearly six hundred billion US dollars in value overnight. That's close to one trillion Pussie dollars. The fear is that the Chinese product means people won't need to buy as many n video chips that sent n vida's share price down. Locally, the news hit the local data center operators. Maybe we just won't need as many of them. Next DC was down seven percent, Goodman Group was down seven and a half percent, DIGITK was down to twelve percent. Also, the uranium stocks got sold off as well, because maybe we won't need as much energy. Sour number two. We're staying with the market. I said that it was flat, but there was plenty of movement outside the data centers and uranium stocks. Among the large caps, the banks found favor, with National Australia Bank, Westpac, and A and Z all doing well. West Farmers was another strong performer, as were as Aristocrat, Leisure, Ria, QB and Zero. The underperformers included Macquari Group, Woodside and Santos, the energy giants Transurban, Weistech Global and Promedicus. In corporate news, Meyers takeover of Premier Investments Apparel Brands is complete, Dotties, JJ's Just Genes all owned by Mine Now. The new look expanded retailer will have seven hundred and eighty three outlets and annual sales of about four billion dollars. Commonwealth Bank has sold its steak in a China headquartered commercial bank called Bank of Hangzau for nine hundred and forty million dollars. Gold Digger Newmont has sold the mining operation in Canada for about six hundred and seventy five million dollars, and fordesqu Metals is buying Red Hawk Mining for around two hundred and fifty million dollars. It's a Western Australian iron ore company. Fortescue has the backing of the board and that one story number three. Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers today said there are real reasons for people to be confident about the rest of twenty twenty five. He said real wages are growing, inflation is falling, and tax cuts are rolling out. He expects growth to pick up a bit, but not a lot. His words, He also talked about the improvement in the cost of living. Now tomorrow we get the December quarter inflation figures. They'll be pivotal in determining whether or not they'll be interest rate cut next month. There's still some uncertainty around global growth. That seems to be the thing that Jim Chalmers is most worried about. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton was in Western Australia. He was asked about the Coalition and women voters. He basically said that by and large women look after the household budget. They're being hit by the cost of living. Therefore, women voters are turning to the Coalition. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not. Maybe stroight number four. Signal Healthcare share price jump twelve percent today have to merge a partner. Chemist Warehouse, reported record sales in the six months to the end of December. The pharmacy giant reported five point one five billion dollars worth of sales in a half year, up from four point five to six billion twelve months earlier. New franchise store openings and the international expansion was behind the rise. Chemist Warehouse also said that implement it's implementing a new supply agreement to drive efficiencies. Signal Healthcare and Chemist Warehouse are expected to merge next month, creating a thirty billion dollar company and story at number five new he share price for more than twenty percent today after the software provider said it would post a fall in the underlying earnings and a half years to December. The reason project delays and the company taking on more complex contracts It said growth would be weighted towards the second half of the fiscal year, though investors weren't impressed. News had a wild ride really. It listed late December twenty twenty, surged, then crashed, and I mean crashed. It bobbled along improved management. Last year. Was among the best performing stocks in the AX, up four hundred percent. This year, including today, it's down thirty percent. That's it for the Afternoon Report for Tuesday, the twenty eighth of January twenty twenty five. Make sure you hit follow on the podcast. We'll be back tomorrow morning with the Wednesday edition up here and Green Business News. I'm Sean Elmer. Enjoy your evening.