The Saturday Edition | 8 Aug 2026
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What is the opening introduction and format of The Saturday Edition?
This is the Saturday edition of Fear and Greed, business news you can use. I'm Michael Thompson and good morning, Sean Aylmer.
Good morning, Michael.
Sean, over the past couple of weeks, we've made a few little adjustments to the Saturday edition. We'll still give you... the biggest news, the stories that you need to know from the week. There'll be a two-minute news wrap, everything that you need to know. Then the rest of the show, all new, really, mostly all new. Stories we haven't covered through the week, stories that might need a little bit more attention, stories that are... a bit of fun as well. But it is still a competition. There is still a winner. So I welcome our judge, Adam Lang. Adam, good morning. Good morning, Michael.
And good morning, Sean. Morning, Adamski. Morning. How have you been enjoying the last couple of weeks of the Saturday edition?
Well, yeah, it's like a fresh adventure every time, isn't it? So at the beginning, I was a bit nervous, a bit hesitant. How's this all going to play out? And then we tend to have a bit of fun.
Well, let's get the non-fun part out of the way in that case. Sean, give us your news wrap in two minutes.
I mean, non-fun's a bit harsh, but let's face it. It wasn't exactly a cracking week for news. Before earnings season, everyone's already done their confessions, so you don't get a lot of corporate news. Parliament wasn't sitting. We did have the ASX hitting a new record, the highlight being the bounce in tech stocks. The MAG, or some of the MAG7 stocks, bounced, but then the local tech stocks did really well. So we set a new record here. Of course, that's ahead of earnings season, a bit of a surprise. Straight off a mousse, is it open? Is it closed? I don't know, really. Depends sort of when you're talking about it. Still not really open, but we wait and see on that one. Household spending figures came out.
They stayed strong. It just keeps that pressure on the Reserve Bank, really. They're meeting next week. Inflation figures were much better than we thought they were going to be. Then household spending picks up. Tricky one. The other point this week, we got house prices. They continue to fall for the month of July. That was the National Australia Bank and Westpac are now forecasting a 10% drop from peak to trough in house prices.
That's a solid wrap. That's a solid wrap in about a minute ten. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ASX hitting a record was pretty exciting. We got excited about it on the show. We did. I suppose that was also because there wasn't that much else to get excited about.
All changes next week, Michael.
All changes next week. Oh, it certainly does. Next week's going to be a very exciting week. Category one this morning, Adam, have you prepared your judging pencil? Is it particularly sharp? Have you got your score sheet ready? I'm using a pen. I'm committing. Oh, see, that's a risk because then you can't really change your scores without making a mess. And I know you don't like to. Like to avoid that.
What are the key headlines in Sean’s two‑minute news wrap?
Yeah. Wherever you can. Category one is the perhaps unfortunately named crystal balls. We are going to be.
Okay.
I've never thought about it. Crystal balls. It's an unusual phrase, isn't it, really?
It does sound like a name from a certain character in a certain type of genre of production. Yes.
Well, I'm not sure where we're going there. Sorry, I'll start. So let's bust out our crystal balls and look into the future.
Yeah.
Sean?
I want to talk about the future of the car industry. What I like about this story is it's changing, but it also shows that economics works. Adam? Hello. It shows that government incentives work. It shows that people do want to change, but at the end of the day, it's really about themselves and how much money they'll make or not make on it. So in Australia, electric vehicle sales are surging. 21% of sales last month. If you throw hybrids in there as well, about 50% of sales now are some sort of electrified vehicles. Why is that the case? Well, petrol prices, there's an incentive. But just as important is that there are government incentives.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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