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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 fourteenth of August twenty twenty five. Are

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

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

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Speaker 1: go with story number one. Another day, another record for

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Speaker 1: the local share market, the S and p ASX two hundred,

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Speaker 1: setting a new intra day high for the fourth consecutive day.

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Speaker 1: The market closed zero point five percent higher to eighty

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Speaker 1: eight hundred and seventy four points. The hire it hit

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Speaker 1: earlier in the day was just a whisker shy of

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Speaker 1: eighty nine hundred points. The star of the show today

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Speaker 1: was definitely Westpac. It delivered a fourteen percent rise in

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Speaker 1: net profit to one point nine billion dollars for the

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Speaker 1: third quarter. Its share prices took off, powering six point

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Speaker 1: three percent higher. That is its highest level in a decade.

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Speaker 1: A and Z and NAB both climbed around two percent,

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Speaker 1: but Commonwealth Bank continued to slip after yesterday's big drop,

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Speaker 1: down another one point one percent. The other company worth mentioned, Telstra,

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Speaker 1: reported a thirty one percent increase in annual net profit

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Speaker 1: of two point three billion dollars. The results were in

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Speaker 1: line with expectations, and the Telco share price closed two

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Speaker 1: point six percent lower. Story number two. The case for

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Speaker 1: interest rate cuts at consecutive RBA meetings took a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a hit today after a pretty strong set

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Speaker 1: of labor force figures. The unemployment rate fell from four

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Speaker 1: point three percent to four point two percent in July,

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Speaker 1: with more than twenty four thousand jobs created. Behind that

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Speaker 1: figure was an increase of about sixty thousand full time

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Speaker 1: jobs and the loss of thirty six thousand part time roles.

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Speaker 1: It's a sign of a fairly resilient economy, with economists

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Speaker 1: suggesting that were less likely to see another rate cut

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Speaker 1: at the next RBA meeting next month in September, and

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Speaker 1: more likely in November or December. Story number three. Ampol

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Speaker 1: has agreed to buy eg groups petrol station network for

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Speaker 1: about a billion dollars. That is, five hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: service stations, the same ones that were worth sold in

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen for one point seven billion dollars. Ampire looks

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Speaker 1: to be doubling down on selling petrol just as the

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Speaker 1: world largely is kind of transitioning towards evs. It's also

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Speaker 1: a major refiner, importer and distributor of fuel, so this

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Speaker 1: is essentially a vertical expansion that cements its position in

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Speaker 1: retailing as well. Story number four today, Chinese AI startup

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Speaker 1: deep Seak has hit a little bit of a roadblock.

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Speaker 1: It tried to train its new model on Chinese tech

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Speaker 1: company Huaweis Ascend chips, but the hardware couldn't cope, according

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Speaker 1: to the Financial Times. As a result, the company went

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Speaker 1: back to Nvidia for training and used Huawei only for inference,

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Speaker 1: the two kind of major roles of the AI platforms.

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Speaker 1: It is a major setback for deep Seek, which caused

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Speaker 1: an upset in January this year when it first launched

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Speaker 1: because it claimed to be doing much the same job

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Speaker 1: as other AI providers like Chat GPT, but doing it

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Speaker 1: using much less processing power. But the new model has

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Speaker 1: been delayed, showing that Chinese made chips are still lagging

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Speaker 1: behind US rivals. It comes after reports this week that

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Speaker 1: Beijing demanded Chinese tech companies justify their order of chips

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Speaker 1: from Nvidia, reportedly to encourage them to focus on those

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Speaker 1: locally made alternatives. And finally, story number five, it's not

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Speaker 1: a business story as such, but Australia has lost an

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Speaker 1: icon with the death of film critic David Stratton at

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Speaker 1: age eighty five. He was best known to TV audiences

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Speaker 1: as the host of The Movie Show on SBS and

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Speaker 1: at the Movies on the ABC alongside Margaret Pomerance. Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister Anthony Albanizi has led tributes to Stratton's dry humor

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Speaker 1: and sharp insight, saying everyone who watched him on television

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Speaker 1: respected him for his deep knowledge and for the gentle

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Speaker 1: and generous way he passed it on. That's it for

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Speaker 1: the Afternoon Report for Thursday, the fourteenth of August twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five. Make sure you hit follow on the podcast

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Speaker 1: and we'll be back tomorrow morning with the Friday edition

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Speaker 1: of the past five business news by Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 1: Uncle Thompson. Enjoy your Agent