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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed business news you can use today.

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Speaker 1: The local share market is set to tumble after the

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Speaker 1: price of oil pushes above ninety two US dollars a barrel.

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Speaker 1: Some petrol wholesalers begin rationing supplies to service stations, and

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Speaker 1: Australia Post manages to deliver more than three thousand parcels

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Speaker 1: a minute during the Christmas rush, plus a strong week

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Speaker 1: for auctions, And how the boom in data centers has

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Speaker 1: created a boom in man camps. It's Monday, the ninth

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Speaker 1: of March twenty twenty six. I'm Michael Thompson and good

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Speaker 1: morning Sewan ailma a man camp.

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't think of anything worse. We'll get to it though.

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Speaker 1: It's actually something I never thought I would say in

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Speaker 1: Fear and Greed, especially especially not in the headlines. But yes,

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Speaker 1: you're right, we will get to that a bit later

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Speaker 1: on the main story this morning, Sean. The local share

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Speaker 1: market set to tumble today after oil prices surged beyond

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Speaker 1: ninety two US dollars a barrel, and US President Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump on social media said Iran would be hit very

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Speaker 1: hard and the war could expand to other areas and

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Speaker 1: other groups of people. After falling nearly four percent last week,

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Speaker 1: the SMPASX two hundred is set to open nearly two

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Speaker 1: percent lower. According to futures trading, Oil prices have risen

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Speaker 1: on the back of feared production disruption throughout the Middle

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Speaker 1: East and the closure of the Strait of Humus, which

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Speaker 1: shifts about twenty percent of the world's oil supply, so

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Speaker 1: it is an absolutely critical passage that one. Over the weekend,

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Speaker 1: Iranian state media reported that an oil storage facility in

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Speaker 1: southern Tehran had been hit in a US Israeli strike.

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Speaker 1: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps indicated it would retaliate by

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Speaker 1: striking a refinery in Israel. Meanwhile, the UAE and Kuwait

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Speaker 1: have both started cutting oil output simply because they can't

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Speaker 1: actually ship it anywhere exactly.

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Speaker 2: All that together push Brent to ninety two dollars and

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Speaker 2: sixty nine cents US a barrel over the weekend, the

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Speaker 2: highest level in eighteen months, and even then it only

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Speaker 2: touched that level briefly eighteen months ago. We've taking it

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Speaker 2: back to about twenty twenty two or so to get

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Speaker 2: back to these sorts of numbers. Brent is up thirty

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Speaker 2: four percent over the past month. The price of oil

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Speaker 2: is key to share markets because it's critical to economic

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Speaker 2: prosperity for many economies, including the United States and Australia.

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Speaker 2: Higher prices push up transportation costs, including at the bowser

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Speaker 2: That can leave consumers with less money to spend on

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Speaker 2: other things. It also pushes up production costs, which of

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Speaker 2: course rely on transportation and energy. And when you get

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Speaker 2: rising prices, central banks tend to think more about lifting

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Speaker 2: interest rates, which of course that slows down the economy

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Speaker 2: as well.

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Speaker 1: We're already seeing a slowdown in the US. We're with

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Speaker 1: labor market data showing nearly one hundred thousand jobs of reduction.

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Speaker 1: Now that's coming to cross over the weekend. There's also

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Speaker 1: plenty of signs of inflation in the world's largest economy.

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Speaker 1: Slowing economy with inflation sounds a lot like stagflation. Sean,

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Speaker 1: I've been listening to you over a long period of time.

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Speaker 2: Well done, and I know nobody wants that, no, I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's a very big test for the Trump administration. Oil

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Speaker 2: prices are rising because of the Middle East conflict. Gas

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Speaker 2: prizes in the US hit their highest level last week

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Speaker 2: compared to any other time during the Trump presidency, the

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Speaker 2: pace of economic growth, according to the FED, is slowing,

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Speaker 2: while tariff produced inflation is rising. This whole stagflation phenomenon

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Speaker 2: that of course becomes a political problem for Donald Trump

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Speaker 2: with midterm elections later in the year. People almost always

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Speaker 2: vote based on what's good for them. If we have

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Speaker 2: prices rising, people struggling to find a job, they will

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Speaker 2: not be happy.

