Afternoon Report | ASX off 0.6pc, Trump signs deal
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What caused the ASX to drop 0.6% today?
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.
What are the details of the US-Iran interim 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.
What impact did the Vodafone outage have on customers?
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. He told reporters that we're going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement, while adding that he hoped Iran would honour its commitments.
Story number three, locally, thousands of Vodafone customers were left without mobile services today after a network outage disrupted calls, mobile data and other services across Australia. The outage began around 8 AM and affected customers nationwide before services were largely restored by about 11 o'clock this morning. Vodafone owner TPG Telecom said that the disruption was caused by a failure at one of its network hubs. It apologized to customers.
Why was HSBC fined $35 million by ASIC?
but stressed that triple zero emergency services remained accessible throughout the outage and advised customers to restart their devices to restore connections. Vodafone says it is investigating the incident and reviewing measures to strengthen network resilience. Story number four, HSBC Australia has agreed to pay a $35 million penalty after admitting serious failures in its systems for detecting and preventing scams. ASIC alleges that the bank breached its licence obligations between 2020 and 2024 by failing to implement adequate scam controls, including weak safeguards around transfers and lengthy fraud investigations that took an average of almost five months to complete. The regulator said that the shortcomings left customers vulnerable to impersonation scams and contributed to tens of millions of dollars in losses.
Reports of unauthorized transactions surged almost 380% during 2023 and 2024. HSBC has since launched a remediation program. The proposed $35 million penalty must still be approved by the federal court. And finally, story number five. Qantas has confirmed that direct flights between Sydney and London will begin from October next year, marking the launch of its long-awaited Project Sunrise. Honestly, probably the 10th time I think this has now been announced, but it has been confirmed that that first route will be Sydney to London.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What caused the ASX to drop 0.6% today?
0:05–1:16
2
What are the details of the US-Iran interim peace agreement?
1:16–1:37
3
What impact did the Vodafone outage have on customers?
1:37–2:53
4
Why was HSBC fined $35 million by ASIC?
2:53–4:51
5
What is Project Sunrise and when will Qantas launch it?
4:51–5:13
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from FEAR & GREED | Business News
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