Anthony McDonald

eight percent across the market for the year to june 30. that's great that's really good for australia it ends a multi-year run of earnings per share actually going down so it's good to be back in the growth yeah but no one's talking about 15 for fy27 15 for fy28 that sort of just burnt itself in as the as almost the minimum expected for the us

So what that means is you're going to have all this capital going to the US, and we've started to see that.

I mean, their market's trading at about 21 times forward earnings.

We're trading at sort of that 17 times.

There's a gap there already to account for the fact that they've got more earnings growth.

And I don't see how that gap's just not going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

So the problem for Australia is you're going to have all these big American companies attracting a lot more capital.

Meanwhile, in Australia, we're not going to be attracting as much capital.

So we had this period of US exceptionalism, and I think we've still got it, where from a financial markets perspective at least, those companies are just so much better funded and they've got so many more options and they've got productivity growth, they've got earnings growth.

They're really shooting the lights out relative to in Australia where it's a grind.

Yeah.

And if we have a year where earnings per share is up 5%, everyone sits around and pats themselves on the back when it's probably just because of commodity prices.

I mean, I hate to be too bearish on Australia because I love Australia and I'd love to see it do well, but I just don't see how we attract the capital out of the US when you are seeing that earnings growth.

All right, James, let's move on to our second topic, and we've got probably the courtroom judgment of the year this week.

Australia's richest person, Gina Reinhart, has been in a years-long battle with the Wright family, another Pilbara iron ore pioneer family in Perth, over who should get how much of the iron ore profits, and we're talking billions of dollars in profit here, and own stakes in some of the big iron ore mines now run by Rio Tinto and BHP.

James, the case was heard over 51 days in 2023.

There were a bunch of sub-battles within a larger battle, including within Reinhardt's own family and two of her kids, whether they get back into the family trust.

And the judge, Justice Jennifer Smith, took another two and a half years to deliver her judgment.

Yikes.

It landed in the form of a 1,655-page document on Wednesday.