The S&P/ASX 200 was up 15.5 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 8595.2 at the closing bell after initially spiking as much as 0.5 per cent on news the economy had expanded at just 0.4 per cent in three months through September, which was below market consensus.
Vicinity was up 0.8 per cent to $2.48.
Westfield parent Scentre 1 per cent to $4.19.
Stockland by 1.4 per cent to $5.93.
4DMedical surged 16 per cent to $1.92 as it expanded its distribution agreement with Philips.
Vulcan Energy Resources was in a trading halt after it secured a €2.2 billion ($3.93 billion) financing package to fully fund construction of its phase one Lionheart lithium and renewable energy project. Shares last traded at $6.13.
Transurban gained 0.5 per cent to $15.02 after it said it would pay an interim distribution of 34¢ apiece for the six months to December 31.
WiseTech jumped 4.5 per cent to $72.58 after the software company detailed its new pricing model at its investor day.
US
Stocks edged higher Wednesday, with the the Dow industrials adding to early gains and the Nasdaq composite lagging behind.
Oracle CDSs hit their highest since March 2009.
CrowdStrike issued a Q3 beat-and-raise on accelerating adoption of its AI-driven Falcon platform (BBG)
American Eagle issued a Q3 beat-and-raise as recent high-profile campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce boost demand (CNBC)
Crypto
Bitcoin climbed back above $93,000 on Wednesday in a broad crypto-market rebound, recovering part of the steep losses that triggered nearly half a billion dollars in liquidations on Monday.
Economy
Domestic demand was strong, accelerating as Australia’s economic upswing broadened to include business investment and the construction sector, while new public demand resumed its climb after going sideways over the past two quarters. However, the pickup in housing construction and business investment was a little than originally expected. (WIQ)
The Australian economy grew by 0.4%qtr in the September quarter. This increase and revisions to previous activity estimates left year-ended growth at 2.1% – the strongest since the September quarter 2023. (pdf)
An acute global shortage of memory chips is forcing artificial intelligence and consumer-electronics companies to fight for dwindling supplies, as prices soar for the unglamorous but essential components that allow devices to store data. (TH)
The U.S. holiday shopping season kicked off to record online sales. But underlying signs of economic fragility signal a pullback in spending could be looming. (TH)
U.S. shoppers spent $14.25 billion on Cyber Monday, pushing total online sales over the Thanksgiving weekend to $44.2 billion, according to an Adobe Analytics report, as consumers lapped up offers on everything from gadgets to household essentials. (TH)
Money markets are now fully priced for a rate hike next year and have nearly priced out any chance of a further cut after a deep dive in the third-quarter GDP report showed the economy expanded at the fastest annual pace in two years in the September quarter.
Bond traders ascribe just a 2 per cent chance of a rate cut between now and February.
China’s services activity expanded at the weakest pace in five months, a private survey showed, adding more evidence of sluggish consumer demand that’s putting further pressure on a slowing economy.
Australia’s central bank is closely monitoring inflation pressures and is ready to act in the event they show signs of regaining strength, Governor Michele Bullock said Wednesday, a hint that officials may yet have to pivot back toward tightening. ($BBG)
Swiss inflation unexpectedly stalled in November and an underlying measure slowed to a four-year low, a setback for central bank officials just days before their final interest-rate decision of 2025. ($BBG)
Business
Airbus lowered its commercial aircraft delivery target to around 790 aircraft for 2025 on Wednesday due to a supplier quality issue impacting fuselage panels on its A320 family of jets. (TH)
Netflix’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery’s studios and streaming unit is expected to reduce streaming costs for consumers by bundling Netflix and HBO Max, according to two people familiar with the proposal. (TH)
Nvidia’s agreement with ChatGPT parent OpenAI to invest up to $100 billion in the startup is still not finalized, the chipmaker’s chief financial officer Colette Kress said on Tuesday at the UBS Global Technology and AI Conference in Arizona. (TH)
HSBC has appointed the former KPMG partner Brendan Nelson as its new chair after a chaotic search process that left the job vacant for several weeks. ($FT)
Shares in a US cryptocurrency miner backed by Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump shed a third of its value on Tuesday as early investors cashed out en masse at the end of a lock-up period. ($FT)
UK pension funds are cutting back their exposure to US equities, amid concerns over the market’s growing concentration in a small number of tech stocks and the risk of a bubble in the AI sector. ($FT)
Companies’ rapid embrace of artificial intelligence tools to write software is driving demand for systems to ensure the code these tools produce is not riddled with bugs and security flaws. ($FT)
Currencies
The $A peaked at US65.86¢, a level last seen in late October. The policy-sensitive three-year bond yields hit a 10-month high of 3.99 per cent, and the 10-year climbed to 4.65 per cent, the highest since mid-January.
Politics
Google’s YouTube said it will obey Australia’s world-leading ban on social media accounts for children under 16, a capitulation which means all the most popular platforms with young users have agreed to comply after campaigning against the law. (TH)
Michael and Susan Dell have pledged $6.25bn to help fund so-called Trump Accounts, the children’s investment accounts announced earlier this year, in the latest effort by billionaires to support the US president’s programmes. ($FT)
ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos has been appointed as chairman of the Australian Banking Association council, replacing National Australia Bank’s Andrew Irvine.
ING CEO Melanie Evans was also re-appointed as deputy chair at the ABA’s annual general meeting in Melbourne on Wednesday.
The EU has agreed to a full ban on imports of Russian gas almost four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. ($FT)
Deal Flow
Anthropic has tapped law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin work on one of the largest initial public offerings ever, which could come as soon as 2026, as the artificial intelligence start-up races OpenAI to the public market. ($FT)
South Korea has substantially increased its headroom for foreign exchange bond issuance as Seoul prepares to fund a $350bn investment pledge to the US under its trade deal with Washington. ($FT)
Vulcan Energy has secured a $2.56bn financing package to build Europe’s largest lithium production project that is expected to generate enough material for about half a million electric vehicle batteries a year. ($FT)
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is set to offload a significant chunk of its stake in Sainsbury’s, in a share sale that will end a run of nearly two decades as the largest shareholder in the UK supermarket chain. ($FT)
Independent Research
Michael Burry Is (Once Again) Going To Try And Short Tesla. (ZH)
Based solely on Black Friday sales data, the holiday shopping season may be decent despite poor consumer sentiment. (RIA)
Opinion
Fidelity International portfolio manager Amit Goel says Indian equities remain resilient despite 2025 headwinds from a domestic slowdown and US policy moves.
