Steve Daghlian

Boosted spending on capital expenditures, so it's been more and more on AI.

But the payoff, I guess, from the AI apps seems to be a bit slower to take off at the moment.

Yeah, so the two biggest movers of the month, tech utmost, healthcare downmost.

They've also, you know, the two worst performers over the year so far.

So healthcare is downmost in 2026.

Tech isn't too far behind with declines of close to 20% since the start of January.

It certainly is.

So the energy sector is up for a third day, down over the course of the month, but that's understandable after a really big lift last month.

The oil price is basically the highest they've been since the conflict between the US and Iran started, also pretty close to a four-year high.

So reports that President Trump is set to receive a briefing on new military options for action in Iran.

And Central Command in the US has asked for hypersonic missiles to be sent to the Middle East, which would be the first time that they've been used by the US if they end up being used.

So this is certainly a sign of potentially some escalation.

So all prices have jumped by as much as 7% today, $126 per barrel as well.

And of course, we still have the blockade of the Strait of Wimbledon continuing.

So not much has improved on that front.

And with that standoff continuing, the supply effects on oil and LNG, inputs into fertiliser, copper and other products just continues.

Yeah, the ASX is the best performer today.

The market operator is up 5.1%.

It announced the appointment of Darren Yip as the interim chief executive effective the 29th of May, so in a month's time.

And this follows its announcement in Feb that the managing director and CEO, Helen Lofthouse, was departing the group.