Michael Thompson

Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Wednesday the 10th 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 get going with story number one.

The local share market closed higher today as investors really shrugged off renewed tensions in the Middle East and

kept on buying defensive consumer stocks.

The S&P ASX 200 closed up 0.6% to 8,653 points, eight of the 11 sectors finishing higher.

Oil prices rose after the US launched fresh strikes on Iran following confirmation from US President Donald Trump that a US Apache helicopter that crashed yesterday near the Strait of Hormuz was shot down by Iran.

But

Locally, supermarkets led the gains.

Coals up 5%, woolies up 3%, Wesfarmers climbed around 4% after outlining plans to use artificial intelligence and data to drive growth.

A drop in the price of gold hit the local miners really hard, while Sigma Healthcare fell more than 5% after confirming discussions around a potential acquisition of UK retailer Boots.

More on that story in tomorrow morning's show.

On to story number two now, and Australian super funds delivered another strong month in May with the median balanced fund returning 2.1% according to Research House super ratings.

The gain follows a 2.6% rise in April and means funds have fully recovered losses suffered earlier in the year from the market turmoil linked to the conflict in the Middle East.

The recovery has been driven largely by strong international share markets and this ongoing enthusiasm for AI-related investments.

Super Ratings Director Kirby Rappel said investors were becoming more accustomed to market volatility, according to the Financial Review.

The median balanced fund has now returned 7.9% so far this year, this financial year that is, but taking a longer term view, looking across the last 10 years, the median balanced fund has gained 7.4% a year over the past decade.

Story number three, Commonwealth Bank's New Zealand subsidiary, ASB Bank, has been fined 6.7 million New Zealand dollars after admitting seven breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.

The breaches included failures to properly monitor transactions, conduct...

customer checks, report suspicious activity on time, and terminate customer relationships when required.