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Speaker 1: Today on Fear and Greed. Commonwealth Bank announces a bumper

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Speaker 1: profit and dividend, the local share market closes at an

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Speaker 1: all time high, and plenty going on in Canberra, from

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Speaker 1: help for first home buyers to a promise to save

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Speaker 1: rex plus, the illegal trade in tobacco gets some help

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Speaker 1: from the government, and Italy cracks down on the mafia.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed, Daily business news for people

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Speaker 1: who make their own decisions. It is Thursday, the thirteenth

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Speaker 1: of February twenty twenty five. I'm Michael Thompson and good morning,

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Speaker 1: Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael, Sean.

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Speaker 1: The main story this morning is a big one the

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Speaker 1: Commonwealth Bank. It just keeps motoring along, posting a five

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Speaker 1: point one to three billion dollar profit for the six

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Speaker 1: months to the end of December that was ahead of expectations.

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Speaker 1: The bank increased its dividend to two dollars twenty five

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Speaker 1: a share, which obviously shareholders love, and a reported solid

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Speaker 1: lending growth and credit quality, two things that investment analysts love.

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Speaker 1: So there's something for everyone.

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Speaker 2: Really, ah plenty a love around. Yesterday As a result,

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Speaker 2: at share price jumped two percent. There's always bad news

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Speaker 2: in every result, though, we must say that and at

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Speaker 2: Commonwealth Bank, expenses were higher, as was investment spending, in

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Speaker 2: part due to inflation. The net interest margin, the difference

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Speaker 2: between what they make on deposits and what they pay

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Speaker 2: out on deposits and make on home loans and other loans,

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Speaker 2: that was stable at two point h eight. That's actually

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Speaker 2: fairly high. Significantly, Matt Common said. The Australian economy has slowed,

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Speaker 2: though He said the bank is eighty percent confident that

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Speaker 2: a rate cut will be handed down next week. That's

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Speaker 2: the good news. The bank has great data on what

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Speaker 2: people are spending and how they're using it. Few things

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Speaker 2: of interest yesterday the amount of money being put into

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Speaker 2: offset balances almost doubled over the last half thought. That

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Speaker 2: was interesting. Very low bad debt levels across the economy.

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Speaker 2: That's good news. And retail and hospitality sectors are definitely

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Speaker 2: picking up.

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Speaker 1: Sean, I'm going to ask you, probably an impossible question here,

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Speaker 1: but can this golden run for CBA just keep on going,

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Speaker 1: because it seems there's been forecasts of the bank's share

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Speaker 1: price topping out for months now, yet it was up

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Speaker 1: forty percent in the last year and nearly eight percent

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Speaker 1: so far this year or only what not even halfway

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Speaker 1: through February.

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Speaker 2: I wish I knew, I wish I knew. It's a

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Speaker 2: huge organizations. Now I've got a market capitalization of two

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Speaker 2: hundred and seventy one billion dollars. It's about a third

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Speaker 2: bigger than BHP. At some point late last year we're

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Speaker 2: talking about BHP being bigger than Commonwealth Bank. No more.

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Speaker 2: Common Wealth Bank's about thirty five percent bigger than BHP.

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Speaker 2: It's actually larger than National Australian Bank in Westpac, the

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Speaker 2: second third largest banks combined. If you look behind the

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Speaker 2: top line numbers, Like in mortgages, which is a really

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Speaker 2: competitive market, it's also profitable. Commonwealth Bank is growing. It

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Speaker 2: actually does about two thirds of its loans itself, not

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Speaker 2: through brokers. So while seventy five percent of mortgages across

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Speaker 2: the country goes through brokers, common Wealth Bank is at

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Speaker 2: about two thirds on its own. In fact, forty five

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Speaker 2: percent of all mortgages not sold by a broker end

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Speaker 2: up at Commonwealth Bank. Pretty amazing. On the deposit side,

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Speaker 2: about a third of all assies call Commonwealth Bank their

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Speaker 2: main financial institution. I think that's extraordinary. This eight point

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Speaker 2: eight million active users of its app and in business

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Speaker 2: landing it's increased the number of counts it has increased

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Speaker 2: by forty five percent over the past four years. It's

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Speaker 2: still behind National Australia Bank. It seems that you're doing

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Speaker 2: well on tech, Matt, common will soon be the most

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Speaker 2: experienced bank CEO bad as always. You know when you

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Speaker 2: get to the top, Wow, it's hard to keep going.

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Speaker 2: There's lots of risks around public relations with Commonwealth Bank,

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Speaker 2: particularly with an election coming up. What happens if the

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Speaker 2: economy worsens, That could turn things around very quickly for it. Also,

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Speaker 2: it is extremely expensive. In fact hit a new high.

