If you’ve noticed some beautiful and blue graphs in this newsletter over the past few weeks, you’ve taken the first step in meeting Adam - he’s the newest member of the TDA team, and joins us as our dedicated finance journalist.

I always love when people sprinkle a little bit of their own magic into a newsletter, and the power to bring complex stock market movement to life visually is something well beyond my remit. Watch this space - you’ll be seeing a whole lot more Adam magic in the weeks and months to come.

The quote: “There’s been an irreconcilable breakdown of relationship between the parties.”
A lawyer for Karl Stefanovic, speaking in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday, confirming there has been a breakdown in the relationship with Keshnee Kemp, the co-founder of his podcast.

The stat: 51. The number of Cue and Veronika Maine stores across Australia and New Zealand, which could now close after the brands' owner appointed receivers and administrators. Receivership is when someone (called a receiver) is put in charge of a company's assets to sell them off and repay a lender the company owes.

The graph:

The ASX 200 tracks the 200 largest companies listed on the Australian share market. In the past month, the ASX 200 has fallen by 4.5%. Why? Check out the 1 minute section below!

Australia’s stock market is having a month to forget. The ASX 200 is down nearly 7% in the past six weeks.

But what caused the stock market to fall? And should you be worried?

The ASX 200 (short for Australian Securities Exchange 200) is an index — a collection of stocks — that tracks Australia’s 200 biggest publicly traded companies.

Companies in the index include Commonwealth Bank, Woolworths and BHP (the world’s biggest mining company).

Over the past few weeks, the ASX 200 has been on a losing streak.

The index closed lower than it opened in six out of the last eight trading days, 11 out of the last 15, and 20 of the last 28.

The ASX 200 is currently down nearly 7% compared to the all-time high that was reached six weeks ago, and it’s at its lowest point in three months.

Last Thursday, it had its worst intraday fall (the biggest drop during a single trading day) in six months, falling by 1.89%, before slightly recovering.

There have been a lot of things going on that have led to the ASX 200 falling, both in Australia and around the world.

In Australia, two key pieces of economic data were released: inflation and economic growth.

Three weeks ago, inflation came in stronger than expected — that’s bad. It means things are getting more expensive at a rate that is higher than anticipated. It also raised the probability that the RBA, Australia’s central bank, would raise the cash rate sooner rather than later. (This means that interest rates increase, making it more expensive to borrow money.) The RBA raises the cash rate to bring down inflation, but doing so can also slow economic growth.

Two weeks ago, economic growth data came in stronger than expected. Stronger economic growth might sound like a good thing (it is!) but in the context of Australia’s inflation problem, this can mean that the RBA can afford to weaken the economy in order to bring down inflation. This strengthened investor expectations that the RBA will raise interest rates at its next meeting later this month.

So how does this all relate to the stock market? In the general sense, higher interest rates aren’t great for stocks because increased borrowing costs tend to reduce how much companies can grow.

Around the world, tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been reignited. The next day, oil prices shot over $US100 ($AU140) — the first time since July. This rise in oil prices further increases the inflation problem mentioned earlier. Oil is also a key cost for many companies, so when it rises, their profits fall. This makes shares less attractive, which can lead to investors selling their holdings, which reduces their share prices.

If you own shares, this means you’ve likely seen your portfolio lose value. If you don’t think you own any shares, you actually might! Money in superannuation accounts is invested in stock markets, including Australia’s.

Just like all investments, money isn’t lost (or gained) until the investment is sold — it’s all “paper losses (or gains)”.

Will the stock market recover? Anyone who says they have a definitive answer is probably trying to sell you something. But what we can say is that, historically, stock markets have always gone through periods of highs and lows. Right now, Australia’s stock market is in one of those low periods.

Reporting by Adam Wan.

If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing everyone talk about data centres.

You might have heard your neighbours protest against them being built in your suburb. You might have also heard tech leaders insisting that they’re necessary for the future.

Recently, it looks like the tech leaders might be winning that battle. Data centres have been popping up all over Australia and the world, and governments have been developing legislation to sustainably build more.

But what are data centres, and why should you care?

Data centres are large, windowless warehouses full of computer servers. Imagine rows of tall metal racks stacked with dozens of computers, flashing lights and hundreds of cables running in and out of them.

Before the AI craze, data centres were primarily known for storing data. Instagram, Netflix and your iCloud photos are all able to exist because of data centres. When people say that data is stored “in the cloud”, it’s really stored in data centres.

Since the AI craze, the need for data centres has exploded, because of the massive computing power required to operate AI.

AI companies, like OpenAI or Anthropic, have been using data centres to develop their AI models. This is called training. Whenever someone makes a ChatGPT (OpenAI’s AI model) or Claude (Anthropic’s AI model) request, data centres run the AI computations to answer the prompts in real time. This is called inference.

With pretty much every tech leader preaching about AI being a part of everyday life and how modern economies need to use AI to thrive, you can see why they want more data centres around the world.

But that high demand for computing power is a big reason for the criticism of data centres. The massive computing power requires large amounts of water and electricity. That, and they’re noisy (think a constant low hum) and aren’t pleasant to look at. Modelling commissioned by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation also found that data centres built without additional renewable capacity could increase electricity grid emissions by 14% in 2035.

On 8 September, Australia’s fast-growing AI data centre company Firmus announced a partnership with OpenAI to supply it with computing power from two data centres being built in Malaysia.

Closer to home, last year, the Tasmanian Government announced that Firmus will deliver “Australia’s largest AI infrastructure project”, which will house several data centres. Earlier this year, Firmus signed a multi-billion-dollar deal to supply computing power from a data centre in Melbourne to an undisclosed buyer.

Firmus was founded in 2019 by Oliver Curtis (more on him below), Tim Rosenfield and Jonathan Levee. Its investors include Nvidia (currently the most valuable company in the world) and Blackstone (the world’s largest alternative asset manager). In its latest round of funding, Firmus was valued above $US10.5 billion ($AU14.6 billion).

Curtis (who is co-CEO with Rosenfield) is an interesting character himself. He was sentenced to two years in prison in 2016 for conspiring to commit insider trading, with the court ordering his release after one year. He is also the husband of Roxy Jacenko, a former PR businesswoman and a contestant on the third season of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia.

Federally, there are no laws specifically regulating data centres.

In a National Cabinet statement last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that the Commonwealth Government would introduce a “nationally consistent regulatory framework that will set minimum requirements for large data centres.”

The Commonwealth Government said it will work with the states and territories to develop consistent mandatory standards for data centre energy, water and land use.

It then intends to legislate these frameworks in early 2027, working to complement state and territory planning and approval processes.

Reporting by Adam Wan.

What is productivity and why does it need to improve?

Politicians and business leaders talk about productivity a lot, and it is often cited as the key ingredient in improving Australia’s living standards.

But what exactly is productivity and why is it so important to our future? Get the full picture on CommBank Newsroom.

Did you know self-driving cars legal in Australia? Well, as long as you’re still behind the wheel. And as of Monday, self-driving cars can have cheaper insurance.

For the first time in Australia (and second time in the world), Zurich - an insurance provider - will factor Tesla’s full self-driving technology into insurance costs.

Zurich stated that full self-driving in Australia is on the rise and actually safer than regular driving – so much so that they said the cost of insurance for these cars will be lower compared to Teslas without the technology.