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Speaker 1: It's Monday, the seventeenth 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 in just five minutes. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and good morning Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael, Seawan.

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Speaker 1: Five stories in five minutes. Let's get cracking with story

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Speaker 1: number one. Wall Street rallied hard over the weekend, which

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Speaker 1: aug is well for the local market today, which is

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Speaker 1: off ten percent from its peak four weeks ago. But investors,

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Speaker 1: it seems having a bed each way also pushing gold

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Speaker 1: at the same time towards three thousand US dollars an

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Speaker 1: ounce for the first time.

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Speaker 2: There's been four weeks of selling locally, reflecting what's happened

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Speaker 2: on Wall Street. But over the weekend, the S and

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Speaker 2: P five hundred jump more than two percent. Futures markets

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Speaker 2: say that the local boss will open more than one

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Speaker 2: percent high today. The sentiment is that the market has

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Speaker 2: sold off too much. We'll have to wait and see

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Speaker 2: whether that's true. They're not total confidence on that view.

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Speaker 2: That though the price of gold pushed to just below

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Speaker 2: three thousand US dollars, announce over the weekend. Futures trading

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Speaker 2: people who are buying gold in the future, well, they're

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Speaker 2: buying contracts worth more than three thousand US dollars. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: that's where they think it is going. People go to

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Speaker 2: gold when there's uncertainty, when they're worried about stuff. So

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Speaker 2: while there seems to be some relief in the market,

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Speaker 2: they're still a little bit worried and that's why they're

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Speaker 2: buying gold. Bitcoin jump to six percent of the weekend

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Speaker 2: off it's four months low. Other cryptos have also done well.

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Speaker 2: Even some of the big tech stocks, notably Tuesla and

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Speaker 2: to a lesser extent, Nvidia, rose over the weekend.

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Speaker 1: So a professional investor is calling the bottom of the market,

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Speaker 1: then sewan or is it just too soon?

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Speaker 2: It's too soon. The trend momentum trading they call it,

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Speaker 2: is still negative. And when it was rising that really

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Speaker 2: momentum trading push prices up. The momentum is still pushing

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Speaker 2: prices down. We've still got the threat of tariffs. Of course,

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Speaker 2: there's much of central banks talking this week about interest rates.

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Speaker 2: We'll have to see what happens there. Too soon to

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Speaker 2: say the bottom of the market, but there's just a

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Speaker 2: little bit more confidence, Okay.

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Speaker 1: Moving on to story number two now, Prime Minister Anthony

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Speaker 1: Aberzi has reaffirmed that Australia would consider an Australian troop

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Speaker 1: contribution to a Coalition of the Willing peacekeeping presence in

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Speaker 1: Ukraine if a request were to come through.

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Speaker 2: Mister Alberanzi pledged to stand up to a bully president

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Speaker 2: in Russia's Ladimir Putin and said any contribution to a

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Speaker 2: peacekeeping force would be small. On Saturday, the Prime Minister

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Speaker 2: attended a Coalition of the Willing Call, which was a

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Speaker 2: call between the leaders European leaders. UK's Prime Minister Keir

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Speaker 2: Starmer organized At, the leaders of New Zealand and Canada

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Speaker 2: were on the call as well as mister Alberansi. The

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Speaker 2: US was not on the call, but they were kind

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Speaker 2: of trying to work out what to do in Europe

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Speaker 2: without the US.

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Speaker 1: Storry Number three, let's talk property for a moment. Surean

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Speaker 1: After a couple of pretty good weeks in terms of

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Speaker 1: auction clearance rates, things have slowed down a touch, with

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Speaker 1: another below seventy percent preliminary clearance rate across the nation's

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Speaker 1: capital cities.

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Speaker 2: It came in just over sixty nine percent for the weekend,

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Speaker 2: almost three percentage points below three weeks ago, so it

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Speaker 2: was seventy two down to sixty nine percent. Sydney Melbourne

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Speaker 2: remain above seventy percent. In fact, Sydney was up just

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Speaker 2: a little bit over the weekend. But anecdotally it just

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Speaker 2: seems like the property market is a bit soft at

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Speaker 2: the moment. We had a couple of good weeks when

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Speaker 2: we got that interest rate cut, but things seem to

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Speaker 2: have gone there the other way.

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Speaker 1: All right. Story number four The good news for millions

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Speaker 1: at Australians on welfare sean said to have their payments

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Speaker 1: boosted by thousands of dollars each year under indexation changes

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Speaker 1: that are due to kicking this week.

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Speaker 2: In fact, more than five million people, including pensioners, renters,

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Speaker 2: job seekers will receive increases from Thursday. A single pensioner

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Speaker 2: will receive an extra nine hundred dollars each year, Couples

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Speaker 2: receive will receive nearly six thousand dollars extra. Job seeker

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Speaker 2: payments will go up by three hundred and seventy four dollars.

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Speaker 2: Single parents, mainly women, will also receive more. Pensions are

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Speaker 2: index twice a year in March and September. Now the

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Speaker 2: increase depends on inflation in the previous six months, because

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Speaker 2: we've had high inflation, so too is the indexation. So

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Speaker 2: great news for people receiving welfare payments.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, all right, last one story Number five. Hundreds

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Speaker 1: of US companies have removed references to diversity, equity and

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Speaker 1: inclusion from their annual report in a sharp pullback from

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Speaker 1: the corporate values that have become a target of President

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's administration.

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Speaker 2: More than two hundred of America's largest corporate groups of

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Speaker 2: cold mentions of DEI in related terms such as diversity.

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Speaker 2: According to fact Set data and company filings analyzed by

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Speaker 2: the Financial Times. Of the top four hundred companies in

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Speaker 2: the S and P five hundred index, ninety percent of

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Speaker 2: those have filed an annual report since Trump's election, and

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Speaker 2: they've cut at least that ninety percent of cut at

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Speaker 2: least some references to DEI, with many ditching them entirely.

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Speaker 2: In addition, many companies no longer include statistics, are breaking

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Speaker 2: down their workforce by race, or have dropped references to

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Speaker 2: awards for DEI initiatives or internal affinity groups. Incredible, how

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Speaker 2: fast the pronouncement of Donald Trump has seeped into corporate America.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, all right, there we go the top five

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Speaker 1: business stories in five minutes. Thank you very much, Sean,

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Michael. It is Monday, the seventeenth of March

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Remember to hit follow on the podcast,

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Speaker 1: and if five minutes isn't enough, you can find our

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Speaker 1: longer daily show called Fear and the Greed wherever you

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Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. I'm Michael Thompson and that was the

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Speaker 1: fast five business news by Fear and Greed. Have a

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Speaker 1: great day.