Speaker 1: This is what the plus, I'm justin and I'm harsh
Speaker 1: Deep and it's Friday, the twenty seventh of September.
Speaker 2: HD Sullivan Lou, the chairman of Peter Alexander Smiggle, Just
Speaker 2: Jeans and a whole lot more retailers, has just warned
Speaker 2: that this year is the toughest it has ever been
Speaker 2: in retail He's been doing it for sixty one years.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, got to say, not the most motivating news
Speaker 2: for retailers right now.
Speaker 1: Oh not at all.
Speaker 2: Three cost cutting stories today, Let's get into it for
Speaker 2: our first Warner Brewers. Discovery has conferred plans if Max's
Speaker 2: streaming platform will be launching in Australia in the first
Speaker 2: half of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Another competitor for Netflix, Disney Plus and Stan and another
Speaker 1: subscription for US TV loving customers. Tell me more.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, Warner Brothers Discovery is one of the largest
Speaker 2: global entertainment companies in the whole world.
Speaker 1: And it became even bigger in twenty twenty two when
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers merged with Discovery, hence the name.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, between the two, they dominate the movie scene
Speaker 2: with the Marvel movies.
Speaker 1: And they dominate TV with the Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, CNN,
Speaker 1: TNT Sports and many more.
Speaker 2: But actually it's Water Brothers Discoveries HBO where many of
Speaker 2: their TV and movie successes come from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking shows like The Last of Us, Euphoria
Speaker 1: and Succession, which have been some of the biggest hits
Speaker 1: over the last few years.
Speaker 2: And while HBO launched its streaming platform Max in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty around the world, it wasn't in Australia and it
Speaker 2: was licensing that content to Foxtel.
Speaker 1: But Jazz Foxtail's long term licensing deal with Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: and therefore HBO is up for negotiation in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: and rather.
Speaker 2: Than renew it, Water Brothers has announced they're going to
Speaker 2: launch their own streaming service Max in Australia in the
Speaker 2: first half of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Stealing back all of their content from Foxtel's tight grasp
Speaker 1: like a plot twist in Succession.
Speaker 2: So true. So what is the key learning here?
Speaker 1: Owning your own products and your own content means controlling
Speaker 1: your own destiny, HG.
Speaker 2: When you license shows off third party platform, you're at
Speaker 2: the mercy of their decisions.
Speaker 1: Disney did this when they launched Disney Plus and they
Speaker 1: yanked all of this shows from Netflix now Jazz. To
Speaker 1: be fair, Foxtel does produce a tiny, tiny fraction of
Speaker 1: its own content.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In twenty twenty two it announced plans to produce
Speaker 2: eight shows locally, like the courtroom drama The Twelve, which
Speaker 2: I got to say, I've never heard of.
Speaker 1: Neither, And this year it's announced plans to co produce
Speaker 1: shows from Fox Entertainment.
Speaker 2: But by licensing the majority of its content, Foxtale has
Speaker 2: risks being left.
Speaker 1: Behind because jazz. While creating your own content has enormous costs,
Speaker 1: it also means you don't need to face these types
Speaker 1: of content battles.
Speaker 2: And given there are fifteen paid streaming plays in Australia already,
Speaker 2: oh wow, Foxtel and its streaming platform Binge, I're going
Speaker 2: to find it increasingly difficult to differentiate itself. Before we
Speaker 2: jump into our second story, we're very excited to have
Speaker 2: Michael McCarthy, the chief commercial officer from MOVIU Australia, to
Speaker 2: give us another market update for this week. Michael, welcome
Speaker 2: to the pod.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. It's great to be hearing it, so.
Speaker 2: Talk to us. Apart from the AFL Grand Final this weekend.
Speaker 2: What have you got for us this week?
Speaker 3: Well, lots song. Once again central banks at the center
Speaker 3: of the market action.
