Market Reports

• Australian Market Report: The Australian sharemarket declined on Thursday. The ASX/S&P 200 finished down 20.1 points, or 0.2 per cent, at 8633.20, with banks and tech stocks leading the losses. The Australian dollar was trading at US70.03¢..... [more]

• U.S. Market Report: After showing a strong move to the upside early in the session, stocks have given back ground over the course of the trading day on Thursday. The major averages have pulled back well off their highs of the session.... [more]

• European Market Report: European stocks closed broadly higher on Thursday with investors closely following the news from the Middle East front and reacting to the European Central Bank's rate hike announcement..... [more]

• Asian Market Report: Asian shares ended mixed on Thursday after steep losses on Wall Street overnight. Middle East tensions and rate hike expectations kept investors on edge, but overall losses were limited.... [more]

Australian Business News

• Sydney’s housing market has slumped to levels last seen nearly eight years ago when the city was in the throngs of its last major real estate downturn..... [more]

• The price of some supermarket staples has soared by well above already-high inflation rates this year, putting further pressure on Australians battling amid the cost-of-living crisis..... [more]

• Super returns headed for positive 7+% EOFY.... [more]

• The stay-at-home mum caught in Labor's CGT crossfire. Morgans warns Labor's proposed 30% base capital gains tax could crush the after-tax returns of Australia's forgotten investors..... [more]

• Norfolk Metals is preparing to reinvent itself as a Chile-focused copper developer after striking a transformational US$55M ($69M) deal centred on the advanced Ciclón copper project..... [more]

• Forrestania Resources has rung up a solid 37 per cent grade increase at its Lady Lyla gold deposit near Southern Cross in Western Australia, with a new mineral resource estimate showing 922,000 tonnes at 1.41 grams per tonne.... [more]

• Augustus Minerals has completed a follow-up phase two reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign at its Clifton East prospect in the company’s Music Well gold project.... [more]

• Pilbara Gold secures heritage approvals for Roe Hills resource drilling campaign.... [more]

• With the Northern Territory’s wet season now in the rear-view mirror, Beetaloo Energy is kicking its operations into high gear, launching a significant seismic survey in its western permits this month.... [more]

• St George Mining’s metallurgical testing has successfully produced separate high-grade niobium and rare earths concentrates from near-surface mineralisation sourced from its Araxá project in Brazil..... [more]

• Can new CEO fix Lendlease? Shares rally on hire, but gearing target blows out. Lendlease's shares in freefall all year, however guidance for IDC business maintained at 28-34 cps is received positively from the market..... [more]

• Unionised maintenance workers at BHP's port operations in WA's Pilbara have voted to go on strike, marking the start of what could be the mining industry's most significant industrial action this century..... [more]

• Is CSL finally turning the ship around? The beaten down healthcare giant remains cheap on turnaround potential..... [more]

• CSL Shares Bounce 20% off Lows To Sit Amongst ASX 200 Leaders Today.... [more]

• Sigma Healthcare (ASX: SIG) has confirmed it’s in preliminary talks to acquire U.K. pharmacy and health retail giant Boots, in what could become one of the largest offshore acquisitions ever undertaken by an Oz healthcare company..... [more]

• Australian billionaire Brett Blundy wages high-stakes campaign to oust chair of Victoria’s Secret. Blundy’s investment firm, BBRC International, owns about 13% of the US-listed lingerie brand, giving it a potential platform.... [more]

• Super Retail Group Shares Continue To Bounce as Transformation Plan Unveiled.... [more]

• Commonwealth Bank shareholders go to High Court seeking damages for inflated share prices.... [more]

• Hundreds of JB Hi-Fi customers will receive a refund after the consumer watchdog found it misled consumers on sale prices. More than $250,000 will be refunded to 206 customers over pricing claims.... [more]

• Petrol station moguls pay $2 million to creditors after empire collapses, land contaminated. Zoya Investments.... [more]

• Creditors owed more than $7 million after the sudden cancellation of Byron Bay's Bluesfest in March are unlikely to recoup all of the money they are owed, a new financial report has revealed..... [more]

• Opinion - Andrea Felsted: Inflation is hair-raising for the beauty industry. The beauty industry is experiencing a new wave of demand for affordable treats.... [more]

• Comment - Sebastian Bowen: Could another oil shock tank the ASX stock market? Once again, all eyes on on the Strait….... [more]

World Business News

• Oil prices drop as Trump backs away from his threat of strikes on Iran. The president had threatened strikes on Iran Thursday night and said the U.S. would take Kharg Island, the Mideast country’s oil-export hub.... [more]

