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- 📈 AI breaks containment | Oil companies cash in
📈 AI breaks containment | Oil companies cash in
Here's what you need to know today
Emily Croker
August 03, 2026
Presented by
The Big Picture
AI breaks containment. Last week saw Anthropic and OpenAI ask the US government to step in and pace the rate of AI development. It came after both AI companies had models break out of testing environments without permission. OpenAI’s model breached another AI company, Hugging Face, and left itself notes in its code base knowing it would probably be deleted and reinstalled. Anthropic reviewed its own testing after OpenAI’s incident and found its models had breached three different organisations. (NBC | Pacing The Frontier)
China’s AI breakthroughs still rely on US chips. Recently, it has seemed like Chinese AI firms have been achieving similar results with far less computing power, raising fears that the AI industry is overbuilding data centres and compute infrastructure. However, Bloomberg reported that Kimi K3 - the Chinese AI model that spooked competitors earlier this month - was built on 20,000 Nvidia chips despite the US government attempting to restrict China’s access to the technology. This eased investor concerns and suggested that the top AI models still require more and more compute. (Bloomberg)
Australia’s fuel excise returns to full rate. At midnight last night, Australia’s temporary discount on petrol and diesel taxes expired. The fuel excise returned to its full rate of 53.7 cents per litre. (ABC)
US borrowing costs keep rising. The yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond reached its highest level since 2007 this week, as three US Federal Reserve officials publicly criticised the Fed’s decision to hold rates on Wednesday. Inflation has now remained above the Fed’s 2% target for more than 5 years and the officials released public statements arguing the Fed will need to keep raising rates to bring inflation back to target. (NY Times)
FIFA abandons plans to sell stake to investors. FIFA President Gianni Infantino had hoped to raise $4.2 billion by selling a 20% stake in a new entity that controlled the commercial rights for world football. The proposal received huge backlash from regional football associations, including the European body UEFA who voted to boycott FIFA competitions including the World Cup until the proposal was killed. Over the weekend, Infantino relented to pressure and dropped the proposal. (SBS)
2026 keeps breaking box office records. The latest Spider-Man movie broke US records this weekend with a $168 million opening day. This beats 2019’s Avenger’s: Endgame and continues a banner year for cinemas with Super Mario and Toy Story 5 breaking the $1 billion mark and The Odyssey starting well. Worldwide box office revenue is on track for $35 billion this year, which would be a post-pandemic record. (Variety)
Companies in the news
Amazon revenue growth accelerates. The eCommerce and web services giant celebrated its first $200 billion quarter, up 20% year-on-year. Amazon Web Services saw revenue grow 37%, its fastest growth in over 4 years. Similar to Alphabet, Amazon dropped to negative cash flow due to its AI data centre investments, but investors still loved the result and shares jumped 15% on Friday. (WSJ)
AI stocks jump to close the week. South Korean chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung both jumped more than 25% on Friday, recovering from a brutal selloff earlier in the week. July was tough for tech stocks with America’s tech-heavy Nasdaq index down 6.6%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 equal-weight index was up 1%, suggesting the market outside of tech is holding up okay. (Bloomberg)
Oil stocks cash in on Iran war. Exxon and Chevron both reported windfall profits as they shared their quarterly results on Friday. Exxon reported its highest quarterly profit in 4 years of $14.5 billion, more than double the $7.1 billion in the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, Chevron reported its highest quarterly profit in 6 years of $12.1 billion, up 385% year-on-year. (Reuters | Reuters)
Canva keeps growing despite AI fears. Australia’s largest private technology company reported 30% revenue growth for the year to May. Canva’s listed peers have dropped in the past year - Adobe down 28% and Figma down 80% - over fears that AI will replace them or reduce what they can charge. But Canva’s continued strong revenue growth will ease investor fears. It is currently valued at US$42 billion and is considering an IPO in 2027. (AFR)
Fortescue hits a production record, but results are mixed. The world’s fourth largest iron ore producer reported annual iron ore production of 201.3 million tonnes, up 1% year-on-year and a production record. However, it also reported more challenges at its Iron Bridge project in the Pilbara as it booked a $1.1 billion write down and withdrew a target to reach full production capacity by 2028. (AFR)
Short sellers bet against SpaceX. Short interest in the space and AI company has increased from 23 million shares in June to 219 million shares today. This is equal to 34% of all shares currently traded. A big reason for this growing short interest is the first-lock up period expires in the days following this week’s earnings - meaning about 12% of SpaceX shares will trade on the open market, up from 5% today. (NBC)
Copper’s rise has made it a target
Copper prices are up 50% in the past year. This has made the conductive metal a target for organised crime. Chile has uncovered the world’s largest ever case of copper theft, where nearly $1 billion worth of copper was stolen over 5 years. But it isn’t just Chile. Canadian telco Bell reported that copper thefts across its network are up more than 700% since 2022 and it has had 918 incidents so far in 2026 - an average of about 5 per day. And in Spain, the interior ministry reported thieves had stolen 65km of copper cabling from across the country last year.
Power lines, telecommunications cables, and EV charging stations are among the popular targets for the copper crime wave. Solar farms are also particularly vulnerable, where thieves can steal hundreds of kilometers of cable without being detected. (FT)
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Buy or Sell: Dividend Darlings
On a recent episode of Buy or Sell, Ally Selby hosted fund managers Mike O’Neill from IML and Matt Haupt from Wilson Asset Management to dive into some of Australia’s top dividend stocks. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)
Mike and Matt opened up with a warning: Don’t chase high yields. Dividend traps occur where investors are drawn into unsustainable yields only to get stuck in a bad investment.
Then they unpacked 5 well-known Australian dividends stocks:
Wesfarmers (ASX: WES)
Cleanaway Waste Management (ASX: CWY)
Brambles (ASX: BXB)
Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG)
CSL Ltd (ASX: CSL)
Matt and Mike didn’t agree on all the stocks. Here’s a look at their differing views on Wesfarmers:
Matt: Despite expensive valuation, Wesfarmers is a tactical buy because money is rotating away from struggling banks and resources.
Mike: At 38x PE, growth is moderating. Bunnings and Kmart represent 85% of earnings but face real headwinds from declining housing activity and exhausted expansion opportunities.
Want to hear the full debate? Listen to Buy or Sell wherever you listen to podcasts, or watch in full on YouTube:
