Market Reports

• Australian Market Report: Shares crashed to their second-steepest fall of the year on the ASX as higher than expected Australian inflation figures exacerbated fears of higher interest rates. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed down 177.9 points, or 2.49 per cent, to 6961.6 points..... [more]

• U.S. Market Report: Stocks have moved notably lower in morning trading on Tuesday, moving back to the downside following the substantial rebound seen in the previous session. The major averages have more than offset Monday's gains but remain off the multi-month intraday lows set during the day..... [more]

• European Market Report: European stocks rebounded on Tuesday, after having succumbed to heavy selling pressure in the previous session on fears of aggressive Fed tightening and growing concern about Russia's troop build-up on Ukraine's border..... [more]

• Asian Market Report: Asian stocks tumbled on Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday, which is expected to provide clues on the direction of monetary policy..... [more]

Australian Business News

• Inflation surges as housing and fuel lift consumer price index.... [more]

• Home owners who have already switched from variable interest-rate mortgages to fixed rates appear to have made the right call. That is particularly so for those who fixed for a term of three years between the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 and September of last year, just before fixed rates started to rise..... [more]

• Housing stress continues to climb in Australia, with the rental market resembling “a great white shark”. A Productivity Commission report examining housing and homelessness found nearly half of all people receiving commonwealth rent assistance were spending more than 30 per cent of their income on rent, the common measurement of housing stress..... [more]

• Most superannuation fund members saw a big improvement in their retirement savings in 2021, with returns four times higher than the previous year, when sharemarkets took fright over the potential economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic..... [more]

• Ructions continue to roll across the Australian payment sector after local buy now, pay later firm Zip Co confirmed it was mulling a takeover of a US-focused rival. Zip Co – a local rival to Block-owned Afterpay – on Tuesday confirmed it was in early talks to acquire US-headquartered firm Sezzle, having been rumoured to be holding talks over a number of months..... [more]

• State government bonds transition from RBA QE to bank QE in 2022 and beyond. Notwithstanding persistent buying over the month, state government bond ("semi") spreads over Commonwealth government bonds have in January steadily climbed to elevated levels as the street has actively sought to cheapen-up the sector ahead of the RBA ending its bond purchase program.... [more]

• The Australian exchange traded fund (ETF) industry has continued to grow, maintaining its strong momentum from the past two years with a 44% increase during the course of 2021. BetaShares’ Australian ETF Review for December and 2021 as a whole highlighted how industry funds under management (FUM) grew by a record $42 billion, starting the year at $95 billion and ending at $136.9 billion..... [more]

• Minerals explorer Ardea Resources has boosted the scale of its Goongarrie Hub nickel-cobalt project by almost 50 per cent to 3.5 million tonnes per annum, or “Mtpa” and flagged a decrease in carbon emissions by adding an atmospheric leach circuit..... [more]

• Torian Resources has tabled further exemplary gold drill hits adding more value to a rapidly growing gold repository at its flagship Mt Stirling project, some 40 kilometres north-west of Leonora in WA..... [more]

• Diesel-powered mining vehicles will be a thing of the past within the decade for Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) under its plan to decarbonise by 2030. The iron ore miner announced yesterday it would acquire British engineering and technology company, Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE), in an effort to fast-track its decarbonisation plans..... [more]

• Fortescue says WA border delay is ‘disappointing’ as skills shortage bites.... [more]

• Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm says a deal to cancel $US2.4 billion ($3.3 billion) in debt owed by the Mongolian government will settle years of disputes and delays that have plagued the mining giant’s plans to enlarge the Oyu Tolgoi copper project..... [more]

• With the Russian military at the Ukrainian border, harvest in "Europe's bread basket" is under threat and Australian farmers could be left to fill the gap in the world's grain supply. Ukraine is among the world's most fertile farming countries and last year exported a record 84 million tonnes of grain..... [more]

• Three Northern Territory mines are set to restart operations after major project status was awarded to the Mt Bundy Gold Project. The NT government says the $412 million project is likely to generate $1.78 billion in operating expenditure over its life..... [more]

• West African Resources (ASX:WAF) share price falls 22% on quarterly earnings and coup concerns.... [more]

• X2M Connect (X2M) has secured two new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and maintenance contracts with Gochang County and the Jeju province in South Korea. The first is a three-year contract renewal with Gochang County valued at $1.03 million. .... [more]

