James Thompson

As I said at the top, I'm not sure I'm an expert on Hungarian politics, but let's see how the new leader tackles all this.

Do we see more of a steady government, traditional government, or do we see more populism just in another form?

The jury's out there.

But Anthony, for our first topic this week, the Iran war's chickens came home to roost.

We got negative trading updates from Westpac, Qantas Airways and baby formula seller A2 Milk, among others, all of whom called out the Iran war's impact on the economy and markets and warned investors that their profits would be hit.

Anthony, I think it's fair to say we've been waiting for this.

We've been talking for weeks about the cost of fuel and diesel going through the roof, and that combined with sticky inflation and higher interest rates and unemployment rising puts Australia in a pretty tough spot.

I think we learned a lot this week, and I'm going to get you to take us through it.

Start on the economic side.

What did we learn here from these profit warnings?

Anthony, it's interesting the sentiment being as low for consumers and businesses as it was in the pandemic.

It's sort of weird when you think about it, isn't it?

Because

Nothing's going to kill us here.

I mean, that was a period at the start of the pandemic where there was a deadly virus going around the world and the Australian community.

You know, people actually in hospital, tragically dying.

And yet sentiment is worse now because petrol prices are higher.

It shows you that these sentiment surveys need to be taken with a grain of salt.

But I reckon it's got a lot to do with the price of petrol is so visceral.

It's everywhere.