Speaker 4: Because after hearing from the US Federal Reserve last week
Speaker 4: and they're the cutting of rates, We've heard from a
Speaker 4: lot of others. We've heard from the Bank of England,
Speaker 4: We've heard from the Bank of Japan, we've heard from
Speaker 4: the Reserve Bank of Australia. And what's really interesting is
Speaker 4: something that we haven't seen for fifteen years is starting
Speaker 4: to break out. That is, instead of responding to the
Speaker 4: global impulses and ways that we're driving markets and economies
Speaker 4: and all acting together, central banks are now focusing on
Speaker 4: their own countries and their own stories, and that means
Speaker 4: we can see situations where, for example, in Japan and Australia,
Speaker 4: interstrates are going up, while in the US and Europe
Speaker 4: they're going down. And that's something we haven't seen since
Speaker 4: before the Great Financial Crisis is two and eighty two thousand.
Speaker 4: For many investors and traders, this is the first time
Speaker 4: they'll see central banks acting independently. And one of the
Speaker 4: things the traders are talking about this for me, is
Speaker 4: that we'll see an increase in volatility. Now, volatility can
Speaker 4: be a scary word, but let's remember risk and reward related.
Speaker 4: So when volatility increases, we certainly had greater downside risk
Speaker 4: and investors should be aware of that. But there's also
Speaker 4: potential folks shares to really shoot higher, higher than we
Speaker 4: would otherwise expect, and investors and trailers should be taking
Speaker 4: that into account.
Speaker 1: For our second story, Google Australia is about to roll
Speaker 1: out the most significant change to its search engine in
Speaker 1: over a decade because it's welcoming in AI.
Speaker 2: Google have been panicking about this one ever since they've
Speaker 2: potched announcement last year. I remember that it was a disast,
Speaker 2: so tell me what.
Speaker 1: So for decades, Google has dominated the search engine market
Speaker 1: with more than eighty percent market share.
Speaker 2: They've become the go to source for pretty much any
Speaker 2: piece of information.
Speaker 1: But when the hot, shiny new toy of chat Gibt
Speaker 1: came onto the scene in November twenty twenty two, Google
Speaker 1: raise a red alert.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the first real threat to Google search
Speaker 2: dominance in over a decade.
Speaker 1: So now Google has announced that it's a new feature
Speaker 1: called AI Overviews will launch in Australia over the coming days.
Speaker 2: So how does this overviews feature work?
Speaker 1: Well, let's say you search, how do I make sure
Speaker 1: my spaghetti is al dente?
Speaker 2: Okay, go on before the.
Speaker 1: Hyperlinks to other pages that you're used to, Google will
Speaker 1: give you a short AI generated summary and then.
Speaker 2: The traditional search results will be further down the page.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Google has already rolled out the AI overviews in
Speaker 1: the US, UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.
Speaker 2: And over the coming days a small percentage of Australians
Speaker 2: will also receive the feature too.
Speaker 1: All part of their plan to keep Google Search relevant
Speaker 1: in the new AI age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what is the key learning here?
Speaker 1: Companies need to protect the golden goose at all costs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Google search is very clearly Google's cash can get this.
Speaker 2: Google generated more than one hundred and seventy five billion
Speaker 2: US dollars for its search products in twenty twenty three alone.
Speaker 1: That's more than five times what it made from YouTube.
Speaker 2: So clearly this revenue stream must be protected at all
Speaker 2: costs ahead of anything else.
Speaker 1: But Google needs to strike a very careful balancing act.
Speaker 2: Yeah. On the one hand, it needs to ensure their
Speaker 2: products are cutting edge and competing with the best.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it needs to ensure that it's
Speaker 1: delivering reliable search results.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we know the risky AI is that it
Speaker 2: kind of has a tendency to hallucinate in a really
Speaker 2: authoritative way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When AI overviews rolled out in the US, it
Speaker 1: recommended that people eat at least one small rock per day.
Speaker 2: It also suggested that you should add non toxic glue
Speaker 2: to pizza. Yet the cheese. I remember the pizza basse.
Speaker 1: So let's hope Google's AI doesn't confuse innovation with insanity.
Speaker 2: Oh, we'll all be eating rocks and glue pizzas for dinner. Suits.
Speaker 1: For our third and final story, Meta has debuted augmented
Speaker 1: reality glasses called Orion with holographic displays.
Speaker 2: Very Tony Stark vides I'm getting from this one. So
Speaker 2: what is the STORYHG. Well Z.
Speaker 1: We know Meta for its collection of social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp,
Speaker 1: and threads.
