Friday 13 December 2024
Australia’s unemployment rate falls back to 3.9 per cent, pretty much wiping out any chance of an interest rate cut in coming months.
And more, including:
The federal government will force social media giants to pay publishers hundreds of millions of dollars for content
Elon Musk becomes the first person to be valued at over $US400 billion
Virgin Australia begins selling long haul flights, putting some competition into the market, and private equity money hits the NFL in the US
Plus don’t miss the latest episode of How Do They Afford That? - summer side hustles for adults and kids. Get the episode from APPLE, SPOTIFY, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Today on Fear and Greed, Australia's unemployment rate falls back to three point nine percent, pretty much wiping out any chance of an interest rate cut in coming months. The federal government will force social media giants to pay publishers hundreds of millions of dollars for content, and Elon Musk becomes the first person to be valued at over four hundred billion US dollars plus. Virgin Australia begins selling long haul flights, putting a bit of competition into the market, and private equity money hits the NFL in the US. Welcome to Fear and Greed. Daily business news for people who make their own decisions. It is Friday, the thirteenth of December twenty twenty four. I'm Michael Thompson and good morning, Sean Aylmer.
Good morning, Michael, Sean.
The main story this morning, the unemployment rate has fallen to three point nine percent. It's a bit of a shock result, really, and it adds heavily to the argument that the Reserve Bank should wait until the middle of next year before it starts cutting interest rates.
It is the lowest rates since March this year and comes after employment grew by thirty five thousand, six hundred last month according to the Australian Bureau Statistics. The information behind the headline figure is even stronger. Full time employment jumped by fifty two thousand, six hundred, while part time employment fell by seventeen thousand. Even the ABS said it was an unusual number, adding that there was an unusually large amount of people waiting to take up full time jobs in October, which then fed into the November labor force figures. The local jobs market is resilient, to say the least. The number of unemployed people fell by twenty seven thousand, although the participation rate edged lower to sixty seven percent from sixty seven point one percent. Still that's around historical highs. The annual rate of growth is about two point three percent. It means that the labor market is expanding at about the same pace as population growth, So all those people come into the country are finding a job. Quite incredible.
Talk to me about interest rates, because I mean, it seems like every couple of days there's a new piece of information that entirely changes the prediction of what's going to happen in terms of interest rate cuts. So what do we expect now?
Well, that is a fair point. We had unambiguously soft economic growth figures last week, and on Tuesday the Reserve Bank kind of warded down its language around rate movements in the future and the economy. Basically, they raised hopes of rate cut maybe as early as February. But but but but but but quad butt go on quade. But yesterday's figures support the Central Bank's view that the labor market is still tight and gives the Central Bank a reason not to cut interest rates. I like the idea that we're talking about trouble butt being tight, Michael, Let's not go there. Basically, when people have a job, they spend money and that keeps pressure on prices. Certainly, financial markets reacted very quickly to the strong data, with bond markets reducing the chance of a rate cut in February next year. The local share market was higher and opening, and then fell quite sharply after the eleven thirty am announcement to finish the day slightly lower. A bit of corporate news around. We'll talk about most of it later on, but perhaps I should worth mention. O Media, the country's biggest outdoor media group, said it will cut costs by fifteen million dollars in response to challenging market conditions.
So no rate cuts in Australia then we can say that, but it looks like there is one on the way in the United States that.
Followed a positive inflation reading thirty six hours hour, certainly looks like that rates will be cut in the US again. The US inflation or consumer price index rows by zero point three percent in November, two point seven percent for the year. Markets malprice in the ninety five percent chance of a twenty five basis point cut when the FED meets next week. Now, the Bank of Canada and European central banks, they've all cut rates over the past forty eight hours or so. Australia's just looking a little lonely at the moment. I mean, we've still got the Bank of Japan. I suppose they're our friends. They're actually lifting rates or almost lifting rates, and otherwise everyone else seems to be cutting them. The inflation figures in the US helped War Street, with the tech heavy NASDAK pushing beyond twenty thousand points for the first time ever. The Nasdaq has almost doubled in the past two years, as the Magnificent seven Textoks, Apple and Video, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, and Meta have pushed Wall Street higher and higher. The single biggest question for investors on Wall Street in twenty twenty five is whether the Magnificent seven can keep running well.
