📈 Apple's great year continues | Iran conflict escalates again

The Big Picture

• Oil prices near $90 a barrel as Iran conflict escalates. The US and Iran traded attacks with the US striking Iranian bridges, ports and energy infrastructure while Iran struck a desalination plant in Kuwait. Two US service members were killed by Iranian strikes on a US base in Jordan. The price of Brent crude rose 15% over the past week to $88 a barrel. (NY Times)
  
  

• Semiconductor stocks enter a bear market. A bear market is defined as a fall of 20% or more, and after falling on Friday the semiconductor index is now down more than 20% from its peak in late June. Friday’s fall came as Chinese AI company Kimi released their K3 model, which is being reported as a rival to Anthropic’s powerful Fable model. (AFR)
  
  

• Andy Burnham set to become UK Prime Minister. The United Kingdom will have its seventh Prime Minister in a decade after Andy Burnham was elected leader of the Labour Party. In a speech, he said Britain took a wrong turn in the 1980’s when “political power was centralised and economic power was privatised”. He will officially become UK Prime Minister today (Monday 20 July). (BBC)

Companies in the news

• Apple briefly reclaims top spot. The iPhone maker briefly became the world’s most valuable company, hitting a $4.9 trillion valuation on Friday, and watching Nvidia fall with other semiconductor stocks. Apple last held the crown in May 2025, but shares are up 23% so far this year as investors warm to its strategy of not invest heavily in AI infrastructure. (FT)
  
  