1h agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:53pmMarket snapshotASX futures: -0.3% to 8,854 pointsASX 200 (Tuesday close): +0.4% to 8,846 pointsAustralian dollar: flat at 65.94 US centsWall Street: Dow Jones (-0.2%) S&P 500 (-0.6%), Nasdaq (-1%)Europe: FTSE (flat), DAX (+0.4%), Stoxx 600 (+0.3%) Spot gold: +0.5% to $US3,764/ounceBrent crude: +2% at $US67.87/barrelIron ore: -0.6% to $US106/tonneBitcoin: -0.3% to $US111,957

Prices current around 7:40am AEST

15m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 11:17pmWestpac to axe 200 bank teller jobs

Westpac is planning to sack 200 bank tellers across its branches as part of its “digital first” strategy.

Instead, the banking giant will replace them with 200 lenders and bankers to achieve its “home lending and small business ambitions”, according to an email that Westpac’s retail banking head Damien Macrae sent to his staff yesterday.

The Finance Sector Union has slammed the bank’s decision, saying it “devastate staff and strip away
essential face-to-face banking and put profit before people”.

The FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said:

“Westpac is asking loyal tellers to migrate customers to digital services that ultimately eliminate their own jobs. It’s callous and short-sighted.

“Communities still rely on face-to-face banking and workers should not be sacrificed for cost-cutting dressed up
as innovation.

“Our expectation is clear: no worker should lose their job. We will hold Westpac to account every step of the
way.”

Unsurprisingly, Westpac disagreed with that view, and said in an emailed statement:

“We adjust the composition of our workforce according to our investment priorities. While we continue to invest in extra bankers, other areas may need fewer resources.

“This means from time to time we make changes that may impact some roles and responsibilities as we actively manage costs and investment. As the skills and capabilities required in banking continue to evolve, so will our workforce.

We try to keep as many employees in the Westpac Group as we can, through retraining and redeployment. For those who leave, we help them with tailored support and assistance with career transition.”

50m agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 10:42pm

Alan Kohler on gold prices, AI and market shocks

In case you need a refresher before the ASX opens today, I can certainly recommend Alan Kohler’s finance report.

Alan talked about Myer’s disastrous financial performance, Nvidia and OpenAI investing $US100 billion in each other (which he described as a “money-go-round”), and the price of gold surging to a new record, above $US3,700 per ounce.

He says gold is being driven higher by “US rate cuts and Donald Trump doing what he said he would do, which is increase tariffs and cut immigration, a demand shock combined with a supply shock”.

“Global investors see it as a bit like the combination of nitro
and glycerine, and they’re getting out of there before it blows.”

Loading…1h agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 10:21pmOptus failure may not have been prevented by incoming triple-0 reforms

Efforts to beef up regulation of the telecommunications sector likely wouldn’t have prevented last week’s Optus outage, even if they were in force, according to experts who warn more significant changes are needed to avoid repeat catastrophes.

Instead they argue an investigation into the network’s infrastructure and the addition of conditions into the telco’s operating licence, along with stricter enforcement mechanisms, would go further to prevent serious outages.

The network failure, according to Optus’s version of events, began early on Thursday morning but it was not reported to the communications regulator until more than 10 hours later.

Those initial reports were “perfunctory and some were inaccurate”, Australian Communications and Media Authority chair Nerida O’Loughlin revealed on Monday.

For more, here’s the story by Keane Bourke and Maani Truu.

1h agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 10:04pmCould AI and a universal basic income eliminate ‘meaningless jobs’?

Australia essentially did it during COVID. The world’s richest man thinks it’s inevitable. And a growing body of research suggests it could be the answer to AI shattering long-held high rates of employment.

A Universal Basic Income, or UBI, is a regular, obligation-free payment to everyone. There are different models, but those key elements endure in research studies and pilot projects around the world.

When the pandemic forced people to stay home, millions of Australians were able to remain in their jobs thanks to JobKeeper payments.

In addition, a further 2.2 million people who received some form or welfare payment (such as JobSeeker, colloquially called ‘the dole’) enjoyed a top-up payment called the coronavirus supplement that massively boosted — in most cases essentially doubled — their income.

At one point, more than 43 per cent of the adult population was receiving a regular, obligation-free payment from the government.

So with artificial intelligence threatening to shatter complete sectors and occupations, my colleague Daniel Ziffer asks whether it’s time to talk about a universal basic income to secure our future?

1h agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:53pmWall Street falls after Powell says share prices are ‘fairly highly valued’

One reason why the ASX is likely to open lower is because it normally follows the direction of larger stock markets (particularly Wall Street).

US markets retreated from their record highs overnight as doubts about the artificial intelligence (AI) bull market weighed on investors’ minds.

Some of the biggest drags on the market were tech giants like Nvidia (-2.8%), Microsoft (-1%), Amazon (-3%), Meta (-1.3%), Tesla (-1.9%) and Oracle (-4.4%).

This led to a significant fall on the US tech index, the Nasdaq Composite, which fell 1% to 22,573 points. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% to 46,298 points, and the S&P 500 dropped 0.6% to 6,657 points.

The latest comments from US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell also contributed to the falls.

During a speech on Tuesday (local time), Mr Powell was asked how much emphasis his colleagues placed on market prices during their interest rate deliberations.

The Fed chair responded by saying:

“We do look at overall financial conditions, and we ask ourselves whether our policies are affecting financial conditions in a way that is what we’re trying to achieve,” Powell said. “But you’re right, by many measures, for example, equity prices are fairly highly valued.”

He also offered little hint of when he thinks the central bank might next cut interest rates.

Instead, Mr Powell stressed that the Fed needs to balance inflation concerns with a weakening job market.

He also said the decision on whether to cut rates again was a “challenging situation” and unclear.

1h agoTue 23 Sep 2025 at 9:51pmGold hits new record high, ASX to slip ahead of inflation data

Good morning, and welcome to the ABC’s finance blog! I’ll be your guide for the next few hours.

The local share market is expected to fall slightly when trading begins in a few hours. (ASX futures are pointing to a 0.3% drop in morning trade).

In economic news, the focus will be on the latest ABS inflation figures (for the month of August).

Here’s what NAB’s senior FX strategist Rodrigo Catril is forecasting:

“We expect the headline CPI [consumer price index] indicator to remain steady at 2.8% yoy [year-on-year].

“Key movers in the month will be a fall in electricity prices as rebates in NSW are reintroduced, though base effects from a year ago will see the yoy rate tick higher.

“The release will also include updates on inflation for a range of market services — these were relatively benign in Q2 [the second quarter] and are expected to remain moderate.”

The Australian dollar, meanwhile, was steady at about 65.95 US cents.

And spot gold has lifted to another record high. The precious metal’s value rose 0.5% to $US3,764 an ounce.

It appears to have driven by the latest remarks from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, who raised concerns about the state of the US economy.

“Near-term risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside — a challenging situation,” Mr Powell said at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce 2025 Economic Outlook Luncheon in Rhode Island.

“Two-sided risks mean that there is no risk-free path.”