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Speaker 1: I've talked in the past about the fact that in

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Speaker 1: the end, elections are decided on the hip pocket, really,

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Speaker 1: aren't they. It is based on the economy for everything else.

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Speaker 1: That and a lot of kind of national security and

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Speaker 1: other things create a lot of noise during election campaigns,

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Speaker 1: But what people actually vote on in the end is

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Speaker 1: what is going to be best for them, their household,

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Speaker 1: households and really their finances and their security.

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Speaker 2: I mean. The irony of all this is the Maga

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Speaker 2: movement is starting to splinter somewhat over the war in

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Speaker 2: the Middle East. The Mega movement put Donald Trump in power.

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Speaker 2: They're splitting saying, hey, we're not actually all about invading

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Speaker 2: other nations or bombing other nations. It's actually about looking

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Speaker 2: after us here at home. There would be an irony

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Speaker 2: if his foreign policy. Actually, I mean because he's supposed

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Speaker 2: to be a peace president. Of course his foreign policy

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Speaker 2: caused him to lose or the Republicans to lose the

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Speaker 2: midterm elections. But that's what it's looking like, simply because

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Speaker 2: people are actually worried about have they got a job,

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Speaker 2: Can they put gas in their car, Can they put

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Speaker 2: food on the table? That type of thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, A cool side effect, a casualty of the

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Speaker 1: conflict in the Middle East is the relationship between the

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Speaker 1: US and the UK. This is really quite extraordinary, with

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Speaker 1: President Donald Trump telling the UK Prime Minister Kirstarma that

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Speaker 1: his country did not need its quote once great ally

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Speaker 1: Britain to send aircraft carriers to the region.

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Speaker 2: The US president said he will remember the lack of

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Speaker 2: British support for his war with Iran, adding at the

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Speaker 2: US doesn't need people to join wars after they've already won. Now.

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Speaker 2: He made the remarks after it emerged that Royal Navy

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Speaker 2: UK Royal Navy was preparing HMS Prince of Wales, one

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Speaker 2: of its two aircraft carriers, for possible deployment till the

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Speaker 2: Middle East within the next five days. Donald Trump basically said,

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Speaker 2: you're two weeks late and had a royal crack at them.

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Speaker 1: In terms of what's happening on the ground, fighting continues

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Speaker 1: at Israel, Lebanon, Iran. Three oil refineries in Tehran struck

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Speaker 1: by Israel. Wila Tower in the Dubai Marina was hit

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Speaker 1: by Iranian missiles Astraighta.

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Speaker 2: The Iranian president appeared on State TV said he wanted

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Speaker 2: good relations with his neighbors and retaliations against strikes doesn't

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Speaker 2: mean that they had a problem with them. I'm not

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Speaker 2: sure the logic in that one is. Donald Trump appears

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Speaker 2: to have back tracked on letting Kurds joined the war,

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Speaker 2: saying it's complicated enough already. Back home. Foreign Mister Penny

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Speaker 2: Wong said Australia is considering aiding golf countries to protect

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Speaker 2: them against drone and missile attacks, but she ruled out

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Speaker 2: direct offensive action against Iran.

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Speaker 1: Okay, plenty more still to come back in a moment

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Speaker 1: with the rest of the day's business news. Sean fuel

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Speaker 1: rationing in Australia has been introduced by one wholesaler in

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Speaker 1: the way of the Middle East conflict. United Petroleum has

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Speaker 1: told customers it has suspended normal fuel allocations across all

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Speaker 1: locations effective immediately, citing uncertainty and global oil markets and

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Speaker 1: potential disruption to shipping routes and to freight availability.

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Speaker 2: United Petroleum is one of Australia's largest independent fuel wholesalers

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Speaker 2: and retailers, supplying petrol and diesel now. In a note

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Speaker 2: to customers, United Petroleum said the move was a precautionary

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Speaker 2: step while the company assessed its fuel inventories and incoming

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Speaker 2: cargo schedules. According to report in The Australian Wholesalers, what

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Speaker 2: do they do where they buy fuel from refineries refineries

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Speaker 2: in Australia or at import terminals where the boats come

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Speaker 2: drop it off. They basically put it in the tankers,

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Speaker 2: they sell it and distribute it to service stations. They

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Speaker 2: are the middle guysers there. When allocations are restricted, distributors

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Speaker 2: such as service stations get less than what they want.

