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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the twentieth of February twenty twenty six. 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. Are Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and Good Morning Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Morning Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: Very quick reminder, if you're listening on Spotify on the

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Speaker 1: your daily drive playlist, that playlist is going to disappear.

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Speaker 1: It's going to happen very soon, so please hit follow

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Speaker 1: on the Fast five. Hit follow on this specific podcast

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Speaker 1: so that you get us every day. Once it has gone,

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Speaker 1: maybe get might get a little bit harder to find,

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Speaker 1: so just follow today on with the stories. We've got

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Speaker 1: five of them to get through. Story number one. Two

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Speaker 1: of Australia's biggest companies with huge shareholder bases, Telstra and

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Speaker 1: West Farmers, have reported strong earnings, so there are some

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Speaker 1: concerns over consumer spending. We'll start with Telstra. A big

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Speaker 1: jump in earnings allowed the telcode to give its more

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Speaker 1: than one million shareholders gifts of a higher half year

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Speaker 1: dividend and an increase in its share buyback scheme.

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Speaker 2: So Telstra has more shareholders than any other company. A

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Speaker 2: lot of them are retirees who rely on dividends, so

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Speaker 2: a big jump into diffidend is really good news. What's

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Speaker 2: happening there, it's mobile business is doing really well. It's

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Speaker 2: been able to increase what they call revenue per user.

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Speaker 2: So if you've got a telstrap plan and it went

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Speaker 2: up last year, well you might not be happy, but

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Speaker 2: investors are pretty happy. They've also lost about one thousand

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Speaker 2: jobs over the last six months. That's helping the bottom line.

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Speaker 2: The part that's not doing so well the enterprise division,

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Speaker 2: which includes the fixed phone business. That's because not many

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Speaker 2: of us have fixed phones anymore.

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Speaker 1: The other one, West Farmers, Australia's biggest conglomerates, posted a

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Speaker 1: rise in sales and profit, but warned that the heat

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Speaker 1: was coming out of consumer spending. Its share price went

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Speaker 1: down five and a half percent yesterday. West Farmers it's

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Speaker 1: mostly a retailer nowadays. It operates Bunnings that continues to boom,

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Speaker 1: provided fifty seven percent of earnings. Kmart's doing well, disappointed

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Speaker 1: a little in the December half year office works. Big

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Speaker 1: restructuring cost hampered earnings there. Target that's continuing really to struggle.

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Speaker 2: It is a bit. There's also got the signed pharmacy.

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Speaker 2: They've pushed into health. That business is growing. They've got

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Speaker 2: a chemicals, energy and fertilizers business. That profit jumped thanks

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Speaker 2: to a strong contribution from lithium. The December half profit

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Speaker 2: was up nine percent. Boss Rob Scott a little less

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Speaker 2: excited about the year ahead. He said, high cost of

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Speaker 2: weighing on household's business spending. Residential construction remains subdued. That's

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Speaker 2: hurt some of his businesses.

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Speaker 1: Story number two sean. A stronger than expected labor force

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Speaker 1: report from the Bureau of Stats yesterday has kept the

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Speaker 1: pressure on the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates. The

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Speaker 1: unemployment rates stated a relatively low four point one percent

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Speaker 1: last month, after eighteen thousand people found a job.

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Speaker 2: Mike, call me a culper. If you saw me sneeze,

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Speaker 2: then I had to rush. I had to hit the

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Speaker 2: mute button. Sneeze. I hit the wrong one, so I

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Speaker 2: went off. We Now, of course you can watch us

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Speaker 2: on YouTube, So there you go. Anyway, that's put a lot.

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Speaker 1: More pressure that'll get. That'll get people to check it out.

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Speaker 2: I watched sneez. Look, we're talking about unemployment four point

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Speaker 2: one percent. You said that eighty thousand number is interesting.

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Speaker 2: But what's even more interesting. Full time employment raised by

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Speaker 2: fifty thousand, dropping thirty three hours thirty three thousand people

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Speaker 2: in part time employment. Presumably many then went to full

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Speaker 2: time employment. So that's a really strong number. A reserve

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Speaker 2: bank has consistently called the labor market tight, and this

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Speaker 2: number backs up that assertion. Inflation's above target labor market constraint.

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Speaker 2: What's that mean for interest rates? Well, financial markets frequent.

