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Speaker 1: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Fast five Business

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Speaker 1: News by Fear and Greed. Oh Michael Thompson and Hello

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Speaker 1: Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: On weekdays, it's all about the past five the top

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Speaker 1: five business stories in five minutes. On the weekend, we

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Speaker 1: still keep it to five minutes, of course, but we're

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Speaker 1: going to pick out the biggest business story of the week,

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Speaker 1: the most remarkable story, a sleeper story, one that's flying

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Speaker 1: under the radar a little bit, and then our favorite

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Speaker 1: business ish story. Let's jump straight into it. What was

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Speaker 1: the biggest story of the week.

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Speaker 2: Oh, for me, it's the rise and rise of the

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Speaker 2: Commonwealth Bank. This week it unveiled a better than expected

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Speaker 2: cash profit of nearly ten billion dollars up to it's dividend.

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Speaker 2: The business is doing well. The all important net interest margin,

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Speaker 2: the difference between what a bank pays on deposits and

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Speaker 2: receives on loans, was steady. In a competitive environment, that's

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Speaker 2: pretty good. The bank's not putting as much money aside

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Speaker 2: for potential bad loans in the future. That shows its confidence.

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Speaker 2: It's winning customers. About thirty six percent of Australians now

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Speaker 2: say the comm bank is their primary financial institution, being

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Speaker 2: great for shareholders as well, even though most professional analysts

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Speaker 2: think it's overvalued. Its share prices up thirty percent over

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Speaker 2: the past year, and for most shareholders, the two dollars

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Speaker 2: fifty share final dividend takes the full year dividend of

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Speaker 2: four dollars sixty five fully franked. If you've held the

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Speaker 2: stock for more than a year, then you're getting a

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Speaker 2: dividend yield of five percent plus. It's got a market

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Speaker 2: valuation of two hundred and twenty two billion dollars, more

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Speaker 2: than the combined value of the next two biggest banks,

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Speaker 2: NAB and Westpac. Can it keep going? I don't know,

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Speaker 2: but for this week at least, it's quite an incredible story.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, massive story this week, A big story as well.

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Speaker 1: In Jobs Sean this week we learned that the fifty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand new jobs created last month in the economy

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Speaker 1: more than was expected. The unemployment rate, though, still climbed

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Speaker 1: to four point two percent, the highest since November twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one, and that's because as a record number of

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Speaker 1: people looking for a job. So the jobs market is cooling,

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Speaker 1: but not a lot of the things. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of people coming into the workforce, pushed up by an

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Speaker 1: influx of migrant workers. But the labor market, it seems,

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Speaker 1: are still strong enough to absorb it. It's just there's

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Speaker 1: a big week for economic data this week, Overea. It

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Speaker 1: has just spent a big week for news, hasn't it?

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Speaker 2: Sure has, Michael, your most remarkable story.

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Speaker 1: Well, my most remarkable story is it's remarkable, but not

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Speaker 1: in a good way. It's an extraordinary gap in literacy

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Speaker 1: and numeracy between kids from wealthy families compared to kids

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Speaker 1: from less well off homes. The results are from the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Naplan tests. They're really just frankly shocking

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Speaker 1: because there is this enormous gap in skills and competency

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Speaker 1: between the rich and the poor in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, numeracy,

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Speaker 1: not just one year across all grades. The States spend

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Speaker 1: about forty billion dollars on schools each year, the federal

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Speaker 1: government a touch over twenty five billion. They are set

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Speaker 1: to hammer out a new funding agreement this year, a

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Speaker 1: big argument over who's going to pay for the programs

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Speaker 1: that are needed to get kids up to speed. But

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Speaker 1: just some of those these stats are just damning one

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Speaker 1: in ten kids overall are below the standard, but it's

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Speaker 1: one in three kids from poor families, one in three

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Speaker 1: kids from the bush and one in three indigenous kids.

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Speaker 1: Big opportunity this year to fix the funding model and

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Speaker 1: hopefully rectify some of those problems.

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Speaker 2: Sean sure is now can I tell you my sleeper? Sorry?

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Speaker 1: Oh yes please?

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Speaker 2: So profits are dominated the week I've told you about

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Speaker 2: Common Bank, Goodman Group delivered a higher than expected profits.