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Speaker 2: Part of the problem with this, of course, is that

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Speaker 2: we are talking about it and when people think petrol's

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Speaker 2: going to be rationed, that means people go and panic

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Speaker 2: by Australian Institute of Petroleum Chief Executive Malcolm Roberts said

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Speaker 2: the industry had observed a sharp increase in fuel purchases

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Speaker 2: since the conflict began in ouran.

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Speaker 1: We talked on Friday afternoon in the afternoon report, didn't

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Speaker 1: we about the fact that the hble SEE is really

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Speaker 1: watching closely to see whether service stations are potentially lifting, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: lift and lifting prices prematurely. That yes, of course this

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Speaker 1: is going to cause a spike in petrol prices. But

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Speaker 1: the way that the petrol price cycle works is that

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Speaker 1: if there is an increase in the price of oil,

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Speaker 1: it's usually an extended period of time before it flows

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Speaker 1: through to the bowser. And there is concern that some

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Speaker 1: may be increasing prices prematurely ahead of the point at

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Speaker 1: which that would actually flow through.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean a couple of weeks is generally the

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Speaker 2: rule of thumb takes a couple of weeks. What we

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Speaker 2: did talk about last week was that oil prices were, sorry,

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Speaker 2: petrol prices were rising before this Middle East conflict actually

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Speaker 2: happened anyway, So it's kind of hard to work out

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Speaker 2: what is just the cyclical nature of it. Yeah, and

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Speaker 2: then the impact of the Middle East conflict.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, And it's something that's always feels a bit

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Speaker 1: dense to try and understand that it's fair to say

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Speaker 1: that the way that petrol prices and diesel prices actually

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Speaker 1: work are the best of times with the ah triable.

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Speaker 1: C is certainly keeping a very close eye on it now.

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Speaker 1: Long weekends in Victoria, South Australia and the Act cut

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Speaker 1: the number of homes up for auction over the past week,

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Speaker 1: though the combined preliminary clearance rate was a relatively strong,

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Speaker 1: very healthy seventy two point one percent.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Sydney hasted nearly a thousand auctions with its

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Speaker 2: pc R, otherwise known as the preliminary clearance rate. You

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Speaker 2: are are you atty better at that?

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Speaker 1: I'm going to say you were cured. You went for

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Speaker 1: a year where you could not say that, and now

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Speaker 1: you just show off.

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Speaker 2: Just slow down. Preliminary clearance rate just like that. Seventy

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Speaker 2: four point three percent in Sydney will above the previous

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Speaker 2: weeks sixty five and a half percent. Melbourne had fewer options.

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Speaker 2: There was a grand prix going on down there. Of course,

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Speaker 2: its preliminary clearance rate came and at sixty five and

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Speaker 2: a half percent. Numbers is a bit difficult to read

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Speaker 2: really given the disruption from the long weekend in those states,

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Speaker 2: but undoubtedly the potential for hire interest rates is playing

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Speaker 2: a role. So what do we know about higher interest rates? Well,

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Speaker 2: there was the Bank Board meets in eight days time

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Speaker 2: to consider higher interest rates. Most of the data they

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Speaker 2: look at they've already got. I mean, we have consumer

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Speaker 2: sentiment and business sentiment this week, but most of the

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Speaker 2: heavy data they've got. So there is a chance of

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Speaker 2: a rate hike, though I dare say an increase is

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Speaker 2: probably more likely to occur in May. What does the

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Speaker 2: cook think about all this?

