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

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Speaker 1: for Friday, the eighth of August twenty twenty five a

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that

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

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Speaker 1: story number one. The SMPA SEX two hundred closed down

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Speaker 1: zero point three percent today to eight hundred and seven points.

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Speaker 1: Bit of a dip for the end of the week,

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Speaker 1: but not enough really to take the gloss off of

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Speaker 1: stellar run that saw the market hit record highs midweek.

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Speaker 1: Across the five days, the boss is up one point

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Speaker 1: seven percent. Material stocks did best today, gold stocks in particular,

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Speaker 1: off the back of a very strong price for the

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Speaker 1: precious metal. Gold is still trading around the three thousand,

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Speaker 1: four hundred US dollar mark amid wariness as the Trump

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Speaker 1: tariffs kick in. Newmont and Northern Star both had good days.

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Speaker 1: Not so ensure a QBE, which did report a decent

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Speaker 1: lift in interim profits as it focuses on corporate customers,

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Speaker 1: but investors seem to question underlying profitability and the share

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Speaker 1: price closed down almost nine percent today. Westpac, NAB and

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Speaker 1: Commonwealth Bank are all off about one percent, and the

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Speaker 1: other company worth The mention was Iris, after the financial

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Speaker 1: services software company confirmed reports in the Financial Review that

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Speaker 1: it's negotiating with Blackstone over a buyout. It closed twelve

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Speaker 1: point three percent higher today, not a bad day at all.

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Speaker 1: Under story number two. Now and at Lassie and CEO

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Speaker 1: Mike cannon Brooks has reassured investors he's quote not going anywhere,

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Speaker 1: following the shock resignation of the president of the software company.

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Speaker 1: He made the comments after announcing Lassian's latest results, which

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Speaker 1: showed a twenty percent lift in annual revenue and a

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Speaker 1: narrowing in net loss. At Lassian is listed on the Nasdaq,

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Speaker 1: where its shares fell eight percent. The big surprise today

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Speaker 1: was the resignation of at Lassian president, a new Baradwage,

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Speaker 1: who is effectively the two ic to canon Brooks. It

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Speaker 1: is the second very senior executive change at the Australian

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Speaker 1: company in the last twelve months. It is one year

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Speaker 1: since co founder Scott Farquhah stepped down as co CEO,

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Speaker 1: with Mike cannon Brooks telling analysts today that you are

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Speaker 1: going to have to put up with me for many

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Speaker 1: more years. I love my job and this is the

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Speaker 1: most exciting time to be at Lassian. He also doubled

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Speaker 1: down on artificial intelligence as a growth driver for the company,

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Speaker 1: which is also cited last week as the reason for

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Speaker 1: recent job cuts at the firm. Story Number three. Foreign

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Speaker 1: Minister Penny Wong has warned a plan by Israeli Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister Benjamin Etnyahu to occupy Gaza City will quote worsen

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Speaker 1: the humanitarian catastrophe in the area. The plan, which was

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Speaker 1: announced this morning following a ten hour meeting of Israel's

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Speaker 1: security cabinet, will see ground troops move into Gaza in

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Speaker 1: a large scale occupation. Prior to the meeting, the Israeli

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister said he intended to hand over Gaza to

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Speaker 1: be governed by Arab states once the remnants of Hermas

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Speaker 1: have been removed. Israel released a list of five principles

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Speaker 1: for ending the war, including the return of all hostages

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Speaker 1: living and debased, and Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip.

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Speaker 1: The Australian government has criticized the occupation plan, as I mentioned,

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Speaker 1: reiterating calls for a ceasefire. Sorry Number four. US President

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump has thrown financial markets a bit of a curveball,

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Speaker 1: which is so unlike him appointing his economic advisor, Stephen

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Speaker 1: Mirn to the Federal Reserve Board. It is a temporary appointment,

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Speaker 1: with Mirren stepping into a vacancy that was made by

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Speaker 1: the shock resignation last week of another governor, so it's

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Speaker 1: only going to last for five months, but it does

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Speaker 1: give the President extra time to make a decision about

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Speaker 1: replacing FED Chair Jerown Powell. The appointment sends a reasonably

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Speaker 1: clear signal Trump now has a direct ally inside the

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Speaker 1: FED at a time when he is loudly, very loudly,

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Speaker 1: calling for deep rate cuts. Despite those demands, the Fed

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Speaker 1: has kept interest rates in the world's biggest economy on hold,

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Speaker 1: in part due to concerns about the inflationary impact of

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Speaker 1: the President's tariff policy. This isn't a view held by

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Speaker 1: the new appointee, though, just our before the announcement was made,

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Speaker 1: Stephen Mirin was praising the tariffs as historic and saying

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Speaker 1: there is quote zero macroeconomically significant evidence of price pressures

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Speaker 1: from the tariffs. And finally, story number five, the unrelenting

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Speaker 1: march of AI continues with the launch of the newest

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Speaker 1: version of chat GPT. OpenAI says chat GPT five is

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Speaker 1: quote the smartest, fastest, and most useful model yet, with

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Speaker 1: chief executive Sam Altman declaring it the equivalent of having

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Speaker 1: a team of PhD level experts ready to help you. Notably,

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Speaker 1: the new version is available to all individual users of

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Speaker 1: the platform, even without a paid subscription. It is pretty

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Speaker 1: extraordinary to think that three years ago nobody had even

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Speaker 1: heard of chat GPT. Since then, five versions have been released,

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Speaker 1: with nearly seven hundred million people using it each week,

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Speaker 1: not to mention rival products from Meta Google, Elon Musk's Xai,

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Speaker 1: Chinese AI company Seek and more. As for the improvements

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Speaker 1: in this latest model, Open Ai says Chat GPT five

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Speaker 1: is less likely to lie or try to deceive users

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Speaker 1: than the previous models. That is good to know. There

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Speaker 1: we go. That's the afternoon report for Friday, the eighth

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Speaker 1: of August twenty twenty five. Make sure you hit follow

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Speaker 1: on the podcast and we'll be back tomorrow morning with

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Speaker 1: the weekend edition of Fear and Greed. I'm Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: Enjoy your evening.