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Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, the fifth of March twenty twenty five. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed,

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Speaker 1: where we give you the top five business stories you

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Speaker 1: need to know. When it's five minutes, I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and good morning Sean Aleman.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael.

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Speaker 1: All right, five stories in five minutes. Let's go Sean.

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Speaker 1: Story number one. The value of agricultural production in Australia

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Speaker 1: this financial year is set to hit almost one hundred

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Speaker 1: billion dollars, which is driven by record livestock and crop production. However,

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Speaker 1: the shadow of global tariffs is looming large over the sector,

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Speaker 1: with fears of major disruptions in particular to global supply chains.

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Speaker 2: That's right, ninety eight billion dollars this financial year, the

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Speaker 2: second highest on record. Livestocks expected to contribute forty billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: That's on the back of strong demand for Australian red

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Speaker 2: meat and livestock products. According to the Australian Bureau of

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Speaker 2: Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, crop production levels will

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Speaker 2: come in around fifty two billion dollars. It's been a

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Speaker 2: really good year, apart from some dry weather in South Australia.

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Speaker 2: And Victoria. To get a bit of context here on

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Speaker 2: or exports are worth about one hundred and forty billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about one hundred billion dollars. That's about the

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Speaker 2: same as the value of manufacturing in this country. Very

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Speaker 2: big part of the economy, big employer, two hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty thousand people, mostly in sheep and beef farming and

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Speaker 2: grain production uses about fifty five percent of land in

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Speaker 2: Australia and a massive seventy percent of water usage. The

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Speaker 2: bottom line is that the ag sector is doing pretty

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Speaker 2: well at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Sean is obviously a very important sector. What happens though,

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Speaker 1: if the world becomes just filled with tariffs.

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Speaker 2: The problem with tariffs isn't necessarily first order impact. Some

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Speaker 2: goods may be hit with a tariff, but it's not

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Speaker 2: really a big concern. Thus farther and no US tariffs

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Speaker 2: and Australian egg products for example. In fact, tariffs on

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Speaker 2: other countries will change the competitive landscape and that could

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Speaker 2: help Australia. We saw that happen yesterday with Beijing instituting

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Speaker 2: tariffs on some US agricultural products. What does that mean

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Speaker 2: for Australia or maybe we become a better place for

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Speaker 2: the US to sell products don't name. The big risk

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Speaker 2: really is that tarifs can disrupt global supply change, raise

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Speaker 2: input costs, put inflationy pressures into the economy, and they

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Speaker 2: can reduce global economic activity and that would be bad

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Speaker 2: for the our agricultural sector.

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Speaker 1: Okay, moving on to story number two now, and the

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Speaker 1: Australian opened the tennis Sean and the cricket tests against

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Speaker 1: India helped trigger a jump in retail spending in January,

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Speaker 1: continuing a pretty decent run, a good turnover.

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Speaker 2: That's right, up zero point three percent for January thanks

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Speaker 2: to higher sales at grocery stores, cafes and restaurants. Basically,

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Speaker 2: the retail slump looks to be over with the caveat

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Speaker 2: that people are buying lower cost item, home brands, that

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Speaker 2: type of things, but at least they're spending money. Over

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Speaker 2: the year, retail revenue is up four percent compared to growth.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty good. Today we get how fast the economy

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Speaker 2: grew last year. Economists recond will be one and a

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Speaker 2: half percent there abouts. But if you've got retail growth

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Speaker 2: at four percent, we're almost four percent versus one and

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Speaker 2: a half acent looks pretty good for retailers.

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Speaker 1: Story at number three. The local insurance stocks got hit

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Speaker 1: yesterday as Cyclone Alfred heads towards the southern Queensland Northern

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Speaker 1: New South Wales coast, so.

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Speaker 2: Suncourt, which is based in Brisbane, fell two and a

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Speaker 2: half percent. QB was down more than two percent, IAD

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Speaker 2: a little less than two percent. In a statement, Suncourt

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Speaker 2: said the Federal Government Cyclone Reinsurance Pool provides cover for

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Speaker 2: damage when a storm is classified as a cyclone, hence

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Speaker 2: the company's protected and Brisbane, Southeast Queensland and Northern New

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Speaker 2: South Wales are preparing for Cyclone Alfred, with up to

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Speaker 2: a meat of rain forecast and winds in excess of

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Speaker 2: one hundred klometers an hour for some areas. Beaches from

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Speaker 2: the Sunshine Coast in Queensland to Barron Bay northern New

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Speaker 2: South Wales have been closed. The region's home to at

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Speaker 2: least four million people. The storm's intensified to a category

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Speaker 2: two cyclone. It's expected to make land for tomorrow. Residents

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Speaker 2: of Southeast Queensland have been told to prepare for up

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Speaker 2: to three days of power outages.

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Speaker 1: Story number four. The US is spending military aid to Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: As Donald Trump seeks to increase pressure on Volodimi Zelenski

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Speaker 1: to make concessions, just days after the two leaders very

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Speaker 1: publicly sparred in the White House over peace talks with Russia.

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Speaker 2: Trump's decision halts what has been a consistent supply of

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Speaker 2: US military assistance, including weapons, to Kiev since Moscow launched

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Speaker 2: its full scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. A

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Speaker 2: White House official said, the President has been clear that

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Speaker 2: he's focused on peace. We need our partners to be

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Speaker 2: committed to that goal as well. Trump's move came after

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Speaker 2: he renewed his attacks on the Ukraine president on social media.

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Speaker 2: He also suggested Ukraine's leader might be out of office

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Speaker 2: if he fails to reach an accord with Moscow. According

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Speaker 2: to the Financial Times.

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Speaker 1: Last one story number five, possibly my favorite story of

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Speaker 1: the week, Sean City Group almost moved about six billion

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Speaker 1: US dollars to a customer's account by accident after a

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Speaker 1: staffer that was handling the transfer copied and pasted the

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Speaker 1: account into a field for the dollar figure. And it

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Speaker 1: comes after it emerged that the bank nearly credited an

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Speaker 1: internal account eighty one trillion US dollars. Is a few

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Speaker 1: problems few problems.

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Speaker 2: The first mistake came from City Group's wealth management business.

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Speaker 2: It magnified the amount that was supposed to be transferred

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Speaker 2: by more than a thousand times. It was detected on

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Speaker 2: the next business day. According to Bloomberg, it happened in

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Speaker 2: the same month that another part of the bank accidentally

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Speaker 2: credited eighty one trillion US dollars to an internal account

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Speaker 2: the wealth division's era. The first one, the six billion US,

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Speaker 2: was reported to regulators, and executives, were in the midst

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Speaker 2: of the discussions with senior management over the mistake when

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Speaker 2: word of the much larger error reached them. Could you

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Speaker 2: imagine that meeting? How much fun? The firm since set

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Speaker 2: up a company wide tool to help vet large payments

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Speaker 2: and transfers. No doubt they have.

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Speaker 1: Oh goodness, there we go the top five business stories

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Speaker 1: in five minutes. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael. It

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Speaker 1: is Wednesday, the fifth of March twenty two, five remembered

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Speaker 1: hit follow on the podcast and in five minutes isn't enough.

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Speaker 1: You can find our longer daily show called Fear and

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Speaker 1: the Fear and Greed Weekly newsletter is out head along

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Speaker 1: in and you will receive it mid morning. I'm Michael

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Speaker 1: Thompson and that was the fast five business news by

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Speaker 1: Fear and Greed. Have a great day.