Afternoon Report | ASX dips on Middle East flare-up
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Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Thursday, the 11th 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. Story number one, the S&P ASX 200 fell 0.2% today to 8,633 points after the US launched new strikes on Iran.
Oil prices jumped. That followed Iran reportedly targeting vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and drones attacking US military assets in the region. It does very much sound like an escalation now in the conflict. The market started out much lower than where it closed, but recovered some ground throughout the day. The major banks did lead the bore slower with all of the big four falling more than 1.5%, though Westpac was the worst at 2.6%. The tech stocks today were hit hard. NextDC and Xero both off around 4%. Energy stocks benefited from those higher oil prices, while investors also sought out defensive names such as CSL, which was up more than 4%, as well as the supermarkets with Coles and Woolies both climbing more than 1% today.
Story number two, Chartered Accountants ANZ will investigate how major audit firms handle confidential information, widening the potential fallout from a mishandled whistleblower complaint at KPMG Australia. The industry body will undertake a, quote, quality practice review and examine ethical practices at KPMG Australia. Deloitte, EY, PwC and four other large firms.
Why did the ASX dip due to the Middle East flare-up?
It is already investigating three KPMG partners over a whistleblower's allegations of client data misuse and is also examining a registered company auditor from the firm who used artificial intelligence to cheat on internal applications. AI training, according to the Financial Review. The complaint that triggered the new probe relates to allegations that partners misused client data to win work. The whistleblower, who is a former KPMG audit director, alleged that partners misused confidential lend-lease board papers to pitch for audit contracts with Westpac and Dexus. On to story number three. Now, a bit of corporate news around today. Alcoa fell more than 8% after the Chief Financial Officer, Molly Bierman, warned that its alumina business is facing losses from energy disruptions and the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The embattled property developer, Lendlease, has tapped Australian super executive, Nick O'Neill, as its next boss. as the once blue-chip company seeks to stabilize its operations after disastrous losses offshore. Investors seem to like the news today. The company's share price was up nearly 5%. And JB Hi-Fi will refund more than $250,000 to hundreds of customers after the competition regulator raised concerns that the electronics goods giant may have misled them over pricing claims in advertisements. Story number four, radio broadcaster ARN has suffered a blow following the departure of Kyle Sanderlands and Jackie O. Henderson with the latest radio ratings out today showing that Kiss FM's breakfast audience share in Sydney has fallen to 8.2%.
down 3.5 percentage points from the previous survey. This is the first full survey where the pair have not been on air. Rival stations including Gold, Nova, Triple M, and Smooth FM all gained listeners, suggesting that much of the audience has simply moved elsewhere on the dial. Legal action between ARN and Sanderlands and Henderson is continuing. Both presenters are seeking more than $80 million each. Meanwhile, Ben Fordham remains Sydney's top-rating breakfast host on 2GB, while Melbourne's 3AW continues to dominate both of those stations, having their first survey under the new Tapped Media banner, having been sold by Nine. Finally, story number five, artificial intelligence company Anthropic has released Fable 5, the first widely available model from its most advanced Mythos family of AI systems.
Mythos is the AI model that It had only a very limited release a few months ago because of its reported ability to find cybersecurity holes. This new model, Fable 5, is, according to the company, particularly effective at coding, research, and image analysis.
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