Tesla certainly seems to keep running. Doesn't know or perhaps it should be driving? No, you know what, stick with running because driving is just like, it's just lazy. It was a terribly lazy pun. Yeah, definitely running. Tesla was a big movie yesterday morning, jumping six percent. It's now valued at one point three trillion US dollars. It's doubled in value since August, if you can believe that yesterday passed its previous all time high of August twenty twenty one. It's mostly about Elon Musk's relationship with Donald Trump and hopes that Tesla will benefit from the new administration. The jump in Tesla's share price means Elon Musk is now worth about four hundred billion US dollars according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Now a lot of that is Tesla, but also this week we've got an increase in the valuation of SpaceX.
That boosts his wealth by about fifty billion dollars. Then we had Tesla on top of that. It's just it is phenomenal. Back to Tesla one point three trillion US dollars. For comparison's sake, Toyata two hundred and eighty billion, so one point three trillion, Toyated two hundred and eighty billion, General MOTUS fifty seven billion, Ford forty one billion.
So hang on, elon musks wealth is greater than Toyota GM and Ford mined, Yes, that is, yes, great stat that's extraordinary and just a quick mention Sean. Bitcoin also pushed back above one hundred thousand US dollars a unit.
Yes, the inflation news certainly helped, and the crypto is again trading newer record level. All things being equal, lower rates in the US should help the Aussie dollar, but there wasn't much support for it. Yesterday morning it hit a twelvemonth low of sixty three point three to four US sins after those US inflation figures. Then came the local jobs figures and it rose back above sixty four US since. Meanwhile, gold is training above twenty seven hundred US dollars announced, Brent crude is rising about seventy four US dollars a barrel iron. All prices are down back towards one hundred US dollars a ton.
After the show today, Sean, You've got an interview coming up with Alison George, the head of Impact and Ethics at Australian Ethical. This is a very timely conversation that you're having with Allison.
It is because they're putting Australian Ethical, a big super fund, is putting pressure on the banks to do a better job when it comes to explaining what they're doing in that ESG space. Now Westpac has its AGM today, National Australia Bank has its a gym next week. Australian Ethical is putting pressure on those banks, but particularly Westpac, to do better in explaining what they're doing around ESG. So we go into that with Alison. It's a fascinating chat.
Yeah, it's sure. It's a great one to stick around for that. It's coming up after the show. In the meantime, Sean, I've got plenty more to cover. We're talking that huge news for social media companies in Australia or Virgin Australia selling long haul flights and private equity getting into the NFL so much still to come. We'll be back in a moment with the rest of the day's business news Sean. The Albanezy government is planning to force social media companies to pay for journalism on the sites via a new scheme that'll impose financial penalties on the companies if they don't contribute to local news.
Under the proposed laws, the Australian Tax Office would impose an annual charge on social media and search companies worth more than the value of deals struck under the existing news media bargaining code. That's about two hundred million dollars a year. Platforms that do deals to pay news publishers would then be able to offset the value of those deals against this new ATO levy. Labor will call it a charge. There will also be an uplift factor every year. This is an ongoing issue with the likes of Facebook and Instagram, ex Google TikTok whether or not they should pay for content. There has been a news media barking code in place. When it came up for renewal for Meta, which of course looks after Facebook, Insta, Threads, and WhatsApp, it just simply refused to renegotiate payments to media outlets. The social media groups have been paying the publishers about two hundred million dollars annually and since Meta pulled out, there's actually been redundancies in legal legacy media organizations. Under this new policy, called the News Bargaining Incentive, any platform that refuses to negotiate with publishers or removes its news from its platforms, and metaged that in Canada for example, well it would still be hit with his Ato levy, so they could be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing. It is a very very aggressive move by the Albanezi government.
