Market Reports

• Australian Market Report: The Australian sharemarket advanced on Monday, reflecting a strong finish on Wall Street last Friday after US stock indexes drifted around their records while closing out a winning week. The S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 49.3 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 7863.7, with energy and mining companies spurring the advance..... [more]

• U.S. Market Report: The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed to a record high on Monday, boosted by chipmakers, with much anticipated quarterly results from Nvidia and the Federal Reserve's policy meeting minutes this week likely to test Wall Street's record-breaking run..... [more]

• European Market Report: European stocks closed a bit higher on Monday, edging up slightly after turning in a somewhat weak performance in the previous session..... [more]

• Asian Market Report: Asian stocks advanced on Monday due to rising expectations for Fed rate cuts in 2024 and China's stimulus measures announced last week to support the country's struggling property market..... [more]

Australian Business News

• 4 cheap ASX shares owned by top-rated funds. These companies could offer good value and have the stamp of approval from Morningstar Gold Medalist equity funds..... [more]

• These are the ASX stocks company insiders are buying and selling.... [more]

• Why advice firms are attractive to private equity. Financial advice firms are attracting interest from private equity players because they represent a good investment. “When you see private equity coming into the market and taking stakes in advice businesses it is a sign of people ringing the bell that it is a good place to invest,” Super Concepts chief executive, Matthew Rowe told Financial Newswire’s Advice, Wealth and Super Conference..... [more]

• Taxpayers would need to pay $1 billion each year to give landlords the tax breaks they desire, Queensland government modelling shows. The Treasury analysis comes in response to lobbying from the Property Owners Association of Queensland and the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) to reduce land tax on landlords..... [more]

• Financial planning and self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) lobbyists are facing a complex political environment as they seek to gain cross-bench support for key amendments to the Government’s $3 million superannuation tax cap legislation, particularly around indexation..... [more]

• Disposable income soared for richest Australians after pandemic but went backwards for the rest, report says. Income inequality in ‘unprecedented fall’ thanks to jobkeeper, then ballooned again in 2021, the Productivity Commission says.... [more]

• Aussie miners set to benefit from tighter US tariffs. The United States' proposed US$18 billion of tariff tightening will affect Australian miners, with several set to benefit longer-term.... [more]

• White Cliff Minerals is primed to get boots on the ground at its Great Bear Lake project in Canada’s Northwest Territories, with a comprehensive data review identifying a slew of priority multi-mineral targets..... [more]

• The Carlyle Group and APA (formerly Apache Corp) are said to be evaluating the potential acquisition of Santos Ltd's assets in Western Australia and Alaska. This interest follows APA's recent farm-down lease agreement in Alaska. According to DataRoom, two prominent oil and gas investors are exploring a 10% stake in the Pikka project in Alaska, co-owned by Santos and Repsol. While APA assessed the acquisition a few months ago, its current status remains uncertain..... [more]

• Godolphin Resources has started Phase 3 metallurgical testing that includes production of a mixed rare earth carbonate product using samples from its Narraburra rare earths project in NSW. Narraburra is a highly prospective REE project with an existing resource of 94.9Mt grading 739 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO) that includes a high-grade component of 20Mt at 1079ppm TREO..... [more]

• New Venture boss vows to fly into Jupiter rare earths.... [more]

• Danish renewable energy giant Orsted says Australia’s first offshore wind farm deals must contain critical protections against inflationary shocks as the industry reels from soaring costs that have forced the cancellation of projects in the United States. Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, secured one of just six exclusive federal permits this month authorising companies to begin assessing plans to build huge turbines off Victoria’s coast that could bring vast amounts of clean energy to homes and businesses..... [more]

• Star Entertainment Group has entered a trading halt after confirming it had received a “number” of takeover bids. It comes as the casino operator – which has venues in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast – faces scrutiny from multiple state government inquiries in addition to sanctions..... [more]

• One of the country’s biggest private debt-collection firms was warned by regulators to “immediately cease” operating in Victoria just weeks before it struck deals to buy debt from major energy and telco companies, a Guardian Australia investigation has found. Panthera Finance Pty Ltd, the nation’s biggest privately owned debt collector, is currently blacklisted from operating in Victoria due to a 2020 federal court ruling that it had unduly harassed three consumers for money they did not owe..... [more]

• Ever since AML3D (ASX:AL3) hired a man formerly part of the US government’s nuclear submarine program, it’s been charging headlong into the US defence sector’s supply chain networks. Take today’s news as indication of that – the company’s metals-based 3D printing tech, which it called ARCEMY, has been leased by a firm called Laser Welding Solutions (LWS.).... [more]

• Opinion - Elizabeth Knight: The kindest thing to do with Star is to find it a new owner.... [more]

• Comment - Alan Renwick: Australia is set to ban live sheep exports. What will this mean for the industry? .... [more]

• Opinion - Ross Gittins: How the budget was hijacked by a $300 cherry on the top.... [more]

