Thanks for joining us today.

Make sure to catch The Business tonight at 8.45pm AEDT, hosted by unflappable presenter Kirsten Aiken.

The show will cover the Artificial Intelligence Forum held in Melbourne today, which was attended by Mike Cannon-Brookes and others.

Tristan Edis, director, analysis and advisory, at Green Energy Markets will join the show to talk about what Donald Trump's presidency will mean for the global energy transition.

And we'll look into the issue of "forever renters," which is another sorry development in the evolution of Australia's housing situation.

Tomorrow, the Bureau of Statistics will release its latest Wage Price Index (covering the September quarter), so we'll be covering that in the blog. Make sure to join us.

Until then, take care of yourselves.

Paladin Energy was the worst performer on the ASX200 today, plunging 28.9%. It was accompanied by other mining and energy stocks, which tracked the fall in global commodity prices.

Bellevue Gold (-6.71%), Emerald Resources (-5.08%), Newmont Corporation (-4.58%) and Boss Energy (-4.49%) all took a hit.

Block Inc was the best performer, rising 10.7%. 

It was joined by Neuren Pharmaceuticals (+4.29%), Charter Hall Group (+2.74%) and Eagers Automotive (+2.61%).

Here's how Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst from Capital.com, has summarised the trading activity today:

"The markets were relatively steady in Asia, although the overarching narrative still centres around the winners and losers produced by the “Trump trade”. That means strength in US equities but more mixed performance in the Asian region. 

"Weakness can still be seen in markets and sectors sensitive to Chinese growth as the prospect of trade restrictions and tariffs loom. 

"Meanwhile, Japanese equities are being favoured due to the impacts of a weaker Yen and favourable trade and foreign relations with the US - although the Nikkei lost steam in the afternoon. 

"Those China-sensitive assets were supported by news of fresh support for China’s housing market from the country’s authorities, this time in the form of cuts to homebuyer taxes. Once again, while welcomed, the policy is considered modest and arguably too incremental.

"The ASX200 lifted off the lows off the session thanks to signs of stronger support from Chinese authorities. It wasn’t enough to offset weakness in the materials and energy sector – the latter also weighed down by a drop in oil prices due to positive diplomatic rumblings coming from Hezbollah about negotiations with Israel. 

"Block was the extreme outlier as it rallied with the price of Bitcoin, which again came within a whisker of $US90,000 in US trade. It’s proving perhaps the biggest beneficiary of Trump as it prepares an (almost) characteristic melt-up. 

"Previous crypto-Santa-rallies in 2016, 2017 and 2020 (attached) saw the price of Bitcoin rise approximately 60%, 180% and 160% between the middle of November and roughly the end of the year."

Trading on Australia's public stock market has closed for the day, and the ASX200 index has shed 10.6 points (-0.13%) to finish on 8,255.6 points.

Here's an interesting addition to the conversation. The parochial angle! 

Our very own Rachel Clayton has put this handy wrap of all the aviation news from today into one concise summary. The ACCC report, the senate hearing and the Rex funding package - take a squiz! 

In case you missed it, my colleague David Chau spoke to ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey earlier today about the problems facing Australia's airline industry. 

"We have seen REX stop servicing the major city routes. They are the routes between the capital cities. That means that there are now, at best, two airlines servicing each route, or airline groups, and as a result, we have seen air fares increase on average by 13.3%," Ms Brakey said.

"That's at a time where we have particularly higher demand, particularly this September with intercity teams playing in grand finals and holidays. Nevertheless, what we do know is when there are more airlines services any particular route, we see lower airfares. 

"It is not good news that we are down to, at best, two airlines servicing a route."

Different areas of Australia have their own view of Rex Airlines.

In Western Australia, state government data indicate the airline has routinely failed to meet required service standards, with the airline blaming pilot turnover for its struggle to meet passenger expectations. The airline also owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid airport fees to councils in Esperance and Albany.

But WA community leaders have still welcomed the federal government's $80 million lifeline for the airline, saying the importance of its service still offsets the challenges.

For example, in Esperance, 700 kilometres south-east of Perth, the only alternative to Rex's service is a near seven-hour drive.

See more in this story from ABC colleagues Charlie Mills and Alistair Bates:

This is a really interesting story from Reuters:

In South American copper giant Peru, the incoming Donald Trump White House will find itself already on the losing side in a trade battle with China, part of a bigger power realignment around the resource-rich region in Washington's backyard.

Peru, the world's no. 2 copper exporter, is set to host Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders this week, with China's President Xi Jinping expected to attend and inaugurate a major new Chinese-built port in the country. 

Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden is also on the guest list.

Peru reflects a wider challenge for the White House around South America, where China's presence has grown rapidly given its huge appetite for the region's main exports: corn, copper, soy, beef and battery-metal lithium.

That's made Beijing the go-to trade partner from Brazil to Chile and Argentina, eroding Washington's regional political clout, a trend that widened under Trump's 'America First' inward turn during his first administration and again under Biden.

"The strategic value is that this is the United States' backyard," said Li Xing, professor at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies, adding it helped counter U.S. presence around the Indo-Pacific and offset trade war risks.

"China can't start by building military bases there because it's too sensitive and will make China's conflict with the United States too pronounced... So it has made inroads with economic ties first."

Peru demonstrates the dramatic shift. 

China's trade lead there over the United States widened to US$16.3 billion last year, UN Comtrade data show, a stark reversal of just a decade ago when Washington was the dominant player. That's come hand-in-hand with investment from energy to mining.

China overtook the United States in 2015 on trade with Peru, widening the gap under Trump's previous administration from 2017-2021, and again under Biden.

See the graph in the Reuters story:

"China has entered the region aggressively, is learning quickly, and is prepared to remain for the long term," said Eric Farnsworth, a former State Department official now at the Council of the Americas and Americas Society.

"Unless the United States meaningfully prioritizes regional economic policy in a new and more effective way, the region will continue to tilt toward Chinese interests."

Ivan Colhoun, the chief economist at CreditorWatch, has some thoughts on today's consumer sentiment and business surveys.

Consumer sentiment:

"It’s a wow!" he says.

"Pretty much all parts of the monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey of consumer confidence recorded further strong improvement in November and have risen even more strongly from low points in either June or July this year. 

"This is likely to reflect the beneficial impacts of the government’s 1 July income tax cuts together, perhaps, with expectations that interest rates will not rise further. 

"There was also a spectacular fall in the unemployment expectations series, which has a good lead on unemployment trends and which at face value suggests the unemployment rate may decline rather than rise in the months ahead. 

"Low unemployment has been an important positive preventing more significant pressures on consumer spending and bad debts."

Business confidence:

"The overall picture from the NAB Survey isn’t quite as good as that from the Westpac survey of Consumer Confidence, but overall, the readings for the economy are in relatively good shape," he said.

"There was a welcome jump in business confidence (though that typically is not as good an indicator as business conditions), [and] labour and input cost pressures continue to moderate though retail prices bounced back this month.

"Conditions remain weakest in Manufacturing and Retail (something of a global phenomenon) and strongest in Mining and the broader services sectors. 

"Capacity utilisation remains well above long-term averages, but is easing slowly, likely signalling an ongoing slow easing in inflationary pressures. 

"Overall, the survey doesn’t seem to be showing the same recent strength as consumer confidence, though the former may be leading in this cycle as consumers benefit first from the tax cuts and improved cash flow and confidence take some time to flow into business conditions."