Afternoon Report | ASX shrugs off Iran strikes
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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.
How did the ASX respond to tensions in the Middle East?
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.
New Zealand's Reserve Bank said that the failure's weakened efforts to detect money laundering and terrorism financing. The penalty is the largest anti-money laundering fine imposed in New Zealand. It is also a reminder of Commonwealth Bank's own anti-money laundering scandal in Australia, which resulted in a $700 million penalty from Austrac back in 2018 and led to some major changes in governance and risk management. Story number four, Northern Star Resources has rejected calls from activist investor Elliot Investment Management to sell the company, despite acknowledging that its share price performance has been disappointing. Chairman Michael Cheney said the board agreed that improvements were needed and would consider Elliott's suggestions, including adding directors with deeper gold industry experience.
However, he said that a sale of the company was not in shareholders' best interests. He also revealed that Northern Star had received several takeover and merger approaches over the past year, but decided not to proceed because they failed to deliver enough value for shareholders. The miners' shares have fallen sharply this year amid operational setbacks and project delays. And finally, story number five, riots and anti-immigration protests have erupted across parts of Northern Ireland and England after a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged over an alleged attempted murder in Belfast. The victim suffered serious injuries in an attack that was widely shared on social media and is very confronting to see.
Police confirmed the accused had refugee status and leave to remain in the U.K., but said terrorism was not being considered as a motive.
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