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Speaker 1: It's Monday, the thirteenth of January 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.

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Speaker 2: Sean Aylmer. Good morning, Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: Five stories, five minutes. Let's go a story number one.

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Speaker 1: The Aussie dollar has hit its lowest level since the

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic, heading towards sixty one US sinse sure

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Speaker 1: is hit sixty one point three eight cents on Friday.

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Speaker 2: Now. In September last year, it peaked at more than

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Speaker 2: sixty nine cents. That is a big drop in the

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Speaker 2: past four months or so. It's also lower against the

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Speaker 2: Euro and against the yen, though nowhere near as much

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Speaker 2: as it is against the US dollar. A lot of

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Speaker 2: that is about the US dollar strength. The Trade Weighted Index,

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Speaker 2: which measures the local currency against the company of the

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Speaker 2: countries that we trade with, it fell below sixty last week. Now,

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Speaker 2: it's done that a few times in the past few weeks.

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Speaker 2: Apart from COVID and the GFC. That actually hasn't happened

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Speaker 2: for a sustained period in about twenty years. Not good

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Speaker 2: for holiday makers obviously, especially those going to the US.

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Speaker 2: The reason, well, inflation just looks a little better than

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Speaker 2: we thought before everyone went on holidays before Christmas, more

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Speaker 2: than in a moment. Also, the outlook for commodities ain't

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Speaker 2: so good. The Australian dollar depends on the price of

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Speaker 2: things like coal and iron ore. Well, the outlook's not

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Speaker 2: so good, so therefore the dollar weakens. At the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, it's not all bad news. It's actually

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Speaker 2: good for the economy. Imports become more expensive, which means

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Speaker 2: we here in Australia by local exports, our exports are cheaper,

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Speaker 2: so it's actually a boost for economic growth.

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Speaker 1: Sean story number two. That boost for economic growth could

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Speaker 1: well work against the Reserve Bank of Australia cutting interest

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Speaker 1: rates anytime soon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sure could. Last week, the Australian Bureau Statistics

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Speaker 2: monthly Consumer price INDEXTA came out two point three percent

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Speaker 2: was the headline number. Now very low, but that reflects,

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Speaker 2: as NHB rebates we've been talking about for a while,

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Speaker 2: the underlying figure which everyone's keeping to klodestein just three

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Speaker 2: point two percent in November, down from three and a

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Speaker 2: half percent in October. This is only a partial series.

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Speaker 2: It only tells part of the story. But the trend

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Speaker 2: is our friend. In this case, inflation is heading in

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Speaker 2: the right direction. Now that wiker Ossie dollar will give

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Speaker 2: the Reserve Bank pause for thought, because that does actually

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Speaker 2: act as a stimulitary factor for the economy. Some very

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Speaker 2: well known economists, for example, the chief economists at Ain's

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Speaker 2: are the chief economists of a quarry, have come out

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Speaker 2: in the last week or so it said we reckon

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Speaker 2: there'll be a rate cut next month in February. In fact,

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Speaker 2: bond markets have ascribed a seventy two percent chance of

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Speaker 2: a rate cut next month.

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Speaker 1: Sean story number three. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has outlined

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Speaker 1: his vision for Australia. This was in a major speech

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Speaker 1: yesterday where he said he'd focus on tax, migration and education.

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Speaker 2: I reckon, there's an election coming up in May, Michael.

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Speaker 2: It does sound a little bit like that, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: Mister Dutton was speaking in Melbourne. That significant because the

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Speaker 2: Coalition owns just or holds just the eleven of thirty

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Speaker 2: nine seats in Victoria. They want to win seats like

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Speaker 2: chisholm Aston, Goldstein and McEwen around that Melbourne area. Peter Dunton.

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Speaker 2: He said it's the last chance to reverse the economy

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Speaker 2: and the social decline of Australia. He was very heavy

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Speaker 2: on vision. He talked called it a sliding doors moment.

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Speaker 2: He talked about views, values and visions of everyday Australians.

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Speaker 2: He said Anthony Alberanezi was one of the week's Prime ministers.

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Speaker 2: Ever want to keep going on about small government, using

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Speaker 2: business to drive growth, lower and simpler taxas, families the

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Speaker 2: mainstay of society, a nation with living within its means,

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Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. Policy not so much tax, migration, education. Eh,

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Speaker 2: but we didn't get any policy details yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Michael story number four Seawan, the local share market has

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Speaker 1: started twenty twenty five. You got to say reasonably well,

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Speaker 1: although it's still quite away from the highs of early

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Speaker 1: December last year, which was face it, I think about

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Speaker 1: six weeks ago.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, back then it was eighty five hundred points. It

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Speaker 2: fell to blow eighty one hundred points just before Christmas.

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Speaker 2: It's now around eighty three hundred points. In the first

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Speaker 2: couple of weeks of twenty twenty five. The property companies

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Speaker 2: have done best. That's on all that interstrate speculation. If

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Speaker 2: rates fall or people think rates going to fall, that helps.

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Speaker 2: That helps the property companies. Energy companies have also done well.

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Speaker 2: That's on the back of higher prices. The financials and

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Speaker 2: healthcare stocks they've done pretty well back of rates. Big

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Speaker 2: winners last year, be half for them to keep that

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Speaker 2: up this year. Overall, very difficult to have much confidence

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Speaker 2: about twenty twenty five. So much going on Trump tariffs

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Speaker 2: and policies. Will he start a tax war? Who knows

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Speaker 2: what's it means for China, What's it mean for global trade?

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Speaker 2: What's it mean for Australia. Lots of uncertainty?

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Speaker 1: Michael, Yeah, indeed, okay, last one, story number five is

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Speaker 1: actually about Donald Trump, sure, because his influence is cutting

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Speaker 1: a sway through many companies, And this one is particularly interesting. Meta,

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Speaker 1: owner of Facebook. This is extraordinary.

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Speaker 2: So Mark Zuckerberg has overhauled his free speech premative at Meta.

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Speaker 2: He's ended its fact checking program. He said that Meta

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Speaker 2: will now rely on community to flag its information, which

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Speaker 2: is what X does. It's weakened its hate speech policies.

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Speaker 2: Zuckerberg replaced its global policy chief Nick Clegg with a

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Speaker 2: prominent Republican, a friend of Trump, a guy called Joel Kaplan.

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Speaker 2: He appointed Dana White, who's the see of the UFC

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Speaker 2: and a Trump confidant to the board. Over the weekend,

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Speaker 2: Meta dubbed its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. He appeared

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Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg This Is and Joe Reagan's podcast saying corporates

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Speaker 2: have become culturally newted that we need more masculine energy

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Speaker 2: and we need to celebrate aggression a bit more. Quite

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Speaker 2: an immediate and remarkable response to the fact that Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump takes office in a week.

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

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Speaker 1: five business stories in five minutes.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael.

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Speaker 1: It is Monday, the thirteenth of January twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 1: remembered hit follow on the podcast and five minutes, isn't

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Speaker 1: it enough? You can find our longer daily show called

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Speaker 1: Fear and Greed where listen to podcasts. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and that was the past five business news by Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed. Have a great day.