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Speaker 1: Michael, Well, he actually thinks broadly that we are being

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Speaker 1: a bit negative about the economy and we dig into

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Speaker 1: that today in the week ahead because it is a

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Speaker 1: slightly quieter week in terms of the data that is

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Speaker 1: coming through this week. But it took the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: just focus on that question of whether we are being

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Speaker 1: too negative that on the back of very strong gdpeople,

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Speaker 1: comparatively strong GDP figures that we saw last week, and

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Speaker 1: a very strong labor market as well, that perhaps we

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Speaker 1: are too quick to jump to the interest rate hike

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Speaker 1: side of things, less about just the fact that we

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Speaker 1: are in a relatively good position in Australia right now,

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Speaker 1: and so it's a it's a really interesting episode coming

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Speaker 1: up after the show today, I'm allowed to say it's

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Speaker 1: a really interesting episode because it's just a part of it. Yes, Indeed,

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Speaker 1: Australia Post has posted five billion dollars in revenue for

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Speaker 1: the December half. It had to be said, didn't it.

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Speaker 1: Parcels and services now comprising eighty percent of turnover, but

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Speaker 1: group profit fell from nearly two hundred and fifty million

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Speaker 1: dollars to fifty million.

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Speaker 2: So a big chunk of that lower profit reflect today

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Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty million dollar investment to transform the business. Basically,

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Speaker 2: they've got to meet the surgeon e commerce. It's got

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Speaker 2: to be delivering parcels, not just letters. The letter business

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Speaker 2: continues to run out of loss. Performance in the first

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Speaker 2: half was driven by a record one hundred and eleven

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Speaker 2: million passes delivered a plus in November and December peak period.

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Speaker 2: The figure I love from it. Every minute in that

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Speaker 2: peak period November December obviously Christmas, three thousand and seventy

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Speaker 2: five parcels were delivered every minute across the country. Is

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Speaker 2: it not phenomenal? I just can't get your hit around that.

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Speaker 1: That is amazing and just the logistics required in that,

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Speaker 1: and not just the fact that they are delivered, that

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Speaker 1: you have the tracking that you have and like almost

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Speaker 1: down to the minute, you know where your parcel is.

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Speaker 2: It is that is staggering a bit of an Australia

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Speaker 2: Post fas during the six months it delivered two hundred

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Speaker 2: and eighty three million parcels. During that period, letter volumes

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Speaker 2: fell by twelve percent to seven hundred and thirty four

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Speaker 2: million letters. And that six months seven hundred and thirty

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Speaker 2: four million letters is still a fair few. Let's be honest.

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Speaker 2: That division made a small loss. It would have been

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Speaker 2: worse if not for a twenty cent increase in the

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Speaker 2: basic postal rate. The Australia Past wants another fifteen cent increase.

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Speaker 2: Do you know what a letter would cost if we

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Speaker 2: got well what it costs now before the fifteen cent increase.

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Speaker 2: I had no idea how to let this story.

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Speaker 1: It has been that long since I actually went and

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Speaker 1: bought stamps. No, I don't know what it is.

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Speaker 2: It still I was seventy postal letter.

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Speaker 1: Wow, I had annoyed if I receive a letter, a

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Speaker 1: physical letter, totally.

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Speaker 2: I got online immediately and log into yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I got one from my super fund last week,

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Speaker 1: and I was I was incensed by it. How do

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Speaker 1: you send me something on paper, because then I had

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Speaker 1: to digitize it and all this anyway, anyway, that's a

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Speaker 1: bit of a pet peeve of mine. The asx SEAN

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Speaker 1: will simplify rules for listed companies, hoping to have the

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Speaker 1: changes in place by the end of the year. Time

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Speaker 1: for the clock sticking.

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Speaker 2: There before is the Bank Governor Phil Lawyer's chair of

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Speaker 2: a new corporate governance body within the AX. He said

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Speaker 2: he hopes to reduce compliance burdens for listed companies. Now

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Speaker 2: we've spoken a little bit about this. AX currently has

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Speaker 2: a sixty three page corporate governance rule book. One of

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Speaker 2: the reasons companies haven't listed on in recent years is

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Speaker 2: all that red tape. Also, companies have plenty of options

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Speaker 2: when they're trying to access money. So you've got private equity,

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Speaker 2: venture capital. But you know, in recent years private credit

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Speaker 2: has taken off, so maybe you don't need to go

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Speaker 2: to the market, you just go to private credit. The

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Speaker 2: AX has to become more competitive to compete with these

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Speaker 2: asset classes. Therefore they want to simplify things. One of

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Speaker 2: the major complaints echoed last year by the corporate regulator

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Speaker 2: ACIC is the Governor's requirements for a large company like

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Speaker 2: Commonwealth Bank or BEAGP pretty much the same for a

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Speaker 2: small company. And I'll tell you what, if you're a

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Speaker 2: small company, you don't want to be doing BEACHP amount

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Speaker 2: of work.

