James Kirby

I'm James Kirby.

Welcome aboard, everybody.

Now, look, we really need to take a look at the share market and we need to assess as investors where we are just now.

We don't know if this crisis is over because the Iran crisis, it's extending.

But we do know for sure that we've had an oil shock, an inflation shock.

So what does that actually mean for you as an investor?

And how is it playing out in the market, in reality?

Not how you might assume it's playing out, but how is it actually playing out?

And also about the AI boom, which was briefly, maybe only marginally interrupted by the crisis.

Where's that at?

And what's going to happen in our market for Australian investors?

My guest today is Eric Johnson, business columnist on The Australian.

He's been on the show before, colleague of mine for a long time.

How are you, Eric?

Great to have you on board.

Now, tell me, the thing that triggered, I suppose, this particular show, you did a piece recently about the oil crisis and the impact of it for investors, but it challenged perhaps assumptions about how that would work.

For instance, folks, if you look at the market, you might think,

that the big oil users, and we might talk about them first, the big oil users, right, which are airlines, miners, that they would be knocked around by the oil prices.

But it's not quite as simple as that.

And you discovered, Eric, that even though, say, a company like Rio uses, and this is worth hearing, folks,