1h agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 8:45pmMarket snapshotASX futures: -0.5% to 9,059 pointsASX 200 (Tuesday close): +0.7% to 9,095 points (close)Australian dollar: -0.4% to 64.9 US cents Wall Street: Dow Jones (+0.5%), S&P 500 (+0.1%), Nasdaq (-0.1%)Europe: FTSE (+0.3%), DAX (+0.3%), Stoxx 600 (+0.2%)Spot gold: -5.7% to $US4,106/ounceSilver: -8% to $US48.29/ounceOil (Brent crude): +0.6% at $US61.39/barrel Iron ore: -0.4% at$US103.50/tonne Bitcoin: +0.7% to $US111,8222

Prices current around 7:45am AEDT

12m agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 10:11pmIndustry warns building houses in Australia slower than it was a decade ago, construction targets missed

Addressing planning constraints and investing in skilled labour is essential as Australia continues to fall behind in its aim to build 1.2 million homes in five years, construction industry experts say.

Analysis of the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) building activity by Master Builders Australia shows building a new detached house is 35.8 per cent slower than it was a decade ago.

Since 2014-15, time frames for apartments and townhouses have ballooned even further, with an increase of 54.1 per cent and 27.6 per cent respectively.

For more, here’s the story by Claudia Williams:

31m agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 9:53pmMiners confident China’s stranglehold on rare earths can be broken

The bosses of Australia’s critical minerals and rare earths miners couldn’t be happier after Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Donald Trump yesterday resulted in a signed deal.

Both Australian and the United States have committed at least $US1 billion to develop projects in the next six months, and pledged a combined investment of $US8.5 billion over the longer term.

The objective is to erode China’s dominance of the world’s critical minerals market (eventually).

Our chief business correspondent Ian Verrender joined The Business host Kirsten Aiken to unpack the deal in last night’s episode.

Kirsten also interviewed the CEOs of Arafura Rare Earths (Darryl Cuzzubbo), Australian Strategic Minerals (Rowena Smith) and PLS, formerly known as Pilbara Minerals (Dale Henderson).

Loading…43m agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 9:40pmOuter suburban property markets are booming: Cotality report

Cotality’s latest report also shows seven-figure property price tags becoming increasingly common outside traditional prestige areas.

The report found that properties with a seven-figure price tag accounted for 30.8% of the national sales over the year to September, more than double the 15.2% they comprised in the same period in 2020.

Cotality economist Kaytlin Ezzy said the million-dollar benchmark is losing some of its relevance as membership in the seven-figure club reaches record highs.

“Five years ago, just 14% of Australian suburbs were members of the million-dollar club, with the majority concentrated in Sydney’s prestigious Northern Beaches, Eastern Suburbs, and North Sydney and Hornsby regions.”

And while these outer ring areas also have there fair share of million dollar properties, not all centres are booming.

At the other end of the spectrum, Regional Victoria was the only capital city or state region to record a net decline in million-dollar markets.

In September, only 11 of 278 suburbs analysed had a median value at or above the $1 million mark, one suburb fewer relative to this time last year.

54m agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 9:29pmA third of Australia property markets now worth $1 million or more

Cotality has published its latest Million Dollar Markets Report.

Among the report’s key findings:

One in three property markets across Australia now have a median value of $1 million or more (a new record-high).The number of million-dollar suburbs has surged 143% over the past five years.Brisbane led the capitals and rest of state regions, recording the largest net change in million-dollar markets over the year.This was followed closely by Sydney (where 70% of its property markets now exceed the $1 million median).Despite the rise in million-dollar markets, affordability and equality are worsening.

The report notes that a household on an average income with a 20% deposit would need to spend over 50% of pre-tax earnings to service a mortgage on a $1 million home.

1h agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 9:12pm

Critical minerals recap and Melbourne’s property market: Alan Kohler’s finance report

In case you need a refresher on what’s happening with shares of Australia’s critical minerals and rare earths companies, I can certainly recommend Alan Kohler’s finance report.

