4h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 6:27amMarket snapshot at the closeASX 200: -0.9% to 8,764 pointsAustralian dollar: +0.3% to 66.21 US centsS&P 500: -0.6% to 6,656 pointsNasdaq: -0.9% to 22,573 pointsSpot gold: -0.1% to $US3,766/ounceBrent crude: +0.1% at $US67.71/barrelIron ore: flat to $US106/tonneBitcoin: 0.5% at $US112,678
ASX 200: -0.9% to 8,764 pointsAustralian dollar: +0.3% to 66.21 US centsS&P 500: -0.6% to 6,656 pointsNasdaq: -0.9% to 22,573 pointsSpot gold: -0.1% to $US3,766/ounceBrent crude: +0.1% at $US67.71/barrelIron ore: flat to $US106/tonneBitcoin: 0.5% at $US112,678Prices current around 4:28pm AEST
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
4h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 6:47am
Goodbye from us
That’s all from today’s finance blog.
Thank you for following along.
Tune in to The Business program on ABC News at 8.45pm (AEST) and we’ll be back online early tomorrow with another day of market news.
Good night!
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4h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 6:40am
Self-driving technology now available in Australia
Tesla’s self-driving technology has landed in Australia.
An update has been made available to owners of late model Teslas that allows their cars to take off, brake, navigate intersections and park independently (under the supervision of a driver).
But is it legal to use self-driving technology here?
You can read all about it in this article by Jason Katsaras.
4h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 6:25amLocal markets at the close
Local markets have closed lower today, dragged down by the financial sector.
The ASX200 closed down -0.92% to 8,764 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index closed down -0.88% to 9,057 points.
Core inflation fell only slightly to 2.6% in August, leading some economists to revise their forecasts for a November rate cut.
Financials were down more than -2%, followed by healthcare and consumer cyclicals.
Sector Summary (Eikon)
In terms of individual stocks, DroneShield led the way, up more than 6%, following on from yesterday’s gains after it announced US expansion plans.
The company produces guns which disrupts the radio frequencies used by drone controllers.
Top and bottom movers (Eikon)
Atlas Arteria Group and Telix Pharmaceuticals led the worst performers today.
4h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 6:15am
Could a November rate cut be off the cards?
In light of today’s core inflation figures, Deutsche Bank has changed its forecast for a November RBA rate cut.
“We no longer expect the RBA to cut at its November policy meeting, and not at all for the remainder of this year,” wrote economist Phil Odonaghoe in an analyst note.
“We now expect the RBA’s next policy move to be a 25 bp cut in February, and another 25bp cut in May.”
Mr Odonaghoe says the CPI figures look more “uncomfortable” for the RBA than they previously expected.
He was surprised by new price information to the upside including restaurant meals, takeaway services and other household and transport prices.
According to Deutsche Bank, the only way a November cut becomes likely is if employment growth weakens.
The September labour force data is released in mid October.
4h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 6:01amStar’s Sydney casino licence suspension remains in effect
The suspension of The Star’s Sydney casino licence will remain in effect.
In a letter sent to the Star, the NSW Independent Casino Commission (NICC) said it had also extended the appointment of the Manager for the Sydney casino to next March, subject to early termination.
The appointment followed an initial report that found the Pyrmont site unfit to hold a casino licence due to evidence of money laundering and large-scale fraud.
Here is what The Star’s CEO and managing director Steve McCann has responded:
“We acknowledge that there is more work to do but we remain committed to delivering on our
Remediation Plan to support the safe and compliant operation of our business.
The Star is committed to continuing its transparent and constructive relationship with the Manager, the
NICC and the New South Wales Government, and demonstrating to all its stakeholders its suitability as
a licence holder as soon as possible.”
The NICC appointed Nicholas Weeks as the Manager of the casino in October 2022, enabling gaming to continue in the casino while remedial steps are taken by The Star.
5h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 5:44am
Optus penalty a clear warning says financial counsellors
Financial Counselling Australia says the $100 million record penalty against Optus sends a strong message to telecommunication providers.
“This isn’t just about the fine,” said Peter Gartlan, co-CEO of FCA.
“It’s about holding those who have repeatedly failed vulnerable people to account.”
“This sets a sector-wide precedent: mis-selling and failure in consumer protection will attract severe consequences,” he said.
Financial counsellors raised concerns about Optus selling inappropriate products to some of the community’s most vulnerable, including people with an intellectual disability, cognitive important or low financial confidence.
