Here’s what you need to know today

• Air Canada will resume service after reaching a tentative deal with flight attendants, ending a three-day strike that has affected over 500,000 customers. The flight attendants’ union said Air Canada will initially pay its members half the normal hourly rate during boarding, which was previously unpaid time. The members, who earlier defied two federal orders to return to work, must still approve the agreement. (Quartz)
  
  

• Canva will soon be minting overnight millionaires after launching a staff share sale at a new AU$65 billion valuation. The valuation puts Canva ahead of many ASX-100 heavyweights, including Telstra, Woodside and Rio Tinto. (Bloomberg)
  
  

• James Hardie shares plunged 29% on Wednesday’s after the building materials group reported a 60% drop in first-quarter net profit and downgraded full-year guidance, wiping about $7 billion off its market value. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Property company Stockland had a much better day, as it’s shares climbed 8% after it reported it’s FY25 financial results. Revenue rose 4.8% to $3.1 billion, while after-tax profit more than doubled to $826 million, boosted by residential settlements and a positive revaluation of investment properties. (AFR)
  
  

• Lottery Corporation was another of Wednesday biggest gaining stocks on the ASX200. The lottery operator posted a net profit of $366 million, with earnings were slightly higher than analyst expectations, lifting the stock price almost 8%, hitting an all-time high of $5.80 during the day. (ABC)
  
  

• The U.S. Commerce Department announced Tuesday that it is extending steel and aluminum tariffs to 407 additional product categories, ranging from consumer goods like motorcycles, baby seats, and furniture to industrial equipment such as wind turbines, cranes, bulldozers, and auto parts. The new duties impose a 50% tariff on the steel and aluminum content of these items, with no exemptions for goods already in transit. It’s estimated that the tariffs now cover around $325bn worth of imports, up from an estimated $191 billion before the change. (CNBC)
  
  

• S&P Global, one of the world’s leading credit rating agencies, has reaffirmed the United States at AA+, one notch below the top AAA rating. A strong rating matters because it keeps government borrowing costs lower and reinforces confidence in U.S. debt as the world’s safest investment. The decision was aided by $21 billion in July tariff revenue, which eased pressure from higher spending and legislative approval of Trump’s “big beautiful bill”. Despite the boost, the deficit rose nearly 20% last month to $291 billion, though S&P expects it to narrow to about 6% of GDP this year, down from 7.5% in 2024. (Financial Times)
  
  

• Chinese toymaker Pop Mart posted a nearly 400% profit surge in the first half of 2025, driven by the runaway success of its Labubu figurines. The Labubu craze has made Pop Mart one of the world’s most valuable toy companies, now worth more than twice Hasbro and Mattel combined. Its Hong Kong-listed shares have jumped more than 570% in the past year, propelling founder Wang Ning into the Forbes’ rich list as China’s 10th-richest person. (Reuters)
  
  

• Another A.I company is raising funds at a twelve-figure valuation. Databricks, a data-analytics and AI software firm, is close to securing more than $1 billion in new funding that would value it at $100 billion, a 61% jump from its last round in December. The late-stage Series K raise, backed by Thrive Capital, Insight Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, would make Databricks one of the world’s most valuable AI companies. (WSJ)
  
  

• Meanwhile, spending on data centers shows no signs of slowing. Vantage Data Centers announced plans to invest over $25 billion in a 1,200-acre campus in Shackelford County, Texas, as demand for AI infrastructure continues to drive mega-scale projects. (Reuters)

What the…?

For many, that chirpy whirring start-up sound was the soundtrack of their early internet experience.

Now, after more than 30 years, AOL is finally pulling the plug on the dial-up service that helped connect millions to the internet.

At its peak, AOL claimed nearly 40% of all time spent online in the US and had over 30 million subscribers.

Incredibly, as recently as 2023, around 300,000 Americans were still using dial-up, though that number is now heading rapidly toward zero. (BBC)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Don’t work for the company - own the company

This is taken from the Equity Mates Book ‘Get Started Investing’ (Amazon)

Benefit from the work of the world’s best

Think of some of the biggest innovations of your lifetime. Or some of the biggest innovations in history. Electricity, the telephone, the car, personal computers, online retail.

We hear about the incredible people who invent them: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Henry Ford. They become billionaires through their brilliance. We, as everyday investors, have the opportunity to also benefit from their work.

Their innovations have been commercialised and brought to market through publicly traded companies that everyday investors have had the opportunity to invest in.

As investors, we could have benefited from these innovators’ work through investing in shares in their companies.

Think about a company you or someone in your family works for. What its purpose is. Why it employs you. At the end of the day, it is to increase profit - make more sales, find more work, cut costs - it is all to finish the day a little more profitable than it started.

It is the same for the companies you can invest in through the stock market. These companies are built to earn more profit for their shareholders (owners). The CEOs and executives of these businesses only earn their bonuses if they increase profit, so they go out and hire the smartest people, develop new products and technologies, find new business opportunities and expand into new markets - all to make more profit.

As a shareholder, you are then entitled to a share of this profit.

When you think of it like that, why would you just work for the company when you can own the company?

Get Started Investing is available from all good bookstores, including Amazon

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