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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 twenty fifth of March twenty twenty six,

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Speaker 1: Oh Michael Thompson, and every afternoon, we've got the five

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Speaker 1: stories that happened today that you need to know about.

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Speaker 1: Let's go with story number one. It was a terrific

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Speaker 1: day on the local share market. The S ANDPA s

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Speaker 1: X two hundred climbed almost one point nine percent today,

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Speaker 1: closing at eighty five hundred and thirty four points. It

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Speaker 1: added about fifty five billion dollars in value in the

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Speaker 1: best session in six weeks. The rally was really driven

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Speaker 1: by a combination of a couple of things. Softer than

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Speaker 1: expected inflation headline inflation came in at three point seven

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Speaker 1: percent for February, and signs that the US may be

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Speaker 1: moving towards talks with a run with reports of a

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Speaker 1: fifteen point piece plan helping ease fears around oil supplies

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Speaker 1: out of the region. Material stocks led the rebound. The

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Speaker 1: sector climbed four point four percent today. Estella day for

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Speaker 1: gold companies, the miners at Newmont jumped nearly nine percent,

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Speaker 1: Northern Star seven percent. Bellevue Gold sawed more than eleven percent.

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Speaker 1: Gold prices rallied, approaching forty six hundred US dollars an ounce.

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Speaker 1: Retailers also gained today. Eagles Automotive, the car dealership company

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Speaker 1: that was up five point six percent. JB High Fire

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Speaker 1: was up more than two and a half percent, while

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Speaker 1: the best on the boss was Drone Shield. The defense

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Speaker 1: tech company tends to go up and down a bit,

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Speaker 1: but today it was definitely up. Surged nineteen point three percent,

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Speaker 1: continuing to benefit from the geopolitical tensions. But as oil

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Speaker 1: prices fell sharply, the energy stocks copped at Woodside was

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Speaker 1: down three point two percent, Santos off more than two percent,

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Speaker 1: and Karn Energy slid more than seven percent today on

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Speaker 1: destory number two now in Japan's ambassador to Australia has

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Speaker 1: warned that any move to impose a windfall tax on

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Speaker 1: LNG exports would be seen as a bad surprise and

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Speaker 1: risk driving investment elsewhere it comes up to. The PM's

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Speaker 1: department asked Treasury to model the twenty five percent tax

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Speaker 1: on gas exports amid surging prices linked to the Middle

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Speaker 1: East conflict. Kazihiro Suzuki said retrospective changes, including a tougher

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Speaker 1: petroleum resources rent tax would undermine confidence, warning that Japanese

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Speaker 1: investors could shift capital to other countries if policy settings

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Speaker 1: change abruptly, adding that and I quote surprise in the

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Speaker 1: Japanese business dictionary is always bad. He also played down

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Speaker 1: the potential for a two way deal between Australia and Japan,

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Speaker 1: which would see Australia guarantee LNG supplies for Japan in

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Speaker 1: exchange for a supply of oil and story number three

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Speaker 1: on the topic of oil. Jetstar has cut more than

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Speaker 1: ten percent of its flights across the Tasman and within

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Speaker 1: New Zealand as soaring oil prices begin to hit demand

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Speaker 1: and airline economics. The low cost carrier has said that

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Speaker 1: twelve percent of scheduled services have been temporarily removed, including

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Speaker 1: routes between Auckland, Sydney and Brisbane. As jet fuel costs

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Speaker 1: climb sharply. We've been talking about this for days now.

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Speaker 1: The cuts follow a broader shift across the whole aviation sector.

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Speaker 1: Quantas and Virgin Australia have already announced that lifting at

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Speaker 1: ticket prices by about five percent in response to those

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Speaker 1: higher fuel costs, and international airlines, including out of the US,

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Speaker 1: have cut significant numbers of flights. Story number four. More

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Speaker 1: than two thousand ABC staff have walked off the job today,

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Speaker 1: and the broadcaster's largest strike in two decades, triggering widespread

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Speaker 1: disruption across radio, TV and digital services. Regular programming was

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Speaker 1: replaced by pre recorded messages and BBC feeds, while flagship

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Speaker 1: shows including The seven PM News and seven point thirty

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Speaker 1: have been pulled from the schedule. The twenty four hour

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Speaker 1: Industrial action centers on pay and job security, with staff

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Speaker 1: rejecting a proposed ten percent wage increase over three years

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Speaker 1: as insufficient given cost of living pressures. Management warned that

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Speaker 1: the timing was challenging global events and has broadened the

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Speaker 1: definition of emergency broadcasting as a potential way to order

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Speaker 1: striking staff back to work. And finally, story number five,

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Speaker 1: Apple is preparing a major overhaul of its voice assistant Siri,

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Speaker 1: including a standalone app and a new ask Siri feature

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Speaker 1: embedded across its devices as it really ramps up its

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Speaker 1: AI push. According to Bloomberg, the redesigned will shift Siri

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Speaker 1: from a basic voice assistant to a more advanced chatbot

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Speaker 1: style system capable of handling conversations, which it can't do now,

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Speaker 1: completing tasks within apps and drawing on personal data like

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Speaker 1: emails and messages. The new system is expected to be

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Speaker 1: unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and it's

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Speaker 1: designed to complete to compete rather more directly with tools

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Speaker 1: like CHATJPT and the AI offerings from Google. The move

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Speaker 1: does mark a pretty significant strategic shift as Apple looks

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Speaker 1: to catch up in the AI race after its initial

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Speaker 1: Apple Intelligence role out really struggle to gain traction. And

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Speaker 1: that's it for the Afternoon Report for Wednesday, the twenty

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Speaker 1: fifth of March. Make sure you're following the podcast and

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Speaker 1: head along to Fear and Greed dot com dot au

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Speaker 1: to sign up for our free daily newsletter. I'll put

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Speaker 1: a link in the show notes as well. I'm on Thompson.

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Speaker 1: Enjoy your evening,