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Speaker 2: It's chair probace hit a new high yesterday. So on

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Speaker 2: historical standards compared to global banks, it is very expensive.

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Speaker 2: So it's not at all upside. They're always at risks,

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Speaker 2: but at the moment it is flying high.

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Speaker 1: It is just such a fascinating organization now Sean. Last

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Speaker 1: year we worked with our friends at Osby's to bring

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of interviews from business leaders throughout reporting season.

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Speaker 1: We are doing that again this year. Osby's is of

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Speaker 1: course Australia's leading provider of live and on demand video

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Speaker 1: the latest news in Australian business and markets and economy

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Speaker 1: and startups. You can sign up for free at Osby's

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au And immediately after the show, we

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Speaker 1: are featuring an interview with Matt Common, chief executive of

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Speaker 1: Commonwealth Bank, about everything that you have just talked about.

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Speaker 1: And it is always such an interesting chat to hear

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Speaker 1: what he says about the economy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, very very I mean probably Australia's leading

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Speaker 2: businessman right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right there, So stick around for

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Speaker 1: that one is coming up a bit later on. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about Comonwealth Bank. What's happening elsewhere in markets.

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Speaker 2: A large part thanks to the Commonwealth Bank. SNPA SX

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Speaker 2: two hundred finished up more than half percent eighty five

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Speaker 2: three five points, a new closing high, not far off

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Speaker 2: the all time interday high. Industrials also did well along

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Speaker 2: with financials. Bank had a few friends amongst the financials NAB, Westpac, Curowbank.

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Speaker 2: They all did pretty well. Tech stocks not so well.

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Speaker 2: A few notables. The share price of Computer Share jumped

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Speaker 2: fifteen percent after its half year profit beat expectations. Sun

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Speaker 2: Corps share price jumped one and a half percent after

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Speaker 2: it pretty much doubled its profit. But that's because it's

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Speaker 2: sold that its bank, Dwayne Z. So that's just a

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Speaker 2: one off gain. The Aussie dollars on a tear, Michael

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Speaker 2: back above sixty three US cents? Who would have thought.

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Speaker 1: Thought above sixty three uscent?

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Speaker 2: How much excited? And this year this morning that came

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Speaker 2: to spite US Federal Reserve chair Dromee Powell saying he

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Speaker 2: isn't in any hurry to cut rights in the US

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Speaker 2: and oil prices are a bit higher as signs emerged

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Speaker 2: that sanctions against Russian oil exports are actually working. That

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Speaker 2: helped some of the local oil companies Woodside, Santos etc.

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Speaker 1: A big start to the show, Sean, We've got plenty

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Speaker 1: more still to come as a lot going on in

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Speaker 1: Canberra that we need to talk about. We're also discussing

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Speaker 1: black market cigarettes, a mafia crackdown. Don't go anywhere. We'll

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Speaker 1: be back in a moment with the rest of the

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Speaker 1: day's business news. Sean, there is plenty going on in

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Speaker 1: Canberra as Parliament moves through its second sitting week of

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Speaker 1: the year. First up, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the government

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Speaker 1: is not considering retaliating with tariffs against the US if

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Speaker 1: it were to not grant exemptions to Australia.

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Speaker 2: On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he's giving great consideration

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Speaker 2: to providing Australian steel with an exemption to the twenty

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Speaker 2: five per cent tariff he has imposed. Prime Minister Anthony

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Speaker 2: Alberanezi backed that up yesterday, saying that mister Trump gave

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Speaker 2: a very clear signal that an exemption is being considered.

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Speaker 2: Since that conversation, there have been claims out of the

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Speaker 2: US that Australia breached verbal undertakings on limiting aluminium exports

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Speaker 2: back when Donald Trump was previously president. Now it's one

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Speaker 2: of his trade advisors saying that, so I think that

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Speaker 2: exemption is well and truly up in the year at

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Speaker 2: the moment.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot more to come on that one. Also yesterday,

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Speaker 1: Sean the Prime Minister, said he would prefer it if

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Speaker 1: a private buyer emerged for Rex Airlines, but if that

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Speaker 1: doesn't eventuate, the government will step in.

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Speaker 2: He said that it was important to keep air travel

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Speaker 2: in regional Australia operating Miss dra Albenas. He said it's

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Speaker 2: not really unusual around the world for governments to have

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Speaker 2: stakes in airlines, though that's not how we do it here. Generally, REX,

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Speaker 2: which of course is better. It is probably known as

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Speaker 2: Regional Express, went into administration in July last year, owing

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Speaker 2: about half a billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: The government sean in an effort to woo younger voters,

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Speaker 1: making it easier for people with help debts to borrow

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Speaker 1: for a home. This is interesting, so the government's force

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Speaker 1: banks to change some of the lending rules. It gets

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Speaker 1: a bit techy.