Certainly as they are not holding back on this one. Speaking of politics, childcare Sean is set to be front and center in the upcoming federal election campaign after the coalition said it won't support government plans to change the rules around accessing financial support.
So earlier in the week, Prime Minister Anthony Albernezi talked about what's known as the activity test for child care payments. He said they would remove that this requires parents to have a job, be looking for work studying before they can receive subacidities for childcare payments. Always been a thorny issue. The Prime Minister also announced a one billion dollar fund, an early education fund to help build or expand one hundred and sixty child care facilities in what they call childcare deserts, places where there's high demand and few facilities. The Opposition yesterday said it wouldn't support the changes, notwithstanding many in the business community, including the Business Council of Australia, actually do support these changes. The government's also considering a scheme where families would pay a flat fee of ten dollars or twenty dollars a day for childcare with more activity test. Clearly, this is going to be a very big election issue, which has to be held by the middle of May next year.
I mentioned Virgin Australia a couple of times now actually Shine it's begun selling long haul flights as part of its deal with Qatar Airlines, injecting a healthy amount of competition, one would say into international airfares.
Yes, we're not here to Virgin Australian, of course, but single but ah, you know, selling their long haul flights are on sale. There is more competition. That's a good thing. The Economy Class sale fairs from Sydney, Brisbane and Perth via Delha to a bunch of European destinations are now available. Melbourne is coming soon. Prices to places like Paris, London, Rome return under two thousand dollars, very exciting. Business class seats are also on Siler's A bit of a hiccup yesterday. They didn't go on sale initially because of some technical issue, but apparently they're on sale. Virgin CEO Jane Herdle has said that the partnership also brings benefits to exporters because it helps them get their goods into the Middle East via Virgin. Australia agricultural businesses in particular should benefit. As I said, we're not promoting Virgin, but more competition in long haul flights is a good thing I reckon.
Yeah, overall for the entire sector. It does always worry me, though, Sean whenever you start talking about international travel and you start covering stories about airfares and all of these things, and typically you trace it back and this has happened a couple of times now. These stories start popping up and about a week later you say, oh, by the way, I'm going to insert kind of European country here, and all of a sudden you've been inspired to disappear for a week or two weeks.
That is a lie, because a genuine lie. Because it's not just European countries.
It's also the US, it's Asia basically, and you are a truly global traveler, Sean, So stand by for the announcement in coming weeks where you're going next, I'm sure now. The share price of infrastructure services provider Vents tumbled yesterday on news that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissioners started proceedings against it and Spotless for alleged historical price fixing.
Spotless is nowadays owned by Downer Edi, so vent Here and Downer Edi are caught up in this. Their share prices fell yesterday. The case relates to a multi billion dollar contract with the Federal Defense Department to provide maintenance and operational services to two hundred bases around the country. Spotless currently has a four billion dollar contract with Defense, Ventia has a five point eight billion dollar contract. The contracts are due to expire mid next year. According to a report in the AFAR. Now the h will see alleges that executives from the two companies made or tried to make arrangements to fix the prices at which Spotless, Ventia and a third group, Canadian crowd called BGIS, supplied services to Defense between April twenty nineteen and August twenty twenty two. A Triple C chairwoman Gina Cascottlieb said the alleged conduct caused direct harm to taxpayers. Downer has denied the allegations. Venti has said it's reviewing the details before commenting.
Aw Right this one Sean, Another Australian company has been caught up in the civil unrest in Mozambique. Resources has declared a force masure event at its graphite mine in the country.
Force mazure, by definition, is well, I don't know what it is. Is it an act of God? Isn't it? That's what force masure?
Yeah, because we always see it pop up in countries.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. I mean it's kind of the idea of something happening that's totally unforeseeable, an active God. Now, in business, force masure clauses and contracts means that a company isn't liable for unforeseeable or you know, unavoidable catastrophes. Basically, that's what Syrah Resources have said. The unrest in Mozambique has been going on since the election. Since its election in late October, more than one hundred people have been killed. On Wednesday, South thirty two said it was worried about its supply chain. It's at its aluminium plant in that country. Now Sira Resources has been caught up. The group said the unrest is hindering its ability to conduct operations, hence force masure okay.
