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00:00:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed business news you can use today. Financial markets fear another bout of inflation after the escalation of attacks in the Middle East, Australia set to sell uranium to India, and Telstra scrambles to contain the fallout from Wednesday's outage. Plus Nvidia agrees to invest nearly three billion dollars into a local data center operator so it can buy in Nvidia chips, and UK politics gets wilder and whakier. It is Friday, the tenth of July twenty twenty six. I'm Michael Thompson and good morning, Sean Aylmer.
00:00:39
Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael Shawn.
00:00:41
Speaker 1: The main story this morning financial market investors are on tenter hooks, worried that the escalation in attacks in the Middle East could once again push oil prices really sharply higher, triggering inflationary fears. That comes after the US President, within a twenty four hour period, declared that the ceasefire was over and talks were a waste of time, and then said that Iran had called him and wanted to make a deal. Yesterday, the US said that it had hit ninety targets in a second day of strikes, on Iran, and several Gulf countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, have reported apparent Iranian attacks.
00:01:21
Speaker 2: Iran's chief negotiated said that the US still hadn't learned that bulling and breaking promises are no longer cost free. News of the outbreak of hostilities pushed Brent krude prices higher. It's trading close to eighty US dollars of barrel. That means we're going to get higher petrol prices down the line. Traffic through the Strait of Hobbles is at a stand still again, while the US has revoked Iran's license to ship oil.
00:01:49
Speaker 1: The big question here, Sean, is how serious the latest incursions actually are, because this seems like the most resilient ceasefire in history. Both sides genuinely want a ceasefire, but they also, without being flippant about it, they also want to be able to attack each other.
00:02:10
Speaker 2: Yes, so I mean markets are under pressure, and AX yesterday was down zero point six percent to eighty seven one hundred and thirty seven points. Gold was lower, the Aussie dollars back down to six to nine US cents. So they're watching it carefully, but they're not tumbling so I think the taco trade, the trub always chickens out trade is real. At the moment. Investors clearly think there will be some resolution, though right now with the straight up and walls closed, it isn't really clear what that will be. However, and this is really important. The International Monetary Fund has come out and warned that renewed conflict in the Middle East would drive up global inflation, damage supply chains, and way on financial markets. It was talking about this even before the latest escalation. It had already lifted its forecast on inflation and it's forecast on growth. Now we've had this outbreak, now, wonder investors are nervous.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the thing is that things are changing so quickly that no one has any idea where we'll be next.
00:03:14
Speaker 2: Week, yeah, next month, this afternoon.
00:03:17
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly now. While the attacks were taking place, sure An, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed an agreement allowing the exporting of uranium to India. Modi declared that Australia's uranium reserves are critical to helping the country meets its ambition to build more nuclear energy facilities after signing a deal that would allow his country to buy billions of dollars worth of yellowcake.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, O cake, Oh, I like it.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: It's nice, isn't it.
00:03:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. The administrative agreements enable uranium exports to India out for peaceful purposes only. Modi said India wants to have one hundred gigawats of nuclear capacity by twenty forty seven. Albanizi and made he also signed a joint declaration strengthening bilateral defense cooperation, including a maritime security collaboration roadmap and a strengthened partnership in cyber and critical technologies. The two countries, according to Albanzi, need to deepen their relationship. He also said that the Business Council of Australia will lead a senior business delegation to India and December, and he welcomed an announcement by Australian Super the Superannuation Fund that it would invest half a billion dollars into India's National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: That yellow cake is often brown or black, not in love.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: When you so, I reckon you know nothing about that story after the word yellow cake, That is true. I made a common on yellow cake, and then I was saying some really interesting staff, Michael, and I could just see you quickly googling.
00:04:54
Speaker 1: I was curious about where the name yellow cake actually comes from.
00:04:57
Speaker 2: Where did it come from it? Where does it comell?
00:04:59
Speaker 1: I mean it is because it is taken from uranium, or that is traditionally and it is like this, a very bright yellow color, but when it is processed and dried, it often ends up brown or black, and so that's where the color part comes from. That the cake refers to the texture of the concentrate that is created during the milling process for it. So really it's a bit of a misnomer. It should just be called brown stuff. You were looking for the right word and landed on stuff. Swing and a miss there, Sean Telstra, this is a serious one. Now back on track. Telstra yesterday updated where we are at on the big outage that it had on Wednesday. It said that it had to carry out welfare checks on more than six hundred and thirty people who tried to call triple zero but failed as a direct result of its nationwide network outage on Wednesday morning. Acting chief executive Michael Ackland said two hundred and thirty callers contacted via SMS said no assistance was required. Four hundred and two
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cases required follow up voice calls. Of those, one hundred and seventy calls were passed to the police for typically further welfare checks, and there were seven callers that did need emergency assistance. He said Telstra will consider compensating customers.