Many of those affected were First Nations consumers living in remote areas with no mobile coverage.
“This judgement underlines the need for structural reform: for regulatory frameworks, corporate culture and enforcement mechanisms that protect, not exploit, the most vulnerable among us,” said Mr Gartlan.
5h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 5:20amASX slips as energy sector rebounds
The ASX 200 is lower today, dropping 95.60 points, or 1% to 8,750.30 points and crossing below its 50-day moving average.
The bottom movers are toll roads developer Atlas Arteria and American-Irish building materials company James Hardie Industries, down 5.6% and 4.7% respectively.
The index has lost 0.8% for the last five days, and sits 3.4% below its 52-week high.
Meanwhile, nine of 11 sectors are lower today along with the ASX 200.
The energy sector is the best-performing, gaining +0.3% and rebounding from its recent decline.
This sector is off -6.3% for the past five days.
(ASX)5h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 5:10amOptus to pay $100m fine over “appalling” sales strategies
On a separate matter from its triple-0 failure, Optus has been ordered to pay a $100 million fine over “appalling” sales conduct with hundreds of vulnerable customers for several years until 2023.
The company’s being lobbed with the fine as it deals with its second triple-0 outage crisis in as many years.
Optus had already agreed to pay the $100 million fine with the ACCC, which brought the case against Australia’s second biggest telco.
In enforcing the fine today, the Federal Court’s Justice Patrick O’Sullivan described the company’s conduct as “extremely serious” and “appalling”.
“Many of the effected consumers were First Nations Australians and were vulnerable,” he noted.
My colleague Emilia Terzon has more.
5h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 4:58am
Sydney a ‘moderate’ risk of real estate bubble
Sydney remains at ‘moderate’ risk of a real estate bubble, according to a global report by investment bank UBS.
“The city saw a slight fall in real prices and real rents, and recent cuts in interest rates have improved buyer confidence, but borrowing and construction costs remain high,” said Andrew McAuley, chief of investments at UBS Global Wealth Management Australia.
A price bubble refers to a large and sustained mispricing of property (until the bubble bursts!)
Of the 21 cities studied, Miami is at the highest risk of a bubble, followed by Tokyo and Zurich.
Miami prices have increased over the past 15 years, however, growth has cooled over the past year. Affordability is at near record lows. The current price-to-rent ratio has surpassed even the extremes of the 2006 property bubble, the report states.
Los Angeles, Dubai, Amsterdam and Geneva are listed as ‘elevated risk’.
Sydney is 9th on the list in the ‘moderate’ section. It has similar scores to last year.
No other Australian cities were included in the report.
Loading6h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 4:38am🎥How Optus’ triple-0 failure occurs in a nutshell
Our business correspondent David Taylor has explained the matter in a way that we all can understand.
“What he (Optus CEO Stephen Rue) says happened this time is that, when the person doing that upgrade
was meant to put those calls aside, they didn’t.
“So when the firewall was upgraded, those calls were left not being able to be processed.
“So you put the calls aside, make the upgrade — those calls were not put aside, so those phone calls were not able to go through.”
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6h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 4:21am
Reducing red tape in tax system: Jim Chalmers
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said the government has tasked the Board of Taxation with identifying ways to responsibly reduce red tape in the tax system.
“This is all about reducing the regulatory and compliance burden across the economy to support productivity growth,” Mr Chalmers said in a statement.
He said the board would consult with businesses and the broader community to identify areas of business tax law and administration where opportunities exist for reducing red tape, as part of the review.
Andrew Mills, currently chair of the Financial Reporting Council, has been appointed as acting chair of the board for a three-month period, effective from October 1, 2025.
6h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 4:15am
Market snapshotASX 200: -1% to 8,759 pointsAustralian dollar: +0.3% to 66.15 US centsS&P 500: -0.6% to 6,656 pointsNasdaq: -0.9% to 22,573 pointsSpot gold: -0.1% to $US3,766/ounceBrent crude: +0.3% at $US67.82/barrelIron ore: flat to $US106/tonneBitcoin: -0.5$ at $US111,469
Prices current around 2:12pm AEST
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
6h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 4:03am’That is a process issue’, Rue reiterates
When asked whether Optus considers bringing more overseas call centres back to Australia, CEO Stephen Rue has reiterated that the triple-0 failure is due to the process not being followed, not because of the call centres.
“It is a process issue,” Mr Rue said.
“Regardless of where [the] process is conducted, the issue, the process, was not followed.
