55m agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 8:55pmMarket snapshotASX 200 futures: flatAustralian dollar: -0.4% to 66.04 US centsWall Street (Thursday): S&P500 -1%, Dow -0.4%, Nasdaq -1.4%Europe (Thursday): Dax -0.5%, FTSE +0.9%, Eurostoxx flatSpot gold: +1% to $US4,374/ounceBrent crude: +2.5% to $US 60.39/barrelIron ore (Friday): +1% to $US103.60/tonneBitcoin: -1.9% at $US85,981

Prices current around 8:00am AEDT

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

4m agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 9:46pmNetwealth reaches separate deal with superannuation regulator

In addition to its deal with ASIC, Netwealth has reached a separate but related agreement with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

APRA’s job is basically to watch over super funds, banks and insurers to make sure they don’t collapse owing consumers a lot of money.

As a super platform, Netwealth is under its supervision.

The regulator has accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from Netwealth Superannuation Services Pty Ltd to fix “material weaknesses” in its investment governance.

APRA says the undertaking follows a review of superannuation platforms which found, “deficiencies in Netwealth’s onboarding due diligence and monitoring of investment options”.

In layman’s terms, APRA found that Netwealth really didn’t know much about many of the investment options it was offering its 115,000 customers who have more than $40 billion invested via the platform.

 As part of the undertaking, Netwealth has committed to an independent expert review of high-risk investment options offered on its platform, a review of its investment governance framework, a remediation plan to fix any deficiencies found, and a review of all investment options on the platform to make sure they meet “uplifted requirements”.

8m agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 9:41pm

Netwealth outcome ‘stems significant losses’ on retirement savings

As we’ve been reporting, in breaking news Netwealth has agreed to pay out more than $100 million to First Guardian investors, after it reached a deal with the corporate watchdog, ASIC.

ASIC’s deputy chair Sarah Court has put out this statement.

This is a welcome outcome for many Australians and stems the significant losses that threatened their retirement savings.

More than 1,000 members who invested through Netwealth’s superannuation platform were facing huge uncertainty when First Guardian collapsed.

ASIC’s investigation will ensure Netwealth restores these members to the position they were in before they saw their savings eroded.

22m agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 9:28pm

Netwealth agreement follows Macquarie deal

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has been busy trying to clean up the mess left behind by the collapse of both the Shield Master Fund and First Guardian Master Fund.

The latest move is a deal with superannuation platform Netwealth to stump up more than $100 million in compensation for more than a thousand clients who lost their retirement savings when First Guardian collapsed.

In September, Macquarie announced it would compensate about 3,000 clients who invested in the collapsed Shield fund via its superannuation platform to the tune of about $321 million.

ASIC also has current legal actions against two other super platforms, Equity Trustees and Diversa.

40m agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 9:10pmNetwealth to pay out more than $100 million to compensate First Guardian investors

Superannuation platform Netwealth has reached a deal with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission that will see it pay out more than $100 million to more than a thousand of its customers affected by the First Guardian Master Fund collapse.

ASIC says it has accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from Netwealth to ensure that members are compensated 100 per cent of the amounts they invested in First Guardian, less any withdrawals.

As part of the deal, Netwealth has admitted that it failed to obtain sufficient information about First Guardian before offering the fund on its superannuation platform.

Macquarie’s superannuation platform has already agreed to pay out more than $300 million to compensate customers who invested via it in the Shield Master Fund, while ASIC is currently pursuing court action against other super platform operators.

49m agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 9:00pmAussie dollar drops 0.4% to just above 66 US cents

To think it was touching 67 US cents just this month! The local currency has taken a little pressure overnight and is now trading at just above 66 US cents.

Here’s a note from the currency analysts at CBA.

AUD/USD decreased toward 0.6600 alongside lower US equities.  Concerns about lofty AI valuations weighed on US equities.  

We forecast AUD will lift against most of the major currencies over the coming months and ease as 2026 progresses.  The exception is AUD/NZD where we expect a modest increase over the year. 

We expect AUD/USD to end 2025 at a new year‑to‑date high around 0.6800.  We have also noticed AUD/USD tends to increase in the final two weeks of the year. 

1h agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 8:46pm

Warner Bros rejects Paramount’s hostile takeover

Warner Bros Discovery’s board has rejected Paramount Skydance’s $US108.4 billion ($163.7 billion) hostile bid.

In a letter to shareholders, disclosed in a regulatory filing, the board wrote that Paramount had “consistently misled” Warner Bros shareholders that its $US30 per share cash offer was fully guaranteed, or “backstopped”, by the Ellison family, led by billionaire and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

“It does not, and never has,” the board wrote of the guarantee of Paramount’s offer, noting that the offer posed “numerous, significant risks”.

Warner Bros’s board also said it found Paramount’s offer “inferior” to the merger agreement with Netflix’s.

Warner Bros has not yet set a date for a shareholder vote on the deal but it is expected to happen sometime in spring or early summer.

Reporting with Reuters

1h agoWed 17 Dec 2025 at 8:40pm

ASX to open flat as Wall Street tech jitters continue

Good morning!

Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq at three-week lows.

That’s as nagging worries about the artificial intelligence trade weighed on technology stocks.

Oracle fell nearly 5% after a report said the cloud company’s largest data center partner Blue Owl Capital would not back a $US10 billion deal for its next facility.

AI bellwether Nvidia fell 3.4% while chipmaker Broadcom dropped 5.5%, sending a broader chips index down 3.3%.

“There’s percolating anxiety about the AI trade,” Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist, told Reuters.

Overall, the Dow Jones lost 0.4%, the S&P500 was off almost 1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was off 1.4%.

Right now, futures for the ASX 200 show it as trading flat today. We’ll bring you more shortly!

Reporting with Reuters