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Speaker 2: There is now more than a fifty percent chance of

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Speaker 2: a raid hike. In May, story number three by now

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Speaker 2: pay later group Zipco takes out the prize, the unwanted

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Speaker 2: prize for the biggest share price fall after an earnings announcement.

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Speaker 2: It dropped forty percent yesterday Shawan after it missed its

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Speaker 2: forecast at disappointed with its guidance, and it said doubtful

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Speaker 2: debts were rising. It did improve a little bit.

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Speaker 1: It's okay. It was only down thirty four percent at

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Speaker 1: the close.

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Speaker 2: We've had some duds. Nick Scarley got sold Offmedicus, Temple

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Speaker 2: and Webster now one quite as much as Zipco. The

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Speaker 2: issue here by now pay later. What's always the cloud

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Speaker 2: over that particular type of business there has been bad debts,

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Speaker 2: would they start rising because if they do, you can

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Speaker 2: really undermine earnings. And that's what's happened at Zipco. Not

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Speaker 2: a disaster, right, but it just shows how weary, endless

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Speaker 2: and investors are of a jump in bad debts.

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Speaker 1: Storing numberfore Mark Zuckerberg yesterday testified that it's very difficult

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Speaker 1: to enforce Instagram's age limits and downplayed how much team

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Speaker 1: users do for the company's bottom line. During a Landmark

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Speaker 1: trial over social media addiction. The chief executive officer of

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Speaker 1: Meta was on the witness stand in California about the

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Speaker 1: company's efforts to attract and engage teams and whether it

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Speaker 1: adequately police accounts belonging to kids under thirteen despite rules

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Speaker 1: actually barring them from using the app.

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Speaker 2: Obviously very important for Australia because we have the under

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Speaker 2: sixteen rule. Zuckerberg said Meta has introduced some proactive tools

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Speaker 2: to try and identify and remover accounts used by children,

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Speaker 2: calls that called it a challenging problem. He also said

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Speaker 2: people lie about their age. It's hard to beat that one.

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Speaker 2: He also said he overruled concerns about teen well being

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Speaker 2: from staff and eighteen experts to lift a band on

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Speaker 2: Instagram beauty filters because he was concerned about free expression.

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Speaker 2: This trial centers on a twenty year old woman who

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Speaker 2: blames metas, Instagram and Google's YouTube for her years of

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Speaker 2: mental health struggles. It will be a benchmark trial for

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Speaker 2: the social media companies.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, last one story number five shown the super sized

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Speaker 1: servings that have long defined American dining are shrinking as

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Speaker 1: rising costs and the growing use of weight loss drugs

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Speaker 1: prompt restauranteurs to offer smaller portions. The trend towards lighter

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Speaker 1: and snack sized main meals across the US also comes

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Speaker 1: as restaurants are after kind of cash strapped consumers. Really,

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Speaker 1: no one's got that much spare money to spend. They

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Speaker 1: want lower cost options, so they're just serving up smaller meals.

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Speaker 1: You've got PF chains and Asian Fusion Chains got a

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Speaker 1: stack of restaurants across the US. It had a medium

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Speaker 1: of its main course dishes. Last year, KFC got four

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Speaker 1: thousand American outlets. It sean is. This is a quote

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Speaker 1: adjusting portion sizes and tailoring crispiness.

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Speaker 2: Let's hope so Olive Garden, the Italian food restaurant Change

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Speaker 2: known for its never ending soup or salad and breadsticks.

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Speaker 2: Well it is many also unlimited refills of coke. Last

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Speaker 2: month they introduced them and existing menu items and reduced sizes. Basically,

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Speaker 2: the sector struggling traffic slowing, sales is slowing. Two big issues.

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Speaker 2: They're facing high costs like beef prices much high. People

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Speaker 2: are using GLP one weight loss medications that suppresses the appetite.

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Speaker 2: Therefore they need to offer smaller plates. Fascinating trend to Michael, it.

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Speaker 1: Really is there. We go to the top five business

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

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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the twentieth of February twenty twenty six. Remember

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Speaker 1: to hit follow on the podcast and the five minutes

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Speaker 1: isn't enough. You can find our longer daily show called

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Speaker 1: Fear and Greed whereever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 2: I'm Michael Thompson.

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Speaker 1: Passed by Business News by Fear and Greed. Have a

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Speaker 1: great day.