World Business News

• Gold set another record on Monday as Wall Street readies for monetary policy to ease this year. The yellow metal notched an intraday record of $2,454.20 per ounce. This upside momentum comes as investors grow open to the possibility of interest-rate cuts this year..... [more]

• Data indicating a cooling in inflationary pressures in the U.S. may be encouraging, but it is still too soon to say if price growth in the world's largest economy is sustainably subsiding, according to Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson. Speaking at an event in New York, Jefferson argued that it is too early to tell if a "disinflationary process" in the U.S. will be long lasting..... [more]

• Bank of America details the best hedge for a big stock-market move on Nvidia earnings.... [more]

• Jamie Dimon’s days as CEO of JPMorgan Chase are numbered — though its unclear by how much. In a response to a question Monday about the bank’s succession planning, Dimon indicated that his expected tenure is less than five more years. That’s a key change from Dimon’s previous responses to succession questions, in which his standard answer had been that retirement was perpetually five years away..... [more]

• Target lowering prices on 5,000 items in bid to lure more shoppers.... [more]

• Star Entertainment said on Monday a consortium that hosts a local partner of Florida-based Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos is considering a bid for the cash-strapped Australian firm, sending its shares 20% higher. A potential takeover by entertainment giant Hard Rock would provide a much-needed financial lifeline to Star, which has been plagued by a regulatory inquiry into its flagship Sydney casino operation and an executive exodus..... [more]

• Senate Inquiry Finds BMW Imported Cars Tied to Forced Labor in China. The report also found that Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen bought parts from a supplier the U.S. government had singled out for its practices in Xinjiang..... [more]

• A judge has ordered a Michigan community to stop blocking efforts to bring a major electric vehicle battery business to a rural region. Gotion, a China-based manufacturer, was granted a preliminary injunction Friday after arguing that Mecosta County’s Green Township has refused to stick to an agreement made by elected officials who were subsequently removed from office..... [more]

• BlackRock (BLK.N), was sued for $20 million by a whistleblowing former vice president who said it fired him after he objected to a colleague's self-dealing, and was forced to shut down a search engine for monitoring client discussions about illegal investments including in China..... [more]

• Red Lobster files for bankruptcy .... [more]

• The US is rethinking restrictions on Russian diamonds after a wave of pushback from the industry and nations heavily involved in the diamond trade, Reuters reported on Monday. Western countries have placed stiff restrictions on Russia's diamond trade, with fresh sanctions in December banning the gems throughout the European Union..... [more]

• Russia’s War Machine Revs Up as the West’s Plan to Cap Oil Revenues Sputters. Russia has largely evaded attempts by the U.S. and Europe to keep it from profiting from its energy exports..... [more]

• The UK cannot afford to give the “cold shoulder” to China, the City minister said on Monday, in comments that will distance the British government from the Biden administration’s protectionist crackdown. Addressing financial services bosses at the City Week conference in London’s Guildhall, Bim Afolami said it was “crucial” to engage with strategic competitors such as Beijing, and that the UK risked losing control of its economic future if it failed to find common ground..... [more]

• London’s ‘existential’ crisis is of its own making – boosterism won’t save it. As more investors desert the capital for New York, the stock exchange is floundering and crisis talks are being held. And a government talking up a trillion-dollar fantasy business isn’t helping.... [more]

• UK interest rate cut is ‘possible’ this summer, says Bank of England deputy.... [more]

• No-frills airline Ryanair has said fares during the peak summer season are set to be unchanged or only "modestly" higher than last year. The carrier said while it expected "strong" demand for flights in July and August, airfares had been growing slower than expected recently..... [more]

• Italy's large deficit, debt could erode investor confidence, IMF warns.... [more]

• Self-labelled neo-Luddites and the tech-stressed are searching for phones with fewer features. Industry experts cite precarious profit margins and a wobbly market around this niche need. The iPhone turns 17 this year. The launch of the touchscreen-controlled device signalled a moment that has defined our expectations of smartphones ever since. Almost an entire generation has grown up never knowing life without a smartphone..... [more]

• Will China’s fleet of policies to buoy housing sales stem slack tides in the property market?.... [more]

• The big economic news this week was Biden’s very large tariffs on a number of Chinese-made goods. Those tariffs appear to have acted as a catalyst for a bunch of other countries — India, Brazil, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, the EU, etc. — to consider their own tariffs on China..... [more]

• Chinese Firms Face Authoritarianism at Home and Hostility Abroad. The experience of TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, in Beijing and Washington shows how much the ground has shifted for China’s entrepreneurs..... [more]

• China has hinted at possible tit-for-tat action against trade barriers imposed by the United States last week, as relations between the two economic superpowers become increasingly fraught. On Sunday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was launching an anti-dumping probe into polyoxymethylene or POM copolymers, a thermoplastic used in various industries ranging from auto parts to electronics, imported from the US, the European Union, Taiwan and Japan..... [more]

• Saudi Arabia’s biggest-ever plane order isn’t going to Boeing .... [more]

• Opinion - Stephen Bartholomeusz: China just unveiled a ‘ground-breaking’ fix for its property crisis. It’s not enough.... [more]