Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Friday, the 8th of May, 2026. I'm Sean Aylmer. Every afternoon, we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about. Story number one, the S&P ASX 200 fell 1.5% today to 8,744 points, pretty much wiping out most of the gains of the previous two sessions.
It was the biggest decline in seven weeks and took about $50 billion in value from the bourse, about three quarters of the stocks. ended the day lower. Only one of the top 30 stocks, REA, ended higher, and losses were particularly harsh in the banking sector.
It followed news this morning that there had been skirmishes between the US and Iran in the Middle East, just hours after US President Donald Trump sounded confident that there'd be a ceasefire. For the second day in a row, Tabcorp was the hardest hit, falling another 14% on the back of news that Austrac is looking at the company in regards to anti-money laundering activity.
Story number two, Macquarie Group today reported its second biggest ever annual profit with its commodities and markets division and asset management business boosting earnings to $4.8 billion. The result was better than expected and only behind the 2023 number of $5.2 billion. On a tough day for the ASX, Macquarie share price closed down 1%.
Volatility in energy markets helped the group's commodities and global markets division, where about half the earnings came from. Chief Executive Shamara Wickramanayake said the company is well positioned to deliver superior performance in the medium term.
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Chapter 2: Why did the ASX experience a significant decline today?
Story number three, four major vegetable growers and some of their most senior executives coordinated pricing by phone and text messages online. before submitting quotes to discount supermarket giant Aldi, the competition regulator alleges.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued the companies, they're called Perfect Fresh, Hydro Produce, Veli Valicia and Fragipani Farms, last August, alleging they had colluded for years. At the time, the regulator did not give details of the alleged attempt to set prices. However, new documents filed with the federal court
Show the ACCC will allege that the company's coordinated pricing before submitting quotes for the supply of broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts and zucchini to a centralized tendering system run by Aldi. That's all according to a report in the Financial Review today.
The regulator alleges there were several occasions where one party attempted to persuade a competitor to coordinate prices even if a final agreement was not reached. Story number four, and this one is close to my home.
A global outage of the online learning platform Canvas, with an S, Canvas, has hit Australian universities and schools a week after a cyber attack on the company potentially compromised data from about 9,000 educational institutions. Canvas, which is owned by a US-based company Instructure, is widely used in educational institutions and It's been down globally since about 6 a.m. this morning.
Now, a status update from Instructure said the platform had been placed into maintenance mode and was expected to be back up soon. But it meant that thousands, tens of thousands of kids and young adults around the country couldn't access assignments, learning materials and the like today. And story number five, News Corp rallied 3% after a stronger than expected third quarter.
with revenue and earnings both ahead of forecast. The result was underpinned by growth in Dow Jones and digital real estate, which offset weakness in its traditional news media division. Now, that digital real estate for News Corp is primarily REA Group. It reported its third quarter as well. It's 60% owned by News Corp. It impressed investors after it also showed a jump in revenue and earnings.
As I mentioned before, it was the only company of the top 30 whose share price jumped today, closed up 2%. That's it for the afternoon report for Friday, the 8th of May, 2026. Make sure you're following on the podcast and head along to fearandgreed.com.au to sign up for our free daily newsletter. I'm Sean Aylmer. Enjoy your evening.
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