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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report

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Speaker 1: for Thursday, the twenty ninth of January twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson and every afternoon, we've got the five stories

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Speaker 1: that happened today that you need to know about. Let's

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Speaker 1: go a story number one. The S and p ASX

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Speaker 1: two hundred finished the day flat at eighty nine hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty seven point five points, but it was a

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Speaker 1: lot lower earlier in the day with investors weary about

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Speaker 1: the potential for US strikes on Iran. Those fears sent

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Speaker 1: the price of gold surging yet again. It hit another

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Speaker 1: new record, this time five thousand, six hundred and two

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Speaker 1: US dollars, an ounce that benefited the local gold miners

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Speaker 1: of course, Northern Star Neumont evolution all up between two

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Speaker 1: and three percent today. The price of copper also climbed,

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Speaker 1: hitting a new record itself that was just shy of

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Speaker 1: fourteen thousand US dollars a ton That helped BHP, with

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Speaker 1: the share price of the big Australian climbing two percent,

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Speaker 1: opening up more space between it and Commonwealth Bank as

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Speaker 1: the biggest company on the course. Not such a great

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Speaker 1: day for Rare Earth producers I Luca Resources fell fourteen percent.

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Speaker 1: Linus was off nearly four percent. That was on reports

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Speaker 1: out of the US that the government there may abandon

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Speaker 1: plans to set price flaws and finally talks of local

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Speaker 1: rate hikes next week. After yesterday's jump in inflation certainly

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Speaker 1: helped the Aussie dollar keep on climbing. It reached another

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Speaker 1: three year high of seventy point nine to two US

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Speaker 1: cents under story number two now and on the topic

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Speaker 1: of interest rates, the US Federal Reserves kept rates on

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Speaker 1: hold overnight, with chair Jerome Powell signaling that there little

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Speaker 1: urgency to cut rates in the world's largest economy. The

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Speaker 1: Fed voted ten to two to keep its benchmark rates

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Speaker 1: in the three and a half to three point seventy

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Speaker 1: five percent range. There were two governors dissenting in favor

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Speaker 1: of a quarter point cut, Stephen Miron, who was an

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Speaker 1: advisor to Donald Trump before being appointed to the board,

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Speaker 1: and Christopher Waller, who's considered to be a contender to

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Speaker 1: replace your our own. Powell said that the economy was

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Speaker 1: growing at a solid pace, unemployment remained broadly stable, and inflation,

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Speaker 1: while still elevated, was moving in the right direction. He

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Speaker 1: said the FED was well positioned after last year's rate

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Speaker 1: cuts to let incoming data guide future decisions, which may

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Speaker 1: not please the President, whose administration has threatened Jerome power

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Speaker 1: with criminal indictments, a move that has been rejected by

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Speaker 1: the FED chair as an effort to put pressure on

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Speaker 1: interest rate decisions. Story number three. Prime Minister Anthony Aberanezi

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Speaker 1: will meet with state and territory leaders tonight and tomorrow

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Speaker 1: to negotiate funding agreements for health and hospitals for the

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Speaker 1: next five years. The Prime Minister said he had put

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Speaker 1: an offer to the eight governments in writing this week

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Speaker 1: and that I quote, we have optioned as a commonwealth

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Speaker 1: if there is no agreement. Last month, the state and

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Speaker 1: territories rejected a twenty three billion dollar public hospital funding

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Speaker 1: offer from Canberra. At the time, Health Minister Mark Butler

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Speaker 1: warned that unless a deal was reached before South Australia

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Speaker 1: went into caretaker mode in late February ahead of its

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Speaker 1: March twenty one election, it may be too late to

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Speaker 1: have any deal in place by July one next year.

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Speaker 1: Story number four. Apple has spent the day trying to

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Speaker 1: ensure US older iPhones could still make regular and emergency

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Speaker 1: calls on Telstra's network. It is the latest in a

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Speaker 1: series of triple zero failures. Apple temporarily stopped software updates

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Speaker 1: released earlier this week for three iPhone models, the iPhone eight,

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Speaker 1: iPhone eight plus, and iPhone X. The updates included changes

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Speaker 1: to the technology responsible for making emergency calls, but stopped

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Speaker 1: the phones connecting to Telstra's network making triple zero phone calls.

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Speaker 1: Apple didn't provide details this morning on exactly what caused

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Speaker 1: the software problem, but indicated it was not related to

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Speaker 1: the triple zero failures that had been previously identified by

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Speaker 1: telco groups. And finally, story number five, Amazon has announced

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Speaker 1: a layoff sixteen thousand more corporate staff as it looks

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Speaker 1: to cut bureaucracy and read wrecked spending towards artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 1: The cuts follow fourteen thousand layoffs in October, with this

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Speaker 1: current round long expected to take place after the holiday

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Speaker 1: shopping season. The company has been clear in the past

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Speaker 1: that AI is going to ultimately mean fewer corporate roles,

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Speaker 1: even as the business itself is continuing to grow strongly.

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Speaker 1: It's expected to report more than two hundred and eleven

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Speaker 1: billion US dollars in fourth quarter sales profits exceeding twenty

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Speaker 1: one billion US dollars next week. I told you yesterday

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Speaker 1: that global logistics giant UPS is cutting up to thirty

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Speaker 1: thousand jobs, closing at least twenty four facilities this year.

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Speaker 1: And that's largely because it's actually cutting the number of

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Speaker 1: packages that it delivers for Amazon to focus on the

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Speaker 1: higher margin deliveries, things like vaccine deliveries. That's it for

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Speaker 1: the Afternoon Report for Thursday, the twenty ninth of January

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. Make sure you're following the podcast and

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Speaker 1: head along to Fear and Greed dot com dot au

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Speaker 1: to sign up for our free daily newsletter. I put

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Speaker 1: a link in today's shown it's as well. I'm Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: Enjoy your evening, m