40m agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 11:18pmMarket SnapshotASX 200: +0.6% to 8,672 points (live prices below)Australian dollar: flat at 66.10 US centsWall Street (Friday): S&P500 +0.9%, Dow +0.6%, Nasdaq +1.3%Europe (Friday): Dax +0.4%, FTSE +0.5%, Eurostoxx +0.4%Spot gold: +0.1% to $US4,344/ounceBrent crude: +0.7% to $US 60.90/barrelIron ore (Friday): -0.4% to $US104.0/tonneBitcoin: +0.4% at $US88,539

Prices current at around 10:15am AEDT

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

2m agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 11:56pmFederal Government announces gas reservation scheme

Just in from our colleagues at Parliament House in Canberra:

The Federal Government has announced plans for a gas reservation scheme, aimed at increasing domestic supplies and driving down the cost of natural gas.

The Government will begin consultation on a plan to restrict gas exports unless domestic demand is catered for first by ensuring 15-25% percent of extracted gas is reserved for use within Australia.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen says the scheme will start operating in 2027 but apply to any new contracts entered into from today.

36m agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 11:22pmASX 200 opens 0.6pc higher

The ASX 200 has followed Wall Street higher, gaining 0.6% on opening to 8,672 points.

45m agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 11:13pmEnergy regulator hauls Origin into court over alleged overpayments

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has hauled Origin Energy into the Federal Court over allegations it, and four of its subsidiaries, overcharged customers.

The AER allegations centre on Origin continuing to receive payments from Centrepay customers who had closed their accounts with Origin and had fully paid all amounts they owed.

“It is alleged that Origin failed to inform these customers about these overcharged payments or refund them within the timeframe required by the Retail Rules,” AER said in a statement.

“The AER alleges that Origin knew that its systems were processing payments in this way as early as 2017 and put on hold a previously approved process that could have prevented further payments from occurring.”

Centrepay is a government bill paying service where people use their Centrelink payments to make regular payments for essential goods and services.

Origin’s alleged conduct affected more than 3,400 electricity and gas customers between December 2019 and March 2025.

“It’s alleged this conduct resulted in more than 77,000 breaches and Origin retaining more than $2.5 million from affected customers,” AER said.

“This included one customer who was allegedly overcharged by more than $11,000 over a period of almost 2 years.”

The AER is seeking orders for pecuniary penalties, declarations, customer remediation, a compliance program, and an independent review of such a program, and costs.

A separate AER investigation from the same Services Australia referral resulted in Alinta Energy last month paying $1,089,000 in penalties for similar alleged conduct.

In December 2024, the Federal Court imposed a $25 million penalty on AGL for failing to comply with overcharging obligations related to Centrepay payments.

1h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 10:25pm

Oil price risk as US pursues another Venezuelan tanker

Oil has risen as the US tightens its blockade on Venezuelan oil and its coast guard pursues another tanker.

The global benchmark Brent crude jumped 1.1% back above $US60/barrel in Friday trade, and the key US West Texas Intermediate crude price rose almost 1% on news that the US planned its third interception of a Venezuelan tanker in less than two weeks.

“The United States Coast Guard is in active pursuit of a sanctioned ‘dark fleet’ vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion,” a US official, quoted by Reuters, said.

“It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.”

British maritime risk management group Vanguard, along with a US maritime security source, identified the vessel as Bella 1, a very large crude oil carrier that was added last year to the sanctions list of the US Treasury Department, which said the vessel has links to Iran.

Bella 1 was empty when it was approaching Venezuela on Sunday, according to TankerTrackers.com.

The vessel had, in 2021, provided transportation for Venezuela’s oil to China, according to internal documents from state-run oil company PDVSA.

It had also previously carried Iranian crude, according to the vessel monitoring service.

The continued blockade is again putting upward pressure on oil prices, which had been subsiding in recent weeks.

“We might see prices increasing modestly at the opening, considering market participants could see this as an escalation with more Venezuelan barrels at risk” because the tanker intercepted on Saturday was not under US sanctions, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.

With Reuters

2h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 9:56pmChampion Iron pitches $440 million takeover of Norwegian miner

The ASX-listed, Canada-focused Champion Iron has pitched a $US289 million ($440 million) takeover bid for the Norwegian iron ore miner Rana Gruber.

The all-cash bid has been unanimously supported by the Rana Gruber board.

Champion says the bid will be financed by its own cash reserves, as well as funding from Canadian banks.

Champion says the deal will improve its position to supply “the green steel supply chain” with Rana Gruber being “among the world’s most sustainable producers of high-grade iron ore”.

