Afternoon Report | ASX down; China official’s $300m bribe
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Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Tuesday, the 7th of July, 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 go with story number one.
What caused the ASX to drop 0.3% today?
The S&P ASX 200 fell 0.3% today to 8,804 points after Asian markets dropped after an update from Samsung out of South Korea and renewed attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz combined really to weigh on sentiment. Mining and energy stocks led the market lower. BHP and Rio Tinto both fell almost 2%. Gold miners Evolution and Northern Star dropped more than 5%. Energy stocks fell despite higher oil prices. Whitehaven, Ian Cole, Woodside, Santos, all lower today. The banks did help limit the losses though. Westpac, NAB, ANZ, ComBank, all higher. WiseTech Global, though, it jumped almost 6% today after Richard White stepped down as chairman while remaining chief innovation officer. More on that story tomorrow.
On to story number two now, and US tech giant Anthropic is reportedly moving quickly to secure Australian data centre capacity annually. Ahead of a potential $1 trillion plus share market listing in the US, the maker of Claude is apparently seeking contracts this month and wants capacity available by the middle of next year, according to the Financial Review, as it looks to make Australia its second major base for training AI models outside the United States. The talks are linked to negotiations with the Albanese government over copyright rules that would allow Anthropic to legally train its models on Australian content. Anthropic is reportedly seeking 1.4 gigawatts of capacity, which is roughly equivalent to the entire Australian data centre industry at the end of last year.
Story number three, NetWealth says it can double funds under administration to more than $250 billion within four years. Despite recent uncertainty hitting inflows, the wealth platform told investors that it still expects net inflows of about $15.4 billion for the 2026 financial year. a jump to between $18 billion and $20 billion next year. Chief Executive Matt Hain said that the recent slowdown was temporary, caused by the Middle East conflict and uncertainty around the federal government's tax changes. Net wealth shares rallied 6.7% after the update. The company does remain under regulatory scrutiny after the Shield and First Guardian collapses and says that it is increasing spending on due diligence and compliance.
Story number four, US President Donald Trump has confirmed he called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask for a review of US striker Filaran Balogun's red card at the World Cup. Balogun had been due to miss the United States' round of 16 match against Belgium after being sent off in the previous game. FIFA later suspended the automatic one-match ban allowing him to play. Trump said he only asked for a review and described the original decision as horrible. Infantino insisted that FIFA's judicial bodies were independent and that he had no influence over the outcome. Belgium unsuccessfully challenged the decision, calling it unfair. But really, the controversy was ultimately overtaken by events on the field because Belgium beat the United States today 4-1 to reach the quarterfinals.
And finally, story number five. How about this one? A former city official in eastern China has been sentenced to death for taking more than 300 million US dollars in bribes over three decades. Yang Yulin, who held senior roles between 1993 and 2023, was also convicted of embezzlement, abuse of power and money laundering. Chinese state media said he used his positions to help others secure engineering contracts, land transfers and financing in exchange for money and valuables. The BBC reports that the case is part of President Xi Jinping's long-running anti-corruption campaign, which has targeted officials across government, banking and the military. Death sentences for white-collar crimes are rare in China, but they have been handed down in major corruption cases involving exceptionally large sums.
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