“The triple-0 network at the moment is being monitored by, as I said again in my remarks by the network team, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The CEO has now wrapped up his update, saying he is “determined to get independent findings and to implement those findings”.
7h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 3:52amOptus outage a ‘disgrace’ and license should be reviewed
Emilia here with you, covering this ongoing crisis engulfing Australia’s second biggest telco, Optus.
We’ve just heard from the federal treasurer, who has weighed in on Optus’ triple zero outage last week. It’s the telco’s second emergency services outage in recent years.
Hundreds of 000 calls didn’t go through to emergency services through Optus’ network, with several deaths reported since.
“What we’ve seen with Optus and with the failures from 000 is a disgrace,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers told media today.
“This can never happen again.”
Former ACCC chair Allan Fels just spoke to me from Sydney, where he called for a review of Optus’ license.
He noted separate court action that was being finalised today against Optus, after a misconduct case brought by the ACCC.
The case was after Optus sold hundreds of customers (many of them vulnerable) phone plans they didn’t need and in some cases couldn’t use.
Some even had debt collectors put onto them.
“Three huge failures,” Allan Fels just told me.
“Two with the triple zeros. Now one huge one on the consumer front.
“There is something wrong with the company.”
As we just heard from Optus CEO Stephen Rue, he doesn’t believe the latest triple zero issue is linked to job cuts or funding from parent company, Singapore’s Singtel.
He blamed human error for the outage.
7h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 3:42amStaff ‘not following processes’, Optus CEO says
Stephen Rue reiterates that the triple-0 outage occurred because people didn’t follow process.
“What we’re talking about today is actually not expenditure,” he said.
“That’s not an investment issue. That is people not following processes.”
“This is not about lack of staff. What has occurred here is a standard process that’s not been followed.”
7h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 3:41am
‘Optus is accountable for the operations of its network’: Rue
According to CEO Stephen Rue, Optus’s upgrade program that caused triple-0 failures on September 18 was scheduled
to be completed over two nights.
“While preliminary investigations have determined that on the first night of the operate, the steps taken on past successful operates of a similar nature were not followed.
“Step one in the previous successful upgrades, the process was to divert calls away from the relevant part of the core network, to a separate part of the core network.
“Steps two involved the equipment behind the firewall being upgraded. Being
locked.
“And step three, is to then safely upgrade the viable with the final step being to unlock and re-divert the traffic back.
“On this occasion, of the upgrade of 18 September, that because the outage,
the first step in the process was not followed.
We have successfully completed similar operates in the past and it should be reiterated that the issue occurred because of this time there was a deviation from established processes.”
Mr Rue said the
independent review would investigate the series of events that took place here and determine why all triple-0 calls could not divert correctly.
7h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 3:41am
Singtel isn’t underfunding Optus, CEO Rue says
A question on whether or not Singtel, Optus’s parent company, is underfunding the Australian telco.
Mr Rue said that is not the case.
“If you actually have a look at what SingTel … have invested, to get the exact number, $9.3 billion over the last five years in the company,” he said.
“In the last few years, there has been significant upgrades to the 5G network.
“The company has been investing heavily in upgrading 5G networks in the metropolitan areas. That led to an elevated level of spend.
“You can hardly say that $9.3 billion worth of investment is not significant investment in the company.”
7h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 3:38am
Optus still asking for advice on whether to contact families affected
Stephen Rue is asked has he or Optus had the opportunity to directly engage with the families who were affected.
“What I have done is I have asked for advice from the South Australian and Western Australian Police,” he said.
“I have asked them about the appropriateness and have asked them to actually contact, effectively, the families as to any engagement with the company — and me personally.”
A follow up question is asked — Is it your desire to reach out to the families?
“I’m seeking advice on that matter,” the Optus CEO responded.
“If the advice is appropriate for me to reach out, it is my desire to do so,” he added.
7h agoWed 24 Sep 2025 at 3:35amRue says job cuts not to blame for outage
The Optus CEO is asked were recent job cuts at the company partly to blame for the triple-0 outage.
“Not to my knowledge but, to be very clear, this is a process issue,” Stephen Rue said.
“This is a process breakdown, as I outlined. The first step in the standard process was not followed.
When asked was that Optus staff or a third-party, he said “it’s a combination”.
“The very first step — which was to divert calls away from the core part of the network — was not followed,” he added.
“That was a result of human error, in terms of instructions provided. Instructions weren’t followed through correctly.”