Michael Thompson

welcome to the fear and greed business news afternoon report for thursday the 18th of june 2026 i'm michael thompson and every afternoon we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about let's jump straight into story number one the local share market fell today after the u.s federal reserve left rates on hold but signaled that another hike could be on the cards in the world's biggest economy later this year weighing on mining and technology stocks locally

The S&P ASX 200 dropped 0.6% today to 8,911 points.

Higher rate expectations pushed bond yields higher and pressured commodity prices.

Gold miners here fell.

Aurobanda, for instance, was down 7.5%.

Northern Star off about 1.6%.

BHP slipped almost 1% while Fortescue lost nearly 2% as the price of iron ore fell below $100 a tonne.

I mentioned the technology stocks that were also sold off today.

WiseTech Global and Xero were both down around 3.5% to 4% in that range.

Energy stocks weakened as Brent Crude dropped below $78 a barrel following the U.S.-Iran peace agreement.

A bit more on that one in a moment.

Look, a little plug for tomorrow morning.

Join us for tomorrow morning's show when we take a closer look at the other big story today, which was a decision by the federal government to back down on some of the proposed changes to capital gains tax and trusts.

Have more on that one tomorrow morning.

Story number two today, I mentioned the US-Iran peace deal.

Well, those two nations have formally signed an interim agreement aimed at ending nearly four months of conflict and creating a pathway towards a broader peace deal.

US President Donald Trump signed the agreement while attending the G7 Leaders Summit in France.

Reportedly, just before a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, the agreement extends the existing ceasefire for another 60 days, reopens the Strait of Hormuz and allows negotiations to continue over Iran's nuclear program.

As we already knew, Trump welcomed the deal, but...

He also issued a very blunt warning to Tehran.