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

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Speaker 1: for Wednesday, the thirty first of July twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sean Elma. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories

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Speaker 1: that happened today that you need to know about straight

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Speaker 1: umber one. Figures from the Bureau of Statistics today show

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Speaker 1: Australia's inflation rate climbing one percent during the June quarter

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Speaker 1: and three point eight percent for the last financial year.

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Speaker 1: That was slightly higher than three months earlier, but also expected.

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Speaker 1: The all important measure of underlying inflation was slightly lower

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Speaker 1: than expected, and that send bond yields down as investors

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Speaker 1: reassess the likelihood of an interest rate hike when the

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Speaker 1: Reserve Bank Board meets next week. That is now very unlikely,

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Speaker 1: and the S and p ASX two hundred surged one

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Speaker 1: point to seventy five percent today. As a result, it

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Speaker 1: closed out eight and ninety two points, a new record.

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Speaker 1: Some of the interest rate sensitive stocks did best. Consumer

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Speaker 1: discretionary groups like Wes Farmers, JB hi Fi and Harvey

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Speaker 1: Norman all did well. The banks did well, led by

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Speaker 1: Wespack which roise two and a half percent. National Australian

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Speaker 1: Bank and A and two percent, and Commonwealth Bank was

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Speaker 1: up one percent. Techtocs outperformed with zero ARIA and Weis

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Speaker 1: tech Global all doing well. The energy companies also did well,

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Speaker 1: as oil rallied following unrest in the Middle East. A

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Speaker 1: strong performance by Rio Tinto, which announced nine billion dollars

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Speaker 1: in earnings for the last half year, pushed up its

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Speaker 1: share price and BHPN four to squ medals went along

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Speaker 1: for the ride story number two. The federal government will

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Speaker 1: accept one hundred and thirty of one hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: two recommendations in principle, but only thirteen in full. After

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Speaker 1: the Disability Royal Commission handed down its findings, the Albanezi

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Speaker 1: government will focus on improving job pathways for Australians with

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Speaker 1: disabilities as part of a broad three hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: one million dollar package that comes in response to the

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Speaker 1: harrowing stories that emerged from the Royal Commission. According to

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Speaker 1: a report in the Guardian, the long awaited response to

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Speaker 1: the Inquiry into Violence, abuse, neglect and Exploitation of People

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Speaker 1: with Disability comes ten months after its final report shed

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Speaker 1: light on the harm, exclusion and discrimination many experienced. Human

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Speaker 1: rights was at the center of the landmark report recommending

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Speaker 1: urgent reforms cross housing, education, health, employment, criminal justice and

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Speaker 1: disability services to make Australia a more inclusive society. The

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Speaker 1: principles agreed to in full include a review of the

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Speaker 1: National Disability Strategy, improvements to the Employment Services model, and

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Speaker 1: transition guidelines for NDIS participants entering custody and returning to

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Speaker 1: the community. Staring number three, ain Z has officially taken

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Speaker 1: control of sun Corpse banking operations seven hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: three days later. It also cost them four point nine

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Speaker 1: billion dollars. I'm sure it's a relief for both Ainz

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Speaker 1: and sun Court. The deal was initially rejected by the

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Speaker 1: Competition watchdog. That decision was reversed after Ainz appeled, and

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Speaker 1: the Melbourne based bank now becomes a much bigger player

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Speaker 1: in the home mortgage market, particularly in Queensland. The Brisbane

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Speaker 1: based sun Court becomes the pure insurance play, thus ending

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Speaker 1: the only major player in the bank assurance trend that

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Speaker 1: started a couple of decades ago. Ain Z's under pressure

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Speaker 1: on the back of the bond trading scandal of recent weeks.

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Speaker 1: It now has to integrate some Corpse customers to its

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Speaker 1: own systems. That'll be quite the job. Story number four,

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Speaker 1: Westpac customers will be able to speak to staff at

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Speaker 1: their bank via its banking app, using a verified call

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Speaker 1: and a move with the company hopes will help reduce

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Speaker 1: the hundreds of millions of dollars Austrainings are losing to

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Speaker 1: banking scams each year. In a bid to block ever

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Speaker 1: more sophisticated impersonation scams, Westpac will roll out a new

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Speaker 1: security product in partnership with Telcale OPTAs that allows customers

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Speaker 1: to receive Westpac branded calls via the bank's app, which

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Speaker 1: is used by three point six million people each month.

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Speaker 1: The calls, which will be verified by OPTAs, will also

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Speaker 1: show the reason for the bank getting in touch with

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Speaker 1: a customer. According to a report in the Cinny Morning

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Speaker 1: Herald and Age, Westpac Chief executive Peter King said it

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Speaker 1: should provide customers with the confidence and added security to

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Speaker 1: help beat scammers and know that they're really talking to

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Speaker 1: their bank. Asseic estimates that in twenty twenty three, more

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Speaker 1: than thirty one one thousand banking customers had about five

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty eight million dollars lost in scams. In

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Speaker 1: story number five. Growth in Microsoft Azure cloud service business

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Speaker 1: slowed last quarter, disappointing investors anxious to see a payoff

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Speaker 1: from huge investments in artificial intelligence products. TATAL revenue in

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Speaker 1: the June quarter increased fifteen percent to sixty five billion

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Speaker 1: US dollars. It's about ninety nine billion OZZI for the

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Speaker 1: three months. But the Azure cloud computing service has been

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Speaker 1: Microsoft's main engine growth in recent years. The pace of

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Speaker 1: its growth, though, decelerated twenty nine percent from thirty one percent.

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Speaker 1: Great numbers, but wallstream investors want exceptional numbers. At the moment,

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Speaker 1: Microsoft's share price fell about six percent in extended trading.

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Speaker 1: Alongside peers such as Amazon and Google. Microsoft has been

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Speaker 1: constructing new data centers to meet demand for cloud computing

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Speaker 1: and power hungry AI services, but in recent weeks, investors

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Speaker 1: have been less patient with tech company's efforts to make

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Speaker 1: money out of their cloud computing and AI investments. That's

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Speaker 1: it for the Afternoon report for Wednesday, the thirty first

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Speaker 1: of July twenty twenty four. Michael Thompson and I will

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Speaker 1: be back tomorrow morning with the Thursday edition off Her

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Speaker 1: and Greed business News. I'm sure I Alma enjoy your

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Speaker 1: evening