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Speaker 1: No, God no. Turning to international news, now, sean the

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Speaker 1: rise and rise and rise of data centers, which are

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Speaker 1: often located in kind of out of the way regions

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Speaker 1: right that have fostered what are becoming known as man

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Speaker 1: camps across the US's building companies, they're fighting for staff.

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Speaker 1: They've shifted from offering kind of dodgy Wi Fi at

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Speaker 1: a local hotel to having temporary villagers set up games

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Speaker 1: rooms and free steak and golf simulators and everything. It

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Speaker 1: actually sounds kind of cool.

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Speaker 2: It is. I mean, it's not a totally unusual concept

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Speaker 2: for we in Australia because fly and fly o works normal,

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Speaker 2: but these US mini towns are just a little bit flashier.

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Speaker 2: So companies that have specialized in short term housing bills

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Speaker 2: have shifted their focus from things like immigration detention centers

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Speaker 2: to data center accommodation and they're doing really well from it.

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Speaker 2: In fact, Bloomberg estimates that seven hundred billion dollars worth

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Speaker 2: of mobile housing projects are in the development stage in

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Speaker 2: the US, not all for data centers, but they've really

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Speaker 2: been spurred by the AI industry. The homes sort of

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Speaker 2: vary from wood framed two story apartment buildings. They actually

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Speaker 2: look really quite quiet, flash to containerized modular homes down

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Speaker 2: to trailer parks less flash, workers get free housing, malls, amenities,

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Speaker 2: travel to work, all sorts of things like free Ribbi

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Speaker 2: was one of one of them, offics, free rabbis, games rooms,

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Speaker 2: golf simulators, those sorts of things. They're actually called workplace hubs,

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Speaker 2: not man cams. Workplace and women and married couples are

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Speaker 2: part of the communities, but overwhelmingly it is a male

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Speaker 2: place of residence rather than anything else.

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised that this is taking off in the US

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Speaker 1: as well, just because they have so many data centers

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Speaker 1: and the appetite there's I think the US has I

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Speaker 1: think it's eight times more data centers than the next

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Speaker 1: country that has got the I think it's the UK

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Speaker 1: has about five hundred compared to four thousand in the US,

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Speaker 1: but Australia comes in about six or seventh on the list,

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Speaker 1: So we are punching well above our weight might as

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Speaker 1: they pop this into the Fear and Gray Daily newsletter. Sean,

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Speaker 1: it's got all the makings of a wonderful table.

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Speaker 2: It has got a table all over it. I think,

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Speaker 2: of course, the lease data centers they need power and water,

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Speaker 2: and the thing is it's hard to get that in

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Speaker 2: urban areas, so to get enough power and water often

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Speaker 2: they need to go to far fine places, and that's

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Speaker 2: why we have these man camps.

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Speaker 1: There you go, all right up next Fear and Greed

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Speaker 1: Q and A with Stephen Cooculis, our resident economists. We

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Speaker 1: mentioned it before as coming up in the Fear and

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Speaker 1: Greed playlist on your podcast platform or at Fearangreed dot

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Speaker 1: com dot au, which is also we signed up for

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Speaker 1: that free daily newsletter. We're is going to be home

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Speaker 1: to a very good table about data centers this morning,

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Speaker 1: so it's worth subscribing just for that, and it's free.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Sean, Thank you, Michael.

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Speaker 1: It's Monday, the ninth of March twenty twenty six. Make

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Speaker 1: sure you're following the podcast and please join us online

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Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok and Facebook. I'm Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: That was Fear and greed have a great day.