Thanks so much for your company throughout a busy business news day.
We'll be back to do it all again tomorrow for the final day of the traditional working week — and it's shaping up to have an eventful start, with Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin to face a grilling at the Senate inquiry into the telco's nationwide outage last week at 9am AEDT.
Until then, you can catch up on today's developments below, or download the ABC News app and subscribe to our range of news alerts for the latest news.
The local share market has fallen at the close to finish down 0.7% at 7,058 points on Thursday.
After a flat start, the majority of sectors finished in the red, with only utilities and consumer non-cyclicals in positive territory (they were up 0.6% and 0.4% respectively).
Academic and educational services led the sector losses (-1.6%), followed by energy (-1.2%), financials (-0.8%), real estate (-0.8%), healthcare (-0.7%), basic materials (-0.7%), technology (-0.4%), consumer cyclicals (-0.1%) and industrials (-0.1%).
Markets are also eagerly anticipating the full outcome and reaction from the meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco.
The top five performers for the day were:
As for the bottom five performers:
Here's how things looked as of 4:20pm AEDT:
Updates on the major ASX indices:
If you're after more business and finance news, you're in luck: here's what's coming up tonight on The Business with Rachel Pupazzoni:
You can catch The Business on ABC News at 8:45pm, after the late news on ABC TV, and anytime on ABC iview.
If you're an avid crypto watcher, you'll have spotted Bitcoin having a very good day in the US.
Earlier this morning, Bitcoin rose by more than 5.3%, taking it close to a one-week high of $US37,978.
So far this year, the cryptocurrency has risen by about 125%.
Sure, it's a far cry from the fever pitch Bitcoin experienced towards the end of 2021, but the crypto sector in general has been riding the highs of a rally in recent weeks.
The cause of that rally? Investors expecting the end is nigh for central banks and their rate-hiking cycles — which draws cash back into high-risk assets like crypto.
Since that high earlier today though, it's been steadily dropping. Currently, it's down 0.7% to be hovering around the $US37,337 mark.
Just last week we heard from the RBA that they want to see our tight job market show signs of easing to allow inflation come back down to its target range of 2-3%.
Australia's jobless rate is still close to its lowest level in 50 years, but the RBA is predicting it will rise towards 4.2% by the end of next year.
So with unemployment edging up to 3.7% in October, will this have any impact on the central bank's next rates meeting in December?
The short answer: it's unlikely to be helpful, but they'll be waiting for other data.
Here's how KPMG's chief economist, Brendan Rynne interpreted the stats:
"Today's data provides some signals that the labour market is returning back to its natural level, albeit slowly – and slower than the RBA has been predicting," he wrote.
"This data, reaffirming the continued tightness in the labour market, combined with yesterday's WPI data showing the highest quarterly growth since the index's first release, is unlikely to be helpful for the RBA to looking for reasons to pause further increases in the cash rate.
"The December cash rate decision will therefore be highly contingent on the degree of stickiness in the inflation rate, which we will see in the week before the next meeting."
If you missed it yesterday, wages grew by the fastest pace on record in the September quarter, but many workers aren't feeling better off.
Low-paid workers on award wages and aged care staff were given one-off big pay rises, and private sector workers are taking home more than government employees.
But even though some salaries have ticked up, real wages keep going backwards.
You can watch the full story from my colleague Daniel Ziffer below:
Alternatively, you can read more about the big boost to wages below:
Yes, you read that correctly — McDonald's has lost its bid to sue rival fast food chain Hungry Jack's, with a court finding its Big Jack burger was not "deceptively similar" to the Big Mac.
McDonald's had claimed that people would confuse the Big Jack with the Big Mac, which would eat into their profits.
But in the Federal Court earlier today, Justice Stephen Burley ruled that claim by McDonald's didn't cut the mustard, and the Big Jack burger didn't infringe on McDonald's trademark.
Both the Big Mac and Big Jack look similar, with a sesame seed bun, two beef patties, lettuce, gherkins, cheese, sauce and a third slice of burger bread in the middle — but it was the trademarks that were argued over in court.
So how did the court come to its decision? It required two experts being called in to compare the two burgers across restaurants in Brisbane and Melbourne to test marketing claims made by Hungry Jack's — including whether the Big Jack had more beef than the Big Mac.
If you're hungry for more information about this unusual story, you can read more below — but unfortunately I'm unable to help with any burger cravings this may have caused.
Sorry to be the bearer of some sad news — the company behind Ferrero Rocher, Nutella and Kinder Surprise is abandoning its multi-million-dollar hazelnut farm in southern NSW as the long-term climate is not commercially viable.
The Australian arm of the Italian-based confectionary company Ferrero Group says it will be removing the million hazelnut trees planted at its farm near Narrandera since 2013, and the 2,600-hectare property has been listed for sale.
Ferrero said the decision to give up on its $70 million farm wasn't made lightly.
"Given recent adverse weather conditions, the pilot study found that the region's climate in the long term is not conducive to hazelnut farming," it said.
"Over the duration of the 10-year project hazelnut yields have fallen below expectations making the project, unfortunately, no longer commercially viable."
You can read more about the decision from ABC Rural's Emily Doak below:
After a subdued start, the ASX trading lower, down 0.5% to 7,072 points as of 1pm AEDT.
(For the latest figures, head to the top of the blog.)
Looking at the sectors, seven are in the red: academic and eduational services (-1.6%), energy (-0.8%), real estate (-0.6%), financials (-0.5%), basic materials (-0.3%), technology (-0.2%) and consumer cyclicals (-0.1%).
In terms of sector gains, consumer non-cyclicals and utilities are both up 0.4%, followed by industrials at 0.2%. Healthcare is flat.
The biggest mover in either direction is AMP, which has fallen by 15% so far today after it downgraded its margin expectations.
Graincorp is continuing to rally throughout the session, after announcing a $50 million buyback and reporting a smaller profit of $250 million in the year to September 30.
The top movers so far:
And the bottom movers: