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Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, the tenth of July twenty twenty four. 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 when just five minutes are Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and good morning, Sean.

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Speaker 2: Aylmer, Good morning, Michael Shawn.

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Speaker 1: Five stories, five minutes, Let's go. Story number one. Telstra

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Speaker 1: has upped the prices of its mobile phone plans, including

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Speaker 1: its cheaper Boost brand, a move which sent the telco

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Speaker 1: share price higher yesterday.

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Speaker 2: Telstras up to its mobile plans in line with inflation

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Speaker 2: over the past couple of years, but this time around

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Speaker 2: the increase is a higher, with monthly post paid plans

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Speaker 2: rising from late next month. Prepaid plans will change from

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Speaker 2: October twenty two. The telco said it needs to up

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Speaker 2: prices to invest in technology and its network. Now in

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Speaker 2: terms of what it's doing, basic post paid plans with

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Speaker 2: fifty gigabytes of data will rise by about five percent.

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Speaker 2: Premium plans will jump four percent, prepaid plans they'll rise

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Speaker 2: six to seven percent, while long term plans are being

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Speaker 2: priced much more aggressive. You can expect nine to twelve

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Speaker 2: percent increases in those Telstra's competitors have also put up

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Speaker 2: prices this year. Vote Fine lifted costs between six to

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Speaker 2: nine percent Earlier in the year, Optus raised some prices

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Speaker 2: five to six percent in May. Telstra's share price yesterday

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Speaker 2: finished up two point two percent, one of the best

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Speaker 2: of the large caps on the ax Sean.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned Telstra's share price. While customers might not like

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Speaker 1: the higher prices, Telstra seems keen to restore their profit margins,

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Speaker 1: something that shareholders would likely agree with.

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Speaker 2: Remember back in May, Telstra outline twenty eight hundred job cuts,

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Speaker 2: or nearly ten percent of its workforce. Well, the telcoa

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Speaker 2: is looking to lower cost but it still has to

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Speaker 2: invest in technology, including its network, and that's expensive. It's

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Speaker 2: been hurting the telco's bottom line. Telstra's one point three

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Speaker 2: million shareholders haven't really had a good time of it recently.

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Speaker 2: Even after yesterday's jump, the share prices off eleven percent

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Speaker 2: over the past twelve months. So any decision to boost

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Speaker 2: revenue alongside cutting costs is one shareholders are likely to like.

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Speaker 2: There's also an economic insight here. Were regularly talk about

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Speaker 2: services inflation not coming down fast enough. This is a

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Speaker 2: great example of a service where prices are running well

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Speaker 2: above overall inflation. Same Telstra, Optis, Votefan. They're all high

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Speaker 2: prices in excessive inflation. It's no wonder the reserve banks

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Speaker 2: struggling to contain inflation, all right.

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Speaker 1: Moving on to story number two now and Australia, backed

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Speaker 1: by allies the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Japan,

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Speaker 1: has accused of Chinese state backed cyber group APT forty

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Speaker 1: of repeatedly targeting government and private sector networks.

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Speaker 2: The naming and detailing of actions of the group APT

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Speaker 2: forty by the Australian Signals Directorate is unprecedented and comes

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Speaker 2: just a month after China's premiere visited Australia and as

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Speaker 2: relations between the two countries improved. The statement was backed

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Speaker 2: by the five Ice countries that you mentioned, Michael, as

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Speaker 2: well as Germany, South Korea and Japan. APT forty, backed

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Speaker 2: by the Chinese government, regularly targets organizations in various countries,

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Speaker 2: and the Intelligence Alliance believes other countries that are at

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Speaker 2: risk of the same security threats. The Group of Nations

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Speaker 2: at APT forty is actively conducting regular reconnaissance against networks

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Speaker 2: of interest in Australia looking for opportunities to compromise its targets.

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Speaker 2: Now the group uses compromised devices doesn't have to be

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Speaker 2: big business, could be a small office, could be a

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Speaker 2: home office device. They then launch at tax that blend

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Speaker 2: in with legitimate traffic challenging network defenders.