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Speaker 2: Stay with me, but the regulator APRA has something called

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Speaker 2: serviceability regulations. So when a bank looks at a potential

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Speaker 2: first time borrow for a loan, they take in to

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Speaker 2: account their ability to pay back obviously, and whether or

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Speaker 2: not they could pay back if there was a three

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Speaker 2: percentage point increase in their mortgage rates pay seven percent.

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Speaker 2: They judge them on a ten percent rate. Under these changes,

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Speaker 2: banks will be able to exclude help repayments from that measure,

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Speaker 2: so you've still got to measure against a ten percent,

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Speaker 2: but they're going to exclude the fact that if you

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Speaker 2: have any student debts that you've got to pay those out.

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Speaker 2: So not huge but certainly will help a lot of

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Speaker 2: younger people. Get into the Homeland market.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure there'd be plenty of people happy about

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Speaker 1: that one. Finally, Sean, this one is really quite disturbing.

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Speaker 1: The Prime Minister has led a chorus of criticism over

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Speaker 1: a video involving two nurses from Sydney in hospital uniform,

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Speaker 1: one of whom threatened to kill Israeli patients and refuse

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Speaker 1: the medical care.

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Speaker 2: He characterized the video as driven by hate, disgusting and vile.

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Speaker 2: The new South Wales government has said that the pair

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Speaker 2: will never be allowed to work for the state's health system. Again.

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Speaker 2: We're going to hear a lot more about this one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we certainly will, Sean. Let's talk black market cigarettes.

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Speaker 1: This is a fascinat We talked a bit about this

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Speaker 1: last year. The black market for cigarettes and tobacco appears

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Speaker 1: to be booming, in part because of a government decision

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Speaker 1: to up the x SIS on smokes, even though when

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Speaker 1: they increase taxes, Treasury said it would fuel illegal trading.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating story. So in May twenty twenty three, the federal

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Speaker 2: government increased excise another five percent on tobacco for another

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Speaker 2: three years. It took the increase in tobacco excise over

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Speaker 2: ten years from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty three to

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Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty two percent, according to the fin review.

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Speaker 2: Now packs makes cost about fifty bucks thirty four dollars

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Speaker 2: of that case to the government. Documents released under freedom

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Speaker 2: of information laws shows Treasury's advice warned that increasing the

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Speaker 2: prices would actually have a perverse outcome. Rather than increased

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Speaker 2: government revenue, it would decrease it as incentives to trade

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Speaker 2: in illicit tobacco and vopes would be greater. So that

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Speaker 2: was the advice. Fast forward today, tobacco xcize we're running

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Speaker 2: at about nine point seven billion dollars each year. In twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty it was sixteen point three billion dollars, so it

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Speaker 2: kind of proves what Treasury forecast.

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Speaker 1: And remember this was having a big impact on businesses

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Speaker 1: as well, because we were talking about Viva Energy last year,

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Speaker 1: which licenses the Coals Express brand and the Shell brand

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Speaker 1: and everything, and they were talking about the impact on

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Speaker 1: the convenience store sales and they actually revised down its

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Speaker 1: outlook on the back of softer retail conditions. But in

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Speaker 1: but actually pointed out that the boom in illictit cigarettes

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Speaker 1: was harming the business. So this is something that isn't

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Speaker 1: just being seeing in the kind of the tax take,

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Speaker 1: but it's also affecting private companies as well.

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Speaker 2: Guys, you've got a good memory.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I did this as a sleeper story on

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Speaker 1: the weekend Vision, so I did a lot of extra

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Speaker 1: research into it. Anytime I can bust out my old

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Speaker 1: research and get a second crack out the story, I

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Speaker 1: will do so. Seawan AGL Energy is investing in battery

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Speaker 1: projects over the next eighteen months as it looks to

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Speaker 1: manage increasingly volatile electricity prices due to cold plant closures

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Speaker 1: and increased usage of renewables.

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Speaker 2: It's aiming for another one point four gigawatts of storage

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Speaker 2: in New South Wales and Queensland. The company supplies about

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Speaker 2: four point one million customers. It posted better than expected profit,

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Speaker 2: sending its share price high. I Infected hit a four

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Speaker 2: month high yesterday. While AGL isn't saying how much it's

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Speaker 2: going to spend on batteries, it said the cost of

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Speaker 2: the devices have fallen along with the tumbling price of lithium.

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Speaker 2: Now the growth of renewable into the grid has triggered

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Speaker 2: big swings in wholesale power prices, So you can actually

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Speaker 2: get almost negative prices in the middle of the day

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Speaker 2: when there's excess amount of power, and then its spikes

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Speaker 2: at night. It could be like two hundred times the

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Speaker 2: average price. So that's what they're trying to address. Those

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Speaker 2: changes have opened up an opportunity for grid scale batteries

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Speaker 2: which can store power when it's cheap and release it

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Speaker 2: when demand and prices are much higher.

