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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report

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Speaker 1: for Wednesday, the eleventh of March twenty twenty six. I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson, and every afternoon we've got the five stories

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Speaker 1: that happen today that you need to know about. Let's

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Speaker 1: go with sorry number one. The smp ASX two hundred

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Speaker 1: rows zero points six percent today to eighty seven hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty four points, with some strong gains in mining

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Speaker 1: and banking stocks, helping to offset growing expectations that the

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Speaker 1: Reserve Bank could actually lift interest rates next week. The

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Speaker 1: move comes as markets rapidly repriced the chance of a

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Speaker 1: rate hike, with traders now putting the odds at above

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Speaker 1: seventy five percent after some hawkish comments from RBA Deputy

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Speaker 1: Governor Andrew Howser. We'll have a lot more on this

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Speaker 1: in tomorrow morning's episode. But mining stocks led the games today.

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Speaker 1: On the local boss ford Askew jumps nearly four percent,

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Speaker 1: BHP was up one point four percent, Champion Iron climbs

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Speaker 1: nearly seven percent of iron ore prices pushed back above

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Speaker 1: one hundred and four US dollars. As a cracker of

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Speaker 1: a day for Rare Earth's minor liness which surged more

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Speaker 1: than sixteen percent after extending a long term supply deal

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Speaker 1: with a company called Japan Australia Rare Earths, which does

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Speaker 1: as you would expect. Rare earths with Japan and Australia

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Speaker 1: gold miners also rallied as bullion moved above fifty two

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Speaker 1: hundred US dollars announce one worth mentioning or a band

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Speaker 1: of Mining jumped more than twenty one percent after announcing

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Speaker 1: an upgrade to the gold resource at one of its sites.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned. The Banks A and Z was up nearly

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Speaker 1: two percent, NAB climbed more than one percent, but higher

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Speaker 1: rate expectations did weigh on other sectors wise. Tech Global,

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Speaker 1: for instance, was down three point six percent, while property

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Speaker 1: company Goodman Group was off one and a half percent.

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Speaker 1: Hon to story number two, now and former Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: Scott Morrison has been cleared of corrupt conduct by the

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Speaker 1: National Anti Corruption Commission over his role in the Robodet scheme.

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Speaker 1: The watchdog found two senior public servants engaged in serious

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Speaker 1: corrupt conduct by misleading cabinet processes and the Commonwealth ombudsman. However,

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Speaker 1: the NACC says there is insufficient admissible evidence to refer

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Speaker 1: either case for criminal prosecution. The Robotet Scheme, you might remember,

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Speaker 1: used an unlawful income averaging system that issued hundreds of

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Speaker 1: thousands of false debt notices to welfare recipients from twenty

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Speaker 1: fifteen right through to twenty nineteen before it was canceled.

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Speaker 1: The government later agreed to pay four hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: five million dollars in compensation to victims. Story number three.

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Speaker 1: Independent MP Allegra Spender has proposed a major overhaul of

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Speaker 1: the tax system aimed at shifting more of the tax

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Speaker 1: burden from wages to wealth. The plan proposes cutting income

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Speaker 1: tax for a worker, for instance, on one hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars by about sixteen hundred dollars a year, which would

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Speaker 1: be funded by reducing the capital gains tax discount, phasing

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Speaker 1: out negative gearing, and tightening rules on family trusts. In

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Speaker 1: an addressed to the National Press Club in Canbro this afternoon,

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Speaker 1: Ale gris Bender said the goal is to restore fairness

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Speaker 1: between generations as younger Australians face rising housing costs and

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Speaker 1: growing tax burdens. The proposal, which is actually the first

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Speaker 1: tax white paper from an individual MP in decades, comes

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Speaker 1: as Treasurer Jim Chalmers considers broader tax reform ahead of

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Speaker 1: the next federal budget. Story number four, artificial intelligence company

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Speaker 1: Anthropic is establishing its Australia and New Zealand operations in

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Speaker 1: Sydney as part of its global expansion. Athropic is a

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Speaker 1: major rival to Open AI. A lot of Australians use

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Speaker 1: its Claude AI platform. Australia actually ranks fourth in the

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Speaker 1: world in per capita usage of Claude, and Thropic says

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Speaker 1: the new office will support partnerships with businesses, researchers and

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Speaker 1: governments across the region. Existing customers actually already include Commonwealth Bank,

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Speaker 1: tech company Canvas. The company is also expanding its computing

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Speaker 1: capacity here in Australia. It's thinking about using local data centers,

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Speaker 1: potentially investing in new infrastructure in the future. It says

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Speaker 1: that Australia is a natural location for AI investment as

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Speaker 1: democracies seek to play a leading role in the development

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Speaker 1: of advanced artificial intelligence. And finally, story number five, the

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Speaker 1: US military says it has destroyed sixteen Iranian boats suspected

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Speaker 1: of laying mines near the Strait of Homuz, which is

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Speaker 1: one of the world's most important oil shipping routes. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about it a lot in recent days. President Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump warned Iran that any attempt to place minds in

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Speaker 1: the Strait would trigger military consequences and I quote at

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Speaker 1: a level never seen before. About a fifth of the

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Speaker 1: world's oil supply normally passes through the very narrow waterway,

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Speaker 1: and limited access is one of the reasons for the

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Speaker 1: sharp spike that we saw in oil prices earlier in

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Speaker 1: the week. The strikes on the vessels come as world

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Speaker 1: leaders prepare to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, who is

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Speaker 1: the current chair of the G seven, convening an emergency

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Speaker 1: meeting of the G seven nations tonight to discuss the

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Speaker 1: war as well as its impact on global oil supplies.

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Speaker 1: And that's it for the afternoon Report for Wednesday, the

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Speaker 1: eleventh of March. Make sure you're following the podcast and

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Speaker 1: head along to Fearandgreed dot com dot au to sign

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Speaker 1: up for our free daily newsletter. I'm Malcolm Thompson. To

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Speaker 1: enjoy your evening,