To finance: The fallout from Four Corners continues as shares in Australia's largest insurance broker, Steadfast Group, plummeted sharply today. Here's Alan Kohler.
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00:00Steadfast began failing to live up to its name on the share market first thing yesterday
00:07morning when stories appeared on the ABC website foreshadowing last night's allegations on
00:12Four Corners that the company had been misleading its clients.
00:16At 10.30 yesterday morning, it had fallen 6%, so trading was paused.
00:21At 7.30 last night, the company put out a statement steadfastly refuting the allegations
00:26and then trading resumed at 11.30 this morning with the price another 11% lower, which is
00:31roughly where we are at the end of the day.
00:33Otherwise it was quite a good day, with both Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie hitting new
00:37record highs.
00:39In fact, bank shares generally in Australia and worldwide have been soaring since the
00:44Great Fed Pivot of October last year, when the US Central Bank made it clear it wasn't
00:49interested in having a recession.
00:52It's taken a year for those words to turn into action, but there will be a rate cut
00:55next week.
00:56The only question is how big.
00:58The US share market, meanwhile, is having wild mood swings.
01:02It doesn't know whether to be happy about the forthcoming rate cut or sad about the
01:06slowing economy.
01:08Yesterday it was 1.7% sad.
01:11Today it was 1.2% happy.
01:14Commodities were mostly happy today.
01:15Oil, iron ore, copper and gold all went up.
01:18And the Aussie dollar stayed becalmed at 66.7 US cents.
01:23And finally, a graphic entry into the argument about Australia's smashing Reserve Bank.
01:29It shows the extent to which each country's policy rate is above the neutral rate, which
01:34is the interest rate that neither contracts nor stimulates the economy.
01:39So the RBA is actually the world's least smashing central bank, and that means it will lag the
01:45others in cutting as well.
01:48And that's finance.