Daily Overview: 29 September 2026

All eyes on the RBA at 2:30pm AEST, with the cash rate almost certain to rise 25 basis points to 4.6 per cent — a fourth hike this year and a 15-year high. The market has already moved past the decision itself and is pricing a peak of 5–5.5 per cent over the next 18 months, so the real signal will come in the statement and Michele Bullock's press conference at 3:30pm: how hard does the board lean into the "higher for longer" narrative, and does it acknowledge the fiscal elephant in the room? With core inflation stuck near 3.6 per cent, construction activity running at its fastest pace in six decades and Brent above US$100, the RBA has little room to sound dovish. Watch the AUD reaction closely — a hawkish hold on the language could push it higher even as the hike lands.

Offshore, Canada's monthly GDP (10:30pm AEST) is forecast flat at 0.0 per cent after 0.3 per cent previously — a soft print would reinforce the global growth-slowdown theme and weigh on base metals sentiment. US JOLTs job openings (midnight AEST) are expected broadly steady at 7.24 million, while CB Consumer Confidence is tipped to ease slightly to 89. A trio of Fed speakers — Goolsbee, Musalem and Williams — rounds out the US session, and with the 10-year Treasury yield above 5.2 per cent, any hawkish tilt will feed straight into the bond sell-off that is already pressuring gold equities and rate-sensitive miners. The API crude stock change (6:30am AEST) will set the tone for oil after a week of Middle East risk premium.

On the corporate front, keep watching the Northern Star–Gold Fields standoff as Gold Fields takes its US$38.7 billion pitch directly to shareholders — the Denver gold conference is the obvious venue for escalation. The NSW IPC decision on Hunter Valley Operations' continuation is due tomorrow, and the 16,000-signature support letter suggests the political pressure is building. Rare earths names remain volatile after Hancock's $680 million paper loss, and the US–China 30-for-30 tariff framework — with rare earths conspicuously unresolved — is the slow-burn story that could reprice the entire critical minerals complex.

Australia

International

Economic Releases

• India's industrial production smashed expectations, printing 8 per cent year-on-year against a 6.5 per cent consensus and up from 7.4 per cent previously — manufacturing output was even stronger at 9 per cent versus 5.9 per cent forecast, a bullish signal for Asian commodity demand.
• The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index came in at 9.8, well above the forecast of 1 and only modestly below the prior 11.6 — a rare bright spot in US manufacturing data and a reminder that the US economy is not rolling over as fast as the rates market implies.

Macro & Policy

• The RBA is expected to lift the cash rate to 4.6 per cent today, with construction activity growing at its fastest pace since the early 1960s on data centre and housing build-out; Macquarie warns building approvals could hit 11 per cent of GDP, and Westpac's Pat Bustamante flags a "significant inflationary impulse" from labour and materials competition.
• Australia's 10-year bond yield is near 5.5 per cent — a 15-year high — as the US 10-year pushes through 5.2 per cent, with analysts attributing the sell-off to persistent deficits and a US$5 trillion AI capex race; markets are now factoring a cash rate peak of 5–5.5 per cent.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers broke with RBA governor Michele Bullock over her suggestion unemployment may need to reach 5 per cent to tame inflation, arguing workers are not to blame — a public split that complicates the RBA's communication task today.
• New e61 Institute analysis found a major Asia-Pacific conflict closing Australia's trade routes could worsen the budget by 46 per cent of annual GDP over a decade, with peak-year costs at 18 per cent of GDP; federal debt passed $1 trillion last month and interest repayments are set to overtake Medicare spending by FY2029.
• Final budget outcome figures show tax receipts at 24.1 per cent of GDP — on track for the highest taxing treasurer on record — and spending at 26.9 per cent of GDP, the highest outside the pandemic in four decades.
• The fallout from the OpenAI agent breach of Medicare data continues, with former ASD director-general Rachel Noble warning of "a new category of threat" and the ANAO revealing it flagged critical incident-response flaws at Services Australia two years ago; OpenAI's Jason Kwon will testify before a parliamentary committee on October 6.

Gold & M&A

• Northern Star unanimously rejected Gold Fields' confidential $38 billion takeover proposal — an implied $27 per share, 22 per cent premium — citing undervaluation and jurisdictional risk; Gold Fields is now taking the pitch directly to shareholders, and the combined group would be the world's second-biggest gold producer behind Newmont.
• PC Gold extended high-grade mineralisation at Spring Hill in the NT, with hole SDH26-016 returning 29.65m at 4.32 g/t gold from 332.35m; results will feed an updated MRE targeted for December 2026.
• Brightstar Resources nearly doubled its Two Mile Hill-Shillington resource to 1.45 million ounces (24.6Mt at 1.8g/t), lifting the broader Sandstone project to 3.6 million ounces and group resources to 5.2 million ounces.
• Meeka Metals raised $40 million at $0.10 per share to fund development of the Murchison gold project, including two higher-grade underground mines and the new Turnberry operation.
• Astral Resources secured tenure for its Mandilla gold project via a $9.05 million agreement with WIN Metals, with the DFS due in the March 2027 quarter; Lodestar Minerals received final assays for its maiden Ned's Creek resource, expected in October.

Critical Minerals, Coal & Energy

• Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting recorded a $680 million paper loss on rare earth investments over the past year, mainly from Lynas and US-listed MP Materials, despite $4 billion deployed across lithium, copper and critical minerals; copper names Hudbay and Teck rallied about 40 per cent.
• The US and China agreed a 30-for-30 framework allowing US$30 billion of non-sensitive goods each way at lower tariffs, extending the truce to January 10 — but rare earths remain unresolved, with Washington treating the extension as a compliance period.
• More than 16,000 people signed a letter supporting Hunter Valley Operations' continuation project ahead of a NSW IPC decision expected tomorrow; the Yancoal-Glencore joint venture would extend HVO North to 2045 and support about 1,500 ongoing jobs.
• Tungsten Mining appointed Jefferies as financial adviser to find strategic investors for its Watershed project in Far North Queensland, with Cutfield Freeman leading debt financing and first production targeted for H1 2027.
• Goodman Group withdrew its $1.2 billion Project Mars data centre at Lane Cove West after political and community backlash, a warning shot for the sector's social licence as nearly 80 per cent of Goodman's $20 billion work-in-progress is digital infrastructure.
• Indonesia has enlisted a former BHP engineer to police its $100 billion resource trade, tightening oversight of coal, nickel and palm oil shipments.