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Speaker 1: All right, understory number three, These Stage three tax cuts

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Speaker 1: didn't give consumers much more confidence sewn. With sentiment falling

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Speaker 1: again this month, particularly among middle income earners, the.

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Speaker 2: West paink Melbourne Institute Consumers Sentiment survey for July shows

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Speaker 2: people are stuck in a deeply pessimistic mood. Not helping

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Speaker 2: is a big jump in rate rise expectations. Sixty percent

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Speaker 2: now expect higher rates. The survey shows family finances are

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Speaker 2: under pressure, while Stage three tax cuts, along with other

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Speaker 2: July one measures, have done little to boost the mood.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: Having said that, Westpac pointed out that many people wouldn't

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Speaker 2: have received extramaining in their pocket when the survey was done,

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Speaker 2: there were some good news with consumers less mystic about

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Speaker 2: the economic outlook.

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Speaker 1: Story number four. Retailer Babcoorps, which owns Auto Barn, has

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Speaker 1: rejected a one point eight billion dollar takeover offer. From

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Speaker 1: Bain Capital, saying the price didn't represent fair value.

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Speaker 2: The group also appointed a new CEO, who is currently

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Speaker 2: running seven to eleven in Australia. In a statement, the

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Speaker 2: board of Babcoorp said it had considered the Bain proposal

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Speaker 2: and the outlook for the company and decided the five

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Speaker 2: dollars forty share offer was too low. After initially falling

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Speaker 2: on the news, Bapcoor's share price closed. The flat at

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Speaker 2: five dollars in six cents doesn't necessarily mean the deals

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Speaker 2: off the table, unless thought the initial bid from Bain

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Speaker 2: was bid opportunistic. The initial bid was about twenty four

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Speaker 2: percent below Babcore's peak in September last year. That was

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Speaker 2: twenty three percent premium to where Babcoorp was trading at

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Speaker 2: the time. I just reckon, we'll hear more about this one, yeah, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, last one. Story Number five X has been hit

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Speaker 1: by very slow user growth as the social media platform's owner,

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk, divides audiences and it faces a new competition

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Speaker 1: from the rise of mess right all platform threads X.

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Speaker 2: And its number of global daily active users in the

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Speaker 2: second quarter of this year was two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 2: one million. That rise of one point six percent from

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Speaker 2: the same period the year before, according to The Financial Times.

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Speaker 2: This contrast with a double digit growth experience in the

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Speaker 2: years leading up to the acquisition by Musk. Musk has

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Speaker 2: been a divisive leader of X. He rebranded it from

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Speaker 2: Twitter to X. The group has shedded advertisers, and Musk

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Speaker 2: decided to remove most of the platform's content moderators. Now,

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Speaker 2: Facebook and a Meta launched rival platform Threads a year

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Speaker 2: ago in an effort to challenge X. It's grown to

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Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy five monthly active users compared to

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Speaker 2: six hundred monthly active users claimed by X, but the

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Speaker 2: growth rate is far far greater than that of X's.

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Speaker 1: All right, there we go the top five business stories

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Speaker 1: in five minutes.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael.

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Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, the tenth of July twenty twenty four. Remember

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Speaker 1: to hit follow on the podcast. Five minutes isn't enough.

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Speaker 1: You can find our longer daily show called Fear and

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Speaker 1: Greed where ever you listen to podcasts, or at Fearandgreed

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Speaker 1: jump onto the website now pop your email address in

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Speaker 1: just in time to get this week's edition, also out today.

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Speaker 1: How Do They Afford That? Which is our sister podcast,

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Speaker 1: all about making your money work harder for you. Today

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Speaker 1: we're taking a look at a bunch of things that

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Speaker 1: you can do with your tax cut, and particularly a

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Speaker 1: focus on how you can use it to set yourself

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Speaker 1: up for the future. I'm Michael Thompson and that was

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Speaker 1: the Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed. Have

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Speaker 1: a great day.