• Opinion - John Hawkins: Inflation hits 3.5%, but one high number won’t budge the Reserve Bank on interest rates .... [more]

World Business News

• The International Monetary Fund lowered its economic forecasts for the United States, China and the global economy on Tuesday, and said uncertainty about the pandemic, inflation, supply disruptions and U.S. monetary tightening posed further risks..... [more]

• Consumer confidence slips in January as U.S. economy hits soft patch due to omicron wave .... [more]

• US consumer confidence remains high after January downturn.... [more]

• GM to Invest $7 Billion in Michigan Manufacturing Sites.... [more]

• Elon Musk's sway over the price of dogecoin continues following a Tuesday tweet from the world's richest person. Musk tweeted Tuesday morning that McDonald's should accept the meme-crypto token as a form of payment, and if they did he would eat a happy meal on TV..... [more]

• American Express Co's quarterly profit beat market estimates as consumers seeking respite from the pandemic swiped its credit card to dine out and holiday, helping the company allay fears of any big impact from the Omicron variant..... [more]

• U.S. FTC to sue to block Lockheed Martin's $4.4 billion Aerojet deal.... [more]

• Growing prescription drug and medical device sales nudged Johnson & Johnson past fourth-quarter earnings expectations, and the health care giant’s COVID-19 vaccine gained momentum as well..... [more]

• Hess Corp (HES.N) said on Tuesday it expects a 37% jump in capital spending for exploration and production this year, as the oil company looks to focus on operations in Guyana and the U.S. Bakken shale basin..... [more]

• Google has overhauled a central piece of technology it is building to replace advertising cookies, after complaints that it has not done enough to protect users’ privacy and could end up further entrenching its own power in the advertising world..... [more]

• Bob Dylan has sold his entire catalog of recorded music to Sony Music. The recording company described the deal for 60 years worth of music as a "landmark agreement" in a statement..... [more]

• Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso said on Tuesday he will seek to disconnect the handover of crude from outstanding debt to China during a visit to the Asian country next month, part of his plan to renegotiate some $4.1 billion in debt..... [more]

• Rising inequality in the UK will become an electoral battleground. Households face falling real-term income growth and a spike in home-heating costs. Failure to tackle those will hurt when voters go to the ballot box.... [more]

• Pressure is mounting on Rishi Sunak to scrap April’s planned increase in national insurance contributions (NICs) after the latest figures for the public finances showed the government borrowing £13bn less this year than expected in the October budget..... [more]

• The UK economy will grow more slowly than expected this year as it recovers from the Covid pandemic, the International Monetary Fund has said. The forecast for UK growth in 2022 has been cut to 4.7% from 5% in the IMF's latest world economic outlook..... [more]

• Britain to review anti-dumping sanctions on Chinese-made steel .... [more]

• Nvidia is becoming increasingly resigned to giving up on its $40bn takeover of Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, as regulatory hurdles and industry opposition mounts, making it almost certain that the two-year time frame the companies aimed to complete the deal in will expire..... [more]

• Unilever cuts 1,500 management jobs in global overhaul.... [more]

• Royal Mail plans to cut around 700 management jobs as it tries to reduce costs amid growing competition from rivals. The move, part of a restructuring plan, comes as the firm faces heavy criticism over ongoing postal delays..... [more]

• How Putin's $11 billion pipeline split NATO and the EU at a time of crisis.... [more]

• Chairman of Israeli spyware firm NSO says he has stepped down.... [more]

• Yuan overtakes yen in global transaction volume. It turns out growing 8.1% wasn’t the most important 2021 milestone for China’s economy. That.... [more]

• China’s state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN) on Tuesday announced a soft launch of a nationwide infrastructure to support Chinese non-fungible tokens (NFTs), marking a key step towards creating a domestic industry that is separated from the global market and not associated with any cryptocurrencies..... [more]

• State-owned airline Air India is likely to be handed over to salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group by the end of this week, according to multiple media reports. Some publications have reported that the tentative date for this historic transfer will be January 27..... [more]

• Budget 2022: Volvo Group India seeks moderate taxation regime for auto sector.... [more]

• Vaccine maker BioNTech, Google and rail firm Deutsche Bahn are among the companies investing in African-founded artificial intelligence company InstaDeep. The company, now based in London, announced Tuesday that it has raised $100 million from investors, allowing it to expand its presence to the United States..... [more]