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Speaker 1: And just quickly shown, one of Australia's biggest gold miners,

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Speaker 1: Evolution Mining, is rewarding shareholders for a much higher price

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Speaker 1: to the precious metal, tripling its half year dividend. That's

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Speaker 1: not something you get to say very often now.

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Speaker 2: That's because it's first half profit quadruple so six months

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Speaker 2: to December, and that's in large part to gold hitting

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Speaker 2: twenty nine hundred US dollars and ounce. Not bad. The

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Speaker 2: group plans to my mind, seven hundred and eighty thousand

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Speaker 2: ounces of gold this year. Its share price was up

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Speaker 2: two percent yesterday, thirty one percent this year, one hundred

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Speaker 2: and ten percent in the last twelve months. That's what

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Speaker 2: a high price of gold does to a stock.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's incredible, Okay. Turning to international news now and

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Speaker 1: shown there's almost too many stories out of the US

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Speaker 1: and the Trump administration to go through them all, So

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Speaker 1: so let's do an abridged version. Elon Musk, how about this.

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Speaker 1: He denied leading a hostile takeover of the US government,

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Speaker 1: and he was defending his cost cutting plans that he

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Speaker 1: made a somewhat surprised first appearance at the White House

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday. The world's richest man took questions from reporters

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Speaker 1: in the Oval Office as he stood next to President

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And if you haven't seen the pictures, he

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Speaker 1: should see it because he's there. He's standing there, Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump is sitting at his presidential desk, and Elon Musk's

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Speaker 1: four year old son was actually playing on the floor

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Speaker 1: between them. It's just something that you don't see very often.

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Speaker 1: And he admitted to being incorrect in some of the

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Speaker 1: things that he says, but broadly described sweeping government cuts

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Speaker 1: as quote, common sense measures that are not draconian or radical.

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Speaker 1: It seems if you have to kind of point that

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Speaker 1: out kind of thing, that all of a sudden, people

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Speaker 1: are just going to zero in on those words.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, maybe that's in the eye of the beholder. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump has again insisted that the US will take

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Speaker 2: control of the Gaza strip. He was talking after he

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Speaker 2: met with Jordan's King Abdullah. Now King of Dullah has

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Speaker 2: rejected the proposal. In related years, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin

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Speaker 2: Netanyahu has warned to Mass he will THEND the cease

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Speaker 2: firing Gaza and resume fighting if the Palestinian group doesn't

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Speaker 2: return hostages by Saturday noon. Mister Netanya, who said he'd

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Speaker 2: ordered Israeli forces to a mass inside and around Gaza

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Speaker 2: in response to Hamas's announcement that was postponing freeing more

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Speaker 2: hostages until further notice.

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Speaker 1: And finally, Sean Italian police have arrested one hundred and

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Speaker 1: sixty members of the Sicilian mafia after wire taps revealed

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Speaker 1: moves by crime families to recruit a new generation of

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Speaker 1: foot soldiers and recreate their once powerful ruling council.

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Speaker 2: I did not know that the mafia still existed. The

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Speaker 2: crackdown came after whyd perhaps of recently freed mafia bosses,

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Speaker 2: also intercepted their complaints that Prime Minister Georgia Maloney's government

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Speaker 2: wasn't allowing them to communicate with some of their still

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Speaker 2: incarcerated colleagues on x the pm maloney wrote, organized crime

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Speaker 2: is in trouble. The fight against the mafia has not

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Speaker 2: stopped and will not stop. The mobsters terrorized Sicily for decades.

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Speaker 2: Harsh crackdowns in the nineteen nineties early two thousand seriously

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Speaker 2: weakened them in that region. Many of the top bosses

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Speaker 2: died or were imprisoned, according to the Financial Times, after

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Speaker 2: decades on the run. The group's most wanted fugitive the

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Speaker 2: godfather Marteo Messina Denaro, who was arrested in twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: three and medical clinic in Palomur at a medical clinic

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Speaker 2: in Palermo. He actually died in prison a few months later.

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Speaker 2: But it just sounds like they're regrouping.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what a story. All right, there we go sewn

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Speaker 1: up now. X is the Fear and Greed Daily Interview,

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Speaker 1: working with our friends at Osby's to bring you that

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Speaker 1: chat with Commonwealth Banks CEO Matt Common Definitely worth a listen,

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Speaker 1: so stick around for that one.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Sean, Thank you, Michael.

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Speaker 1: It is Thursday, the thirteenth of February twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Make sure you're following the podcast and please join us

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Speaker 1: online on LinkedIn, Instagram, x TikTok and Facebook. I'm Michael Thompson,

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Speaker 1: and that was fear and greed. Have a great day.