Afternoon Report | Retailers slip after wage ruling
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Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Tuesday, the 2nd 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 S&P ASX 200 finished down just 5%. Five points today, that's less than 0.1% lower to 8,724 points. It was actually quite the recovery stage by the boss today, considering at one point this morning, it was down more than 1.2%. So to finish less than 0.1% lower, That's not too bad, really. A couple of things affecting investors, conflicting signals around the situation in the Middle East, and then a higher than expected minimum wage ruling from the Fair Work Commission.
And retailers and shopping center operators were among the biggest losers after that ruling that approved a 4.75% increase to minimum and award wages. It'll take the minimum wage above $1,000 a week. JB Hi-Fi dropped more than 5% today. Domino's It was off almost 6%. Shopping center operators, vicinity centers and center group also declined sharply. The banks were weaker, led by ANZ, which dropped 3%. But the miners rallied strongly as copper prices approached record highs. BHP hit another record close while Rio Tinto also climbed. Technology stocks surged. Xero, WiseTech Global, Life360 all posting strong gains today. Meanwhile, gold producer Northern Star Resources jumped nearly 14% today after saying it was open to takeover approaches and agreeing that shareholder returns needed to improve.
On to story number two now, and the total number of dwelling approvals fell by 3.4% in April to 16,710. Now that follows an even bigger drop in March and really doesn't augur well for the government wanting to increase the housing supply. These numbers are, of course, volatile. But the trend is your friend, as we always say on Fear and Greed, particularly in these sorts of ABS releases. The trend at the moment suggests that about 17,000 new approvals are coming each month, meaning 200,000 a year, which is well below the government's target run rate of 240,000 a year. That target rate of $240,000 is what's needed to alleviate the housing crisis. And notwithstanding, we're seeing house prices stall to help people, the government needs to encourage more building.
So that's why today's number is significant. Three, Scott Farquhar says Australia's copyright laws need urgent reform if the country wants to attract the next wave of artificial intelligence investment and data centers. The Atlassian co-founder and the chair of the Tech Council of Australia warned that current copyright rules make it almost impossible for AI developers to legally train models using Australian content. Farquhar told the AFR AI Summit in Sydney that unless the rules are overhauled quickly, billions of dollars in global AI infrastructure investment could actually just flow to other countries. The debate centers on whether companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic should be allowed to train models on copyrighted material
without negotiating separate deals with every single right holder. Now, Assistant Technology Minister Andrew Charlton said the government wanted Australia to remain both, and I quote, a great place for creatives and a good place for AI. read into that what you will. Story number four in corporate news, Atlas Arteria was up slightly today after it told shareholders to reject IFM investors $6.9 billion takeover offer, saying the bid materially undervalued the toll road operator and remains below independent valuation estimates. 4D Medical fell 5% after it announced a clinical evidence program aimed at expanding its CT technology into a new market. Nine Entertainment fell 2% after it completed the conversion of its regional TV assets in Northern New South Wales and Darwin into affiliate operations.
Nine now is out of that with Wynn Network owning the businesses. Kelsian, was down slightly on a two-year extension of its Sydney Region 6 bus contract, locking in about $500 million in additional revenue through to June 2028.
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