Inflation, Coles Express and CSL

Australian News

• Inflation for August came in at 5.2%, up from 4.9% in July, with housing, transport, food and non-alcoholic beverages, financial services the biggest contributors.

• Fruit and vegetable prices fell 8.3% in the year to August.

• Early childhood educators have won the right to bargain for pay rises up to 25% across employers.

  New residential listings held for less than 3 years have more than doubled in outer suburbs across Sydney and Melbourne over the past 3 months.

• Wealth has grown 4x faster for the richest 20% of Aussies than the poorest 20% over the last 2 decades - the richest quintile has an average wealth valued at 90x the average wealth of the lowest 20% of Australians.

• Amid the cost of living crisis and soaring electricity prices, 1.4 Gigawatts (1B watts) worth of rooftop solar installations have been added to the Australian energy grid over the past year.

Global News

• A judge ruled that Donald Trump fraudulently over-inflated assets while building his real estate empire.

• Indonesia to ban purchases on social media like TikTok, with a goal of further regulating e-commerce.

• Poland says it will bid to host the Olympics in 2036.

• World import and export activity has fallen at the fastest annual rate in 3 years in July, with trade volumes falling 3.4% compared to last year.

Company News

• Qantas Chairman and CEO are facing a Senate inquiry, partly due to the Qatar Airways situation.

• Overseas PwC partners have been cleared of having used confidential info related to the tax leaks scandal.

• Viva Energy will rebrand all Coles Express petrol stations across the country as Reddy Express.

• PwC to revamp its board structure to meet ASX rules.

• The US Federal Trade Commission and 17 US states sue Amazon, alleging it used its monopoly power to stifle competition and keep prices artificially high.

• CSL signs agreement with the UK Gov to develop and supply 100M pandemic influenza vaccines ahead of this year's northern hemisphere winter.

• Meta has paid £149M ($283M) to forfeit its lease at its London office as its staff continue to WFH.

• ASOS is seeing a drop in earnings due to bad weather and the cost of living crisis.

This Week’s All Star Picks

• Spotify’s new AI feature translates podcasts into other languages using the same voices as those in shows.

• OpenAI is rolling out a version of ChatGPT that allows users to prompt by speech or uploading pictures.

• Victorian Premier Dan Andrews resigns after 9 years.

• Average pay rises in new agreements are up 4.7%.

• AU supermarket food prices increased by 7.2% YoY, outpacing the 4.9% annual rate of inflation.

• Shoppers are spending more on second hand clothing, with 45% of shoppers reportedly increasing their purchases of pre-loved goods over the past 2 years.

• Melbourne housing market set to outperform Sydney over the next 2 years, with prices projected to rise by 12% in the year to June 2025, while Sydney is projected to grow by 10.3%.

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