Turning to international news, now, the UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and backing the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, which Israel wants banned.
There were one hundred and fifty eight votes in favor of both motions, including Australia's votes. Israel and the US were in the small minority speaking and voting against the resolutions. General Assembly resolutions aren't legally binding, but basically they reflect world opinion. There's no vetos, for example, in the General Assembly.
Now.
The vote occurred after the US vtaid a Security Council resolution last month demanding an immediate Gaza ceasefire. The real significance, well, it is very significant because of what's going on. The significance in Australia specifically, is the fact that we have opted to vote against Israel in this instance. Previously, well generally we're abstained or we've followed the US lead. We're not doing that anymore.
Finally, Sean, I know this is a story that you will be fascinated by because you just you seem to have a genuine kind of excitement for US sports, but also where business and US sports collide, and this is a perfect example of that. Private equity companies are buying into US NFL teams for the first time after rule changes allowed these financial giants to invest in ownership of franchises.
So ownership of NFL teams in the US has been a closed shop, only uber rich individuals allowed in now having said that, to actually buy so the Chicago Bears has been owned by the same family since nineteen twenty. Oh wow, Yeah, phenomenal. And the NFL is a very close shop, very different from the ep of the English Premier League. For example, in August this year, the owners of the NFL teams agreed to let investors in private equity. For example, now Areas Management are quite a ten percent stake in the Miami Dolphins, franchise, buying it from a real state mogul Stephen Ross. The Ft is reporting that the steak is costing around eight hundred million US dollars, which obviously valley is Miami Dolphins at about eight billion dollars. Areas will also get stakes in the Dolphins Hard Rock Stadium in Miami and the Formula one Miami GP. It already has stakes in the European football teams and the McLaren F one racing team, so big investor in sport. The other deal, ARCDOS has a quite a minority stake in the Buffalo Bills, another NFL team. It already has stakes in baseball teams the LA Dodgers, San Francisco Giants. It's involved in the basketball franchise the Utah Jazz. Also has stakes in Paris Saint Chermain the football team, and the Aston Martin F one team. It's just really interesting that the big pe guys are now pushing in to American sport, and NFL is easily the most valuable franchises in the world, well in front of EPL, the English Premier League or the League, or in front of baseball and basketball in the US, and it's being open up to them, so I would imagine demand will be strong, so they could get even more valuable.
So I told you were fascinated by the American sport.
Is that the actual sport part is much better, Like college sport is more fun than professional sport, but the business of professional sport is amazing.
I reckon. I could have just said NFL to you, just just those three letters and then just turn off you ike and walk home, and you would have just been talking for the next time.
I reckon, I reckon, I'm going to bag that for the weekend edition.
That one, of course you will, Yeah, that'll be your favorite story or the most remarkable story or one of those ones tomorrow in the weekend edition. Don't miss that one. Up next is the Fear and Greed Daily Interview. Alison George, head of Impact and Ethics at Australian Ethical, is your guest and at midday today Sean ask Fear and Greed is coming up, which is where we answer listener questions. If if you've got your own questions, send it on through to us via our website or one of our social media platforms. Today's question is a good one because it's all about productivity.
And yeah, now you're laughing at me because I kind of get a bit excitement. It's an economic concept and my background is in economics, and so I start talking about how it's measured, and you know, about three or four minutes into it, just stay with me if you're listening to it, Michael goes Sean really dull Solfa, pick it up. That's basically how it goes.
And you really you've finished with a lot of pep.
And I enjoyed good, good, good good.
So check out that one at midday. Thank you very much, Sean.
Thanks Michael.
It's Friday, the thirteenth of December twenty twenty four. Make sure you're following the podcast and please join us online on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok, and Facebook. Michael Thompson and that was Fear and Greed. Have a great day.