Speaker 2: Honestly completely forgot the threads are still around.
Speaker 1: Don't blame you, but jazz. Over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: Meta has been going hard on developing the metaverse.
Speaker 2: Also known as where the digital and physical worlds come together,
Speaker 2: also known as Zack's little platefi.
Speaker 1: Now we know that Meta's Reality Labs unit, which houses
Speaker 1: the Metaverse development, has made forty five billion US dollars
Speaker 1: in losses since twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: The Meta is hoping to turn the Metaverse's fate around
Speaker 2: with its latest release.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Meta has unveiled a prototype for its new augmented
Speaker 1: reality glasses called the Orion.
Speaker 2: It's got holographic displays and also the glasses can overlate
Speaker 2: two D and three D content.
Speaker 1: And of course there's AI that proactively offers suggestions to
Speaker 1: the wearer.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be a new product. They didn't drop the
Speaker 2: word AI, and.
Speaker 1: It would it So right now, Orion is still a prototype,
Speaker 1: but partman, part bot. Zuckerberg is hoping to release it
Speaker 1: to the public by twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: And actually, word on the Silicon Valley Street is that
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg's mildly concerning obsession with the Metaverse may finally pay off.
Speaker 1: So what's the key learning here?
Speaker 2: Sometimes companies persist with new technology despite a lot of
Speaker 2: signs that it won't work out, you see jazz.
Speaker 1: Many tech leaders have been trying to make smart glasses
Speaker 1: popular for a long time.
Speaker 2: Like back in twenty thirteen when Google came out with
Speaker 2: Google Glass, which cripped people way too much should be
Speaker 2: come upular.
Speaker 1: But despite that, companies like Meta and Snap have been
Speaker 1: investing in smart glasses for a while now.
Speaker 2: Because there's still betting that these smart glasses will place
Speaker 2: smartphones in the future.
Speaker 1: And all this persistence might actually be leading Meta somewhere.
Speaker 2: Talk me through this.
Speaker 1: Get this. Meta's newest generation of smart classes with RayBan
Speaker 1: have sold more in a few months than the older
Speaker 1: generations did over two years.
Speaker 2: Wow. Kind of reminds me a bit of Apple when
Speaker 2: it first dabbled in personal devices with the Apple Newton
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: It was a huge failure, but Apple kept persisting and
Speaker 1: seventeen years later introduced the iPad in twenty ten and
Speaker 1: the rest was history.
Speaker 2: So who knows that she there might actually be a
Speaker 2: future where we're lighting out for the newest model of
Speaker 2: smart glasses and not smartphones. We loved having Michael McCarthy
Speaker 2: for a Moving Australia on the Pod again today and
Speaker 2: AHG before he left, I loved your question asking his
Speaker 2: crystal ball predictions for the upcoming RBA decisions.
Speaker 1: Michael, do you have any predictions for what the RBA
Speaker 1: is going to do at its next meeting.
Speaker 3: I think this is one of the most fascinating aspects
Speaker 3: in the market at the moment because the RBA has
Speaker 3: said that inflation won't be coming down sustainably until twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six. Now there's a straight lead to that, no
Speaker 3: rate cuts for all the trial months in Australia and
Speaker 3: possibly rate riss. The market is saying that, and they
Speaker 3: are pricing a rate cut by February. This is extrawdy.
Speaker 3: Somebody's going to be wrong here, and if it's the market,
Speaker 3: the adjustment here could be very sharp and very quick.
Speaker 3: So I'm very careful about doubting their view. But it
Speaker 3: appears on a loan in the market at the last
Speaker 3: everybody else is prepared to back themselves against a reserve bank,
Speaker 3: and I think that's a very gutsy call.
Speaker 2: Michael, thanks so much for joining us in the pod
Speaker 2: once again, a wealth of information and looking forward to
Speaker 2: trading some of these stocks on MOOS platform.
Speaker 3: Outstanding.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Michael, plucks BAM. We hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: our interview with Michael McCarthy. Hit us up at flux
Speaker 1: dot Finance. On Instagram and TikTok If there are any
Speaker 1: other experts that you'd like us to chat
Speaker 2: To, Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday.