Wall St boom as ASX lags; Aussies’ love affair with ETFs; Trump launches Trump TV
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Why are Wall Street chipmakers and big‑tech stocks surging while the ASX lags?
Welcome to Fear and Greed, business news you can use today. Wall Street booms as chip makers and big tech make a comeback. Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock suggests unemployment will rise more before inflation falls back under control. And Donald Trump launches Trump TV after banning news outlets from the White House. Plus, ASIC puts the private credit sector on notice. And Aussies love ETFs. It is Wednesday, the 23rd of September, 2026. I'm Michael Thompson, and good morning, Sean Aylmer. Good morning, Michael. Nice to report a good love story, even if it is between Australian investors and exchange-traded
funds,
but we'll get to that a little bit later. Very saucy, Michael. Very saucy. We'll see if we can source it up a little bit, but we'll get to that in a little bit. Wall Street, Sean, Wall Street's surging. Tech stocks, especially chip companies, are leading the way. The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 is back at record levels, and the broader-based S&P 500 isn't far away from new highs. The NASDAQ jumped 2.3% yesterday morning to a new high, while the S&P 500 gained 1.5%, finished within half a percent of its record. The biggest relief, you'd have to say, came from oil. Had Brent crude drop back towards 100 US dollars a barrel amid hopes of diplomatic progress involving the US and Iran, and that eased fears about another inflation shock.
Of course, lower oil prices, we know this is a very familiar story now, lower oil prices would ease those inflation pressures right across the global economy.
Also helping was the release of Meta Platform's new artificial intelligence-powered personal assistant called Muse. It's become one of the fastest-growing apps in the world. In the past week, Meta's share price surged 11%. It actually added $192 billion to its market value. Now, think of like Pepsi, that's worth about $180 billion US. So its additional value yesterday was greater than the complete value of Pepsi. Unlike the local market, which is flat this year, Wall Street's up about 13% in 2026, more than 20% since its low in March. A survey by Reuters shows that the majority of major investment banks in the US still believe the market will run higher. although inflation and rising bond yields could slow gains.
Tech stocks, particularly the chip
makers, have led the way on Wall Street.
How is Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock linking higher unemployment to lower inflation?
AMD, or if we're going to be pedantic about it, advanced micro devices, can we please just call it AMD? It is so much easier. Briefly passed the $1 trillion mark in market cap yesterday, making it the 12th company to achieve that level, and the fourth chip company the others being NVIDIA, Broadcom and Micron Technologies. AMD chips are considered the main competitor really to market leader NVIDIA, at least in terms of those really kind of high quality chips, the ones that can do that really high demand processing.
It's interesting because enthusiasm for chip companies kind of cooled somewhat a few weeks back. Investors were worried about the spending of hyperscalers, but wow, they're back in fashion. There are now five chip companies in the top 20 stocks on Wall Street. The fifth one being Intel. Its share price jumped 12% yesterday. So it's now a top 20 stock. But five out of 20 are chip makers. AMD, it's now bigger than Walmart. It's bigger than Visa. It's bigger than ExxonMobil and Johnson & Johnson. Quite incredible. Of the top 13 companies on Wall Street. Only three, Berkshire Hathaway, the investment group, Eli Lilly, Pharma, JPMorgan Chase Bank. So three of the 13 are not tech companies. And in fact, the top nine are all tech companies.
Nvidia leads the way, obviously worth $5.4 trillion US. Apple's just about $5 trillion US. Google's about $4.2 trillion. A little point to note, a lot of excitement about all these companies. Tech companies on Wall Street. Would you agree? I'm
excited.
Oh, yeah. I'm beside myself. It's sort of predicated, the excitement is, predicated on the US dominating the AI race.
What warnings has ASIC issued to Australia’s $200 billion private‑credit sector?
So it's just worth noting that yesterday, Alibaba launched what it called China's most powerful AI chip to compete with NVIDIA, and it will be cheaper.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why are Wall Street chipmakers and big‑tech stocks surging while the ASX lags?
0:06–2:42
2
How is Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock linking higher unemployment to lower inflation?
2:42–4:30
3
What warnings has ASIC issued to Australia’s $200 billion private‑credit sector?
4:30–6:36
4
Why are Australian investors pouring record money into ETFs and what’s driving the trend?
6:36–9:07
5
How could changes to super‑annuation access help Australians buy homes?
9:07–10:34
6
What is Trump TV and why did Donald Trump ban major news outlets from the White House?
10:34–13:08
7
Which non‑AI stocks does anti‑AI expert Gaurav Sodhi recommend for investors?
13:08–15:18
8
Where can listeners find the daily Fear & Greed newsletter and stay updated on market news?
15:18–17:28
Speakers
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