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Speaker 2: C sells that his plasma collection businesses back on track.

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Speaker 2: The real surprises have come from some of the retailers,

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Speaker 2: name me jb Hi Phi and Temple and Webster JB

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Speaker 2: Hi Fi It's share price jump ten percent after its

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Speaker 2: financial year result, it announced the big special dive. Then

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Speaker 2: to shareholders it just keeps selling stuff. Then Temple and

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Speaker 2: Webster I said sales jump twenty six percent last financial year.

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Speaker 2: Its share price went up twenty three percent, about thirty

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Speaker 2: percent of its sales and our private brand which are

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Speaker 2: more profitable. This is all coming as the economics news

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Speaker 2: suggests households are struggling and retailers are suffering. Now some are.

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Speaker 2: Nick Scarley came out and said they're struggling to sell

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Speaker 2: big ticket items. But some of the retailers, and then

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Speaker 2: really well managed retailers are still selling stuff to people.

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Speaker 2: I reckon the economy maybe isn't slowing quite as much

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Speaker 2: as we thought based on what these retail as it's saying,

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Speaker 2: really interesting to watch. What about you, Michael, your sleeper story.

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Speaker 1: A quick little mention Sean of Telstra. This week there

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Speaker 1: was everyone was talking there's a bit of bad news.

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Speaker 1: The results show that there was a thirty percent drop

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Speaker 1: in Telstra's net profit to one point seventy nine billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: A lot of talk about the enterprise part of the

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Speaker 1: business that provides kind of services to government and large

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Speaker 1: companies being written down by more than three hundred million dollars,

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Speaker 1: things like kind of phone handsets and other equipment in

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Speaker 1: fixed enterprise. Those earnings tumbled. But the sleeper story, and

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like a sleeper story in inverted commas

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Speaker 1: here Sean, it is that mobile phones are booming and

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Speaker 1: the Telstra's Telstra's mobile phone part of its business is

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Speaker 1: absolutely soaring. It boosted its earnings by nine percent last

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Speaker 1: year five hundred and sixty thousand new mobile customers, and

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Speaker 1: that rise in earnings actually came before Telstra upped its prices,

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Speaker 1: so it's probably going to get even better. But we

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Speaker 1: are tending to focus on the bad news at the moment,

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Speaker 1: But there is actually a really good story hidden within it.

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Speaker 1: Good story that one now favorite story. I know you've

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Speaker 1: got a cracker for as Sean go for.

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Speaker 2: Us idea all about the world of chess. This week

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Speaker 2: we found out that a Russian chess champion has been

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Speaker 2: suspended after poisoning her childhood rival. Ahead of a match.

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Speaker 2: She apparently smeared mercury all over her pieces. A woman

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Speaker 2: called Demeana at back er over walked into the room.

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Speaker 2: This is according to a story in the Daily Telegraph

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Speaker 2: of London. Security footage captures a moment she went in

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Speaker 2: where the tournament was to take place in southern Russia.

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Speaker 2: She appeared to be making preparations for the poisoning. She's

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Speaker 2: looking around. She casually approaches her opponent's table, takes something

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Speaker 2: from her bag, seemingly a vile, smears the contents on

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Speaker 2: to the board and some of her opponent's pieces Now

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Speaker 2: her opponent. She suffered severe dizziness and nausey as soon

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Speaker 2: after the game began, and required medical attention. A judge

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Speaker 2: from the tournament reported the incident to police. CCTV footage

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Speaker 2: seemed to confirm what the allegations are. Still to be tried,

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Speaker 2: of course, fascinating a little story. The world of chess

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Speaker 2: is full of these stories. Even if the game's not interesting, Michael,

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Speaker 2: the people around it are fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Our sense of theater around it all isn't there? And

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Speaker 1: little stories like that certainly do a lot to encourage that. Suan,

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Speaker 1: there we go five minutes and pretty much everything you

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Speaker 1: need to know in the world of business and chess.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday morning with the top five

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Speaker 1: business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to hit follow

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Speaker 1: and join us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and X.

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Speaker 1: Are Michael Thompson and this is the fast five business

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Speaker 1: news by Fear and Greed