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Speaker 2: While this was going on, a South Australian Liberal senator posted on social media that she had been told for death in that state of an elderly person as a result of the outage. Now Telstra said it's unable to confirm whether or not that's true at this point. I'm sure we'll hear more about it. Telstra says it's found a fixed a fixed four but not fully resolved, a software defect that reset timers in two of its data centers that triggered the outage and created a secondary issue that prevented some calls connecting to Triple zero. Meanwhile, Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson is under fire. She made a Triple zero called during the outage to check the system. The critics are saying, well, it's actually illegal to call Triple O unless you need help, and so she's under fire for that one.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let's take a quick break back in a moment with the rest of the day's business news. Sean chip maker and video has agreed to invest two point nine billion dollars into Firmius Technologies in an equity raise later this year, lifting the potential value of the Singapore based Aussie company to about fifteen billion dollars. Firm's Technologies builds specialized data centers called AI factories. These data centers are really designed to run heavy computing processes needed for artificial intelligence tools. They require thousands of chips and critically they need a lot of energy and a lot of water.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, like Firmis is the sort of modern day at Lassian. You know, when the SaaS companies were on fire, everyone loved at Lassian. Firmus is sort of the equivalent in the data center world, I suppose in the Australian private markets landscape. It plans to list later in the year, according to media reports. Now Nvidio has been an investor in the company for a while, maybe more significantly a major supplier of chips. The preference shares it is buying and designed to convert to ordinary equity after an IPO. Another hint that you're going to get an IPO. Now the money that so it's two billion US about two point nine billion Aussie. The money will be used in part to buy in Vidia chips for Furmis's launch Cestem project, which is supposed to commence operations next year. I don't know this. This is a normal thing to happen that Nvidio will invest or, a chip company will invest in a data center on the basis that the data center buys the chips of that investor, and it's there's something wrong with it. I don't know what it is, this circular economy.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like we'll give you money if you essentially give it back to us.
00:09:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I can't quite get my head around that sort of thing yet.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: So it is a big boost though for firmas isn't it to have Nvidia, arguably the well obviously the biggest company, but the most hyped company in the world being involved as well. The corporate watchdog SEAN has launched an investigation into how the big four accounting firms handle internal complaints in really what is an unprecedented intervention into the multi billion dollar sector.
00:09:53
Speaker 2: The strained securities and Investments Commission will use compulsory information gathering powers to force KPMG, Deloutte and PwC to hand over documents relating to their treatment of internal complaints. According to the finn Review, the probe is in response to KPMG failing to adequately look into claims by a whistleblower of misconduct in its audit division and then allegedly bulling him for raising the concerns. The new ASSEC investigation comes as the federal government belatedly considers stalled reforms to the accounting sector. They would give the regulated new powers to police and impose hefty fines on large accounting partnerships.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: Just a couple of quick corporate stories for you, Sean Australia's largest IPO of twenty twenty six hit the boss yesterday. Developer FDC, listed at three dollars quickly jumped fourteen percent before closing at three dollars forty a share. It raised four hundred million dollars as a market cap now of more than one billion.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: So I suppose if FIRMUS list later in the year, it will no longer be the biggest one of the year, but it is thus far the other interesting one. Yesterday Steadfast to the insurance brokerage. It said take over discussions with a consortium led by Mwin's Group and Dragon Air Investment continues after the bidders reaffirmed their seven point seven billion dollar takeover proposal. Looks like that one is edging towards a deal.
00:11:14
Speaker 1: Turning to international news, we need to talk about this story. Sean Nigel Farage, who is the leader of the Reform UK populist political party Pauline Hanson has been over there visiting. They've been having chats anyway. He resigned from his seat earlier in the week over failure to declare millions of pounds of cash and benefits from wealthy donors. He immediately said, though that he would recontest the seat to seek a fresh mandate from voters. And this is where it gets interesting and a little bit absurd. In response, the major parties boycotted the by election, meaning Farrage has really one main rival for the constituency of Clacton. It is a comedian and serial candidates by the name of Count Binface.
00:12:06
Speaker 2: I think the story does work better if you could actually see Count Finfaces. It's worker doing that his name tells you what he is, right, Yeah, I mean like he's kind of I suppose a bit ned kelly ish, just a lot shinier and like a silver bin over his head. Yeah, so he's sort of got armor on, a silver armory on and then a bin over his head. His real name is John Harvey. He created the character to promote electoral participation, not how that works now. He got a bit of a history, count Binface. He first ran against Prime Minister Trees in May in twenty seventeen, though back then you might have known him as Lord Buckethead. That's how he really edited the politics. He subsequently stood against Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Richie Sunak, and against Prime Minister in waiting Andy Burnham. At last month's Makerfield by election. He managed to poll ninety five votes against Andy Andy Burnham. He's pitched to voters, which I love. Firstly, why would I vote? Why would you vote for me? Because I'm not Nigel Farage. That's number one. He also wants to build at least one affordable house hit my favorite. He wants to nationalize singer Adele. What a platform.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: I wonder if he changes his platform for every election that he contests because he is a serial candidate at these and it is really novelty value only. But I do hope that he changes pitch time.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: The funny thing is he's actually about four to one odds now. He would normally be a thousand to one, but because there's no New Statesman, I think it was some of the left leaning media are actually campaigning for Count bin Face because they want Nigel Farage to lose his seat, and so he actually has a chance. I mean, one in four is not a trivial chance, it's.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: A real n that is a realting.
00:14:16
Speaker 2: In the House of Commons with a bin Face.
00:14:20
Speaker 1: How would he get through the metal Detective?
00:14:22
Speaker 2: How would he get through the metal detected?
00:14:24
Speaker 1: Excellent list, because are the big questions here, Sean, we answer them all up next Fear and Greed Q and A with Sam Tomaris from the Bank of Sydney.
00:14:32
Speaker 2: Today, So we go directly to the heart of SMEs. What's bothering small and medium sized businesses? You know, how are they finding the cost side of things, the revenue side of things. Sam takes us through all that he deals with the SMEs every day, and there's some good news. I mean it's it's not all bad news by any stretch of the imagination. In some ways, on the revenue side, things are okay, but they're trying really hard to keep a lid on the cost base. And and he's got some great advice yeah, about what small businesses and small business owners, entrepreneurs what they should do.
00:15:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, right from the coal face, right because he is actually out there talking to a lot of businesses around the place. So it's a good chats coming up next to the Fear and Greed playlist on your podcast platform or at Fearandegreed dot com dot au. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael. It's Friday, the tenth of July twenty twenty six. Make sure you're following the podcast and join us online on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. I'm Michael Thompson And that was Fear and Greed. Have a great day.