Just nowFri 24 Apr 2026 at 12:00am

Nike to cut tech 1,400 jobs

Nike has announced it will be cutting 1,400 jobs, mostly in its technology department

The sportswear company has struggled to keep up with newer competitors, shedding 65% of its value in the last five years.

The cuts follow a previous round of layoffs earlier in the year which saw 775 warehouse workers sacked.

Legacy sportswear companies are scrambling to keep up with their younger rivals, Lululemon a women’s sportswear retailer has lost around half of its value in the last five years.

45m agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 11:16pm

Meta to shed 10 per cent of workforce: reports

Facebook’s owner is poised to shed 8,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, and it now won’t add 6,000 people that the company said it was looking to hire.

That’s according to media reports in the US. We’ve gone to Meta for comment.

Here’s a note from US tech analyst Dan Ives.

“The company (is looking) to boost efficiency across operations while offsetting heavy spending on its AI initiatives where it faces significant competition,” he writes.

“This follows reports of job cuts across the company over the past few months including a 10% cut to jobs within Reality Labs, with [founder Mark] Zuckerberg increasingly focused on spending on AI talent and infrastructure needed for its AI products, including large language models and chatbots.

“While this number represents a significant cut to its workforce, we note that additional layoffs could come later this year as part of a larger restructuring strategy with more employees leveraging its AI capabilities in-house to boost productivity and efficiency across the organization.”

1h agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 10:25pm

Fertiliser unaffordability at highest level since 2004

A big concern for food security during the war in the Middle East is the supply of fertiliser.

Prices have been running high after nearly two months of the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and missile hits on energy infrastructure across the Middle East.

Fertiliser has no central benchmark price, like Brent crude, but markets generally look to the price of urea, the most applied fertiliser across the globe.

The CRU Group’s urea affordability index is now at its highest level since the data set started in 2004.

This index is ratio of urea prices and grain prices. The higher the value, the more unaffordable.

That’s left Australian and Indian buyers paying some of the highest prices globally.

Australian urea buyers are being quoted between $1430 and $1470 a tonne, according to WA Farmers Grains Council president Mark Fowler.

In a recent tender opened by India Potash Limited, the lowest bids were around $US935/t ($1,306) and most bids clustered around $US1,000/t ($1,397) and climbed as high as $US1,136/t ($1,587), according to CRU analysts and Reuters reporting.

To shore up domestic supply, the Australian government says it will use the same legislation it’s using to import additional fuel to underwrite Incitec Pivot and CSBP’s fertiliser shipments.

CRU senior nitrogen analyst Lewis Walters says it’s likely they’ll be looking to places like Nigeria and Oman for those additional supplies.

1h agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 10:07pm

Viva Energy boss says Australia needs more refineries

In this exclusive interview with the ABC’s Alan Kohler, the CEO of Viva talks about the recent fire at the company’s Geelong refinery and concerns about Australia’s fuel supply.

We’ll also be releasing audio of the interview on Kohler’s podcast, That’s Business, later today.

2h agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 9:54pm

An update on prices at the bowser in Australia

You’ve probably been watching prices at the bowser pretty closely for the past month, unless you own an EV!

You might have noticed that unleaded petrol has come way back down in recent days, hovering now at just about 10 cents a litre more than when the war began.

Meanwhile, diesel has also dropped, but nowhere near what it was in early February. It’s still at about $2.71/litre nationally, on average.

So what’s behind this?

You can read more on the ABC’s fuel tracker. And please email me at terzon.emilia@abc.net.au if you have a fuel pressure story to share with us, even confidentially.

2h agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 9:45pm

CBA thinks RBA rate hike next month a ‘line ball’ call

CBA’s currency analysts are noting that the AUD dropped slightly overnight, hovering just over 71 US cents, “amid concerns over a re‑escalation of the Middle East conflict”. 

“The risk of significant military escalation remains a large downside risk to AUD/USD in our view,” they add.

(In breaking news, US President Donald Trump says Israel’s ceasefire in Lebanon will be extended by three weeks.)

However, CBA’s analysts note another looming factor on our Aussie dollar: higher interest rates. 

The market is now tipping a 60% chance of a rate hike in a few weeks at the RBA’s next meeting in May. Yet CBA thinks the decision will be “line ball”.

One of the biggest indicators of what the RBA could do is the next round of inflation data, which the ABS releases on Wednesday at 11:30am AEST.

This will show the beginning of the fuel shock in March but it won’t take in further inflationary shocks more widely this month.

You can bet the CPI data will be closely scrutinised.

2h agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 9:35pm

Warnings about CGT proposal for foreign investors

Clean energy groups are warning power prices could go up under proposed changes to Australia’s taxes on foreign investment.

Under draft new laws, the federal government is proposing to close a loophole that enables foreign investors to avoid paying capital gains tax on assets that sit on Australian land, as opposed to just the land itself.

You can watch more in this story by my colleague Alison Branley.

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Under the proposal, foreign investors would be subjected to 30 per cent capital gains tax when they sell their assets.

But there are warnings this will increase the cost of renewables for companies and their investors.

2h agoThu 23 Apr 2026 at 9:22pm

Oil at $US105 on another Strait of Hormuz threat

Good morning … or is it?

The price of oil is spiking again after fresh reports of tensions in the Middle East and fears the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping channel will stay blocked for longer.

Crude oil futures spiked $US5 overnight and are now about $US106.40. That’s the price the market expects to pay in a few months, showing expectations of the war continuing for longer.

Meanwhile, one of the main spot prices (“right now” pricing) has risen several per cent too, up to around $US96.

Reuters is reporting that Iran is “flaunting” its tightened grip on the strait with videos of commandos storming a huge cargo ship, while US President Donald Trump is ordering the US Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” mining the strait.

For more on what’s happening in the Middle East, check out this live blog from my colleagues in the international team.