Alan also had an interesting chart on how Melbourne is “leading the nation” when it comes to housing affordability – ie. property values going almost nowhere.

“For the past four-and-a-half years, Melbourne house prices have been unchanged, while the national median has gone up about 30%,” he says.

“All we need now is for the rest of the country to follow Melbourne’s lead and for housing to be a bad investment.”

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1h agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 9:02pm

Critical minerals industry cheers US-Australia deal that will ‘encourage greater investment’

Australia’s critical minerals industry has broadly welcomed the wide-ranging rare earths deal struck between the US and Australia, as analysts say it will strengthen the rare earths supply chain outside of China.

The US and Australia will each invest at least $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) over the next six months to unlock an $US8.5 billion pipeline of critical mineral projects in an attempt to shake China’s global dominance.

The Minerals Council of Australia says the US-Australia Critical Minerals Framework would encourage greater investment in Australian mining and processing.

Analysts at UBS say the “landmark” framework “continues the way for a re-emergent … rare-earths supply chain” outside of China.

However, the investment bank analysts did point out a lack of detail in the announcements, saying “project specifics are so far elusive”.

For more, here’s the story by Yiying Li and Emily Stewart:

1h agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 8:55pmRex Airlines finds US buyer after entering into voluntary administration

Regional Express has found a buyer after the airline was operating under voluntary administration for more than a year.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, administrators confirmed they had entered into a sale and implementation deed with Air T, an American air services company based in Minneapolis.

The carrier, also known as Rex, was placed into voluntary administration in July 2024, after acquiring $50 million in debt from its largest creditor at the time, PAG.

An update on the sale proceedings will be provided ahead of a second meeting with creditors.

Unfortunately for people who owned shares of Rex before its financial collapse, the administrators at EY say: “No return to shareholders is anticipated”.

For more, here’s the story by Miriah Davis and Claire Simmonds:

1h agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 8:47pmGold and silver prices fall sharply on profit taking

Shares of Australia’s gold miners will almost certainly fall sharply after the precious metal’s spot price experienced its worst single-day drop in five years.

Spot gold plunged 5.7% to $US4,106 an ounce after surging to a record high of around $4,380 over the weekend.

To put things into perspective, that’s a very small drop considering the gold price has surged by around 60% since the year began. So today’s drop is largely due to profit taking (or cashing out while you’re still ahead).

That makes it the best year for gold since 1978 when the Iranian Revolution caused oil prices and inflation to spike across the world. That led to the gold price doubling in just one year on the back of mass panic-buying.

In contrast, this year’s big concerns have been mainly caused by the Trump administration with its steep tariffs against most of the world, unpredictable foreign policy, a sharp fall in value of the US dollar and an ongoing US government shutdown, along with expectations there will be further interest rate cuts in America.

It’s also been a bad day for silver – otherwise known as gold’s poorer cousin – with prices down 8% to $US48.29 an ounce.

1h agoTue 21 Oct 2025 at 8:45pmASX to slip from record high after Dow Jones climbs to highest level ever

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

The local share market is on track to open slightly lower, just a day after it hit a fresh record high.

ASX futures are pointing to a 0.5% drop when the trading day begins in a couple of hours.

The Australian dollar, meanwhile, is down 0.4% to 64.9 US cents.

Dow Jones hits record high, Netflix earnings disappoint

It follows a mixed session on Wall Street, which saw the S&P 500 finish practically flat and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.2% as major tech-related stocks like Nvidia, Tesla and Google’s parent company Alphabet slipped.

However, the Dow Jones rose 0.5% to close at a fresh record, just below 47,000 points, after major companies on the index including Coca-Cola, General Motors and 3M reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings.

After the closing bell Netflix reported a net profit of $US2.55 billion in the September quarter, up from $US2.36b a year ago. However, its share price dropped 7% in after-hours trade as its earnings didn’t meet investors’ high expectations.

The company blamed an ongoing dispute with Brazilian tax authorities its the weaker-than-estimated earnings.

In the meantime, go grab a coffee (or tea … or whatever your drink of choice is).  I’ll have more intel for you in a moment.