2h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 9:35pm

Musk wins a $US139 billion Christmas present via the courts

Ho, Ho, Ho, Elon Musk has had his $US139 billion ($210 billion) pay package from 2018 restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, nearly two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable”.

As Reuters reports, “the ruling overturns a decision that had prompted a furious backlash from Musk and damaged Delaware’s business-friendly reputation”.

It assures Musk greater control over the company, which he has said is his main concern, even after shareholders recently approved a new pay package that could be worth $US878 billion if Tesla meets certain targets.

The Supreme Court said a 2024 ruling that rescinded the pay package had been improper and inequitable to Musk.

The remedy of total rescission “leaves Musk uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years,” the 49-page ruling issued on Friday stated.

The 2018 pay package is now worth about $139 billion based on the price of Tesla’s stock at the close of trading on Friday.

“For Elon, this is a win because he gets control faster,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Tesla investor Deepwater Asset Management.

If Musk exercises all the stock options from the 2018 package, his stake in Tesla would grow from about 12.4% to 18.1% of an expanded share base. The company is issuing shares tied to his new pay package, although he must earn them by hitting performance goals.

With Reuters

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2h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 9:07pm

This week: It’s Christmas

Readers of the Monday blog may have spotted this little ritual of highlighting the key macro events of the week.

It’s safe to say there’s nothing much ahead to divert you from those last-minute pre-Christmas jobs.

Locally, on Tuesday the RBA posts the minutes of the last board meeting where nothing happened.

Instead of ploughing through the minutes in search of some nugget of insight, our recommendation is to watch another repeat of Love Actually.

Otherwise, grab a good book as the next meaningful bit of data, the November CPI figures, is not due out until January 7.

Overseas, statisticians are similarly winding down for the year.

In the US, the delayed Q3 GDP numbers are out on Tuesday and are expected to show fairly solid year-on-year growth of 3.2%.

Loading3h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 8:34pmWall Street bounces on AI rally, ASX set to rise

We may not have officially entered the so-called “Santa Rally” zone, but Wall Street enjoyed some festive cheer ahead of the shortened trading week.

All the key US indices rose, led in particular by the tech sector.

The S&P 500 gained 0.9%, the Dow 0.4% and the Nasdaq 1.3%.

The optimistic sentiment was widespread.

The pan-Europe Eurostoxx 600 gained 0.4%, while the global MSCI benchmark rose 0.7% across the day.

For Europe, it marked a record close. Once again, aerospace and defence stocks were in the hottest demand.

The performance of Micron Technology in the US, which jumped 7% thanks to a broker upgrade, buoyed the somewhat wobbly AI cohort.

Nvidia picked up almost 4% and Oracle rose 6.4% after signing a binding agreement with Byte Dance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to run the US operations of the social media platform.

“The return to a more optimistic tone around the AI trade is certainly helping a number of things across the board,” Rosenblatt Securities trader Michael James told Reuters.

“It was certainly helping the Nasdaq in a meaningful way yesterday, and again today,” he said.

“We’re not out of the woods, but it certainly feels a lot better today than it did most of the course of the last week.”

The US dollar index rose marginally, although the Australian dollar largely held its ground.

On commodity markets, the global oil benchmark, Brent Crude, rose 1.1% to $US60.47/barrel on the prospect of supply disruptions from a US blockade of Venezuelan tankers.

Spot gold edged higher, and silver rose 2.8% to yet another record high, hitting $US67.22/ounce.

3h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 8:11pm

Good morning

Hello, and welcome to another day on the ABC markets and finance blog.

Stephen Letts from ABC business team limbering up for a blow-by-blow coverage of the day’s events, where every post is hopefully a winner, but none should be construed as financial advice.

In short, it looks like the local market will start the shortened trading week on a positive note.

Futures trading is pointing to the ASX gaining around 0.5% on opening, clawing back some of the 0.9% it shed last week.

As always, the game’s afoot, so let’s get blogging.

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3h agoSun 21 Dec 2025 at 8:11pm

Market snapshotASX 200 futures: +0.5% to 8,640 pointsAustralian dollar: -0.1% to 66.05US centsWall Street (Friday): S&P500 +0.9%, Dow +0.6%, Nasdaq +1.3%Europe (Friday): Dax +0.4%, FTSE +0.5%, Eurostoxx +0.4%Spot gold (Friday): +0.1% to $US4,338/ounceBrent crude (Friday): +1.1% to $US 60.47/barrelIron ore (Friday): -0.4% to $US104.0/tonneBitcoin: +0.3% at $US88,431

Prices current at around 7:10am AEDT