• US weekly jobless claims increase marginally amid labor market resilience.... [more]

• Inflation hit its highest level in three years last month, according to fresh data released this week — but new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh wants the central bank to focus on different measures..... [more]

• Foreign demand steadies at US Treasury auctions in June.... [more]

• Average US long-term mortgage rate rises to 6.52%, just below its high for the year.... [more]

• Asset manager BlackRock (BLK.N), sought to buy at least $5 billion worth of ​shares in the initial public offering ‌of Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPCX.O), the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.... [more]

• SpaceX is poised for blastoff with an IPO likely to break records.... [more]

• A look at the SpaceX IPO by the numbers.... [more]

• Is SpaceX Worth $1.77 Trillion? It’s a Pie in the Sky, Some Investors Say. Elon Musk’s rocket company is spending big and losing money. That has raised questions about whether it can justify its valuation for its blockbuster IPO.... [more]

• Citigroup became the latest Wall Street brokerage to raise its 2026-end target for the S&P 500 (.SPX), index beyond ​the 8,000 mark, citing resilience in corporate earnings and ‌AI-driven growth..... [more]

• Oracle’s stock is seeing its worst run in a quarter-century as this key AI debate rages on. While Oracle’s cloud-infrastructure business is growing rapidly, a massive $95 billion spending plan and a physical bottleneck.... [more]

• Adobe options trading jumps to over 106,000 contracts.... [more]

• Starbucks options trading jumps to nearly 60,000 contracts.... [more]

• Disney says "Toy Story" franchise has driven $16B in revenue.... [more]

• Lyft (LYFT.O), joined Uber Technologies (UBER.N), in suing ‌New York City to block a new law they said would force them to keep bad drivers who threaten public and passenger safety on their platforms..... [more]

• Brazilian officials on Thursday announced a sharp drop in deforestation rates, pushing back on one of the arguments that the Trump administration used last week to justify additional tariffs on the South American country..... [more]

• The European Central Bank has raised interest rates for the first time since 2023 in response to higher inflation caused by the war in Iran. The ECB raised its main deposit rate from 2% to 2.25% in a move that financial markets expect.... [more]

• European Central Bank policymakers see keeping interest rates on hold at their next meeting ​in July as the more likely scenario, if ‌energy prices stayed near their current level, two sources told Reuters..... [more]

• The Chinese owner of British Steel has started a formal process under an international treaty to win compensation from the UK government over its decision to nationalise the Scunthorpe steelworks..... [more]

• Heathrow passenger numbers dip as Iran war impact lingers on.... [more]

• Ryanair is being investigated by the UK's competition watchdog over charges it imposes on parents to sit next to their child on flights. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was looking into whether the airline's policy.... [more]

• The chief executive of BT saw her pay and bonus package more than double last year to £5.6m, the biggest pay award to a boss of the telecoms company in more than a decade..... [more]

• The high cost of energy is the reason Chinese car maker BYD won’t be making its cars in the UK, says BYD executive vice-president Stella Li..... [more]

• France's retirement system is set to run larger-than-expected deficits from 2045 when the falling birth rate starts weighing on the ​system's finances, the pensions advisory council said on Thursday..... [more]

• China’s space start-ups eye IPO boom as SpaceX heads for record listing. China’s emerging aerospace firms are lining up to list as SpaceX’s blockbuster flotation shines a spotlight on the sector.... [more]

• China’s BYD claims Germany’s plug-in hybrid crown, disrupting market of iconic auto giants.... [more]

• South Korea has hit online retail giant Coupang with a record fine of more than $400m (£299m) over a massive data breach that exposed the data of more than 30 million customers last year..... [more]

• Thailand’s big money bid to become ASEAN’s data center capital. Board of Investment claims foreign investment pouring into data center projects that tap kingdom’s industrial estate advantage.... [more]

• The World Bank said on Thursday that Indonesia's economic growth was expected to slow to 5% in 2026 as it comes under increasing fiscal strain from an ambitious ​spending programme and the rising cost of fuel subsidies.... [more]

• India's market regulator on Thursday proposed new ​norms to prevent illiquid stocks ‌from drifting to different prices across exchanges and improve trading ​consistency by aligning price ​bands and reference prices..... [more]

• Comment/Analysis - Kevin Peachey: Will UK interest rates go up? The Bank of England has held interest rates at 3.75% three times, keeping them at the lowest level since February 2023..... [more]

• Comment - The Economist: The uncomfortable truth behind Wall Street’s embarrassing obsession with Elon Musk’s SpaceX..... [more]