Alright, alright, that's just about as much fun on the blog shift as I can take for one day.
From NAB's profit results to economic data, Microsoft, James Hardie, gold... the markets... we've done it all!
My colleague Stephanie Chalmers will take you through market developments tomorrow morning, and Nassim Khadem takes the baton from her at 11:00am AEDT.
So you'll be in great hands.
Until then...
At the time of writing this, 4:45pm AEDT, Wall Street futures are a sea of calm.
Here is some commentary from Market Forces on NAB's new Climate Report:
"NAB has disclosed that one in six fossil fuel clients are so misaligned with the Paris Agreement the bank will no longer fund them," Market Forces head of research Kyle Robertson said.
"NAB has slashed its exposure to oil and gas producers by $700 million in the last two years, a drop of over 40%.
"There's concrete evidence that Australia's big banks are refusing finance to coal, oil and gas companies on climate grounds.
"The overwhelming majority of oil and gas producers are impeding the energy transition by expanding, and they're facing the consequences from banks like NAB and CommBank which are cutting ties."
Good point, Damien.
I wouldn't rest easy even if I could afford a CGS. My kids get into bed and kick me all through the night ... lol.
Appreciate your engagement with the blog, Phillip.
Phillip, you make a good point!
Prices current around 4:30pm AEDT.
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
I'm just going to serve this one up.
The S&P/ASX200 is down roughly 3% from its all-time highs, set in October.
The index's P/E is roughly 20, based on today's close.
It means the market's earnings yield is 5%.
Today, the Australian 10-Year Treasury yield is sitting at roughly 4.4%.
It means Australia's equity risk premium is 0.6%.
In simple terms, with all the risks out there now (tariffs, AI valuations, interest rates, inflation, US government shutdown, geo-politics, and liquidity constraints as the Federal Reserve's quantitative tightening program winds up), you'll get an annual 0.6 percentage point return above the risk-free rate for following Australia's benchmark share index.
**slumps over desk**
Iron ore is headed for its longest run of daily losses since August.
China's steel industry is entering into the low season and optimism around the US-China trade truce is fading.
In Asian trade the steel-making ingredient dropped for a sixth day, falling to as low as $US102.65 a tonne.
Reporting with Bloomberg
HESTA has responded to ASIC in relation to its infringement payment.
Here's what the HESTA spokesperson said:
HESTA has been issued with two infringement notices in relation to a statement used in our Google and Bing advertising.
The incident was isolated to this online advertising and made in error.
We apologise to our members and partners, recognising we fell short of the high standards they should expect from us in our communications.
Once we identified the issue, we took immediate action to remove the content from publication and self-reported the incident to ASIC.
HESTA takes our regulatory obligations very seriously.
We have cooperated with ASIC and taken appropriate action to address its concerns, including further strengthening our internal processes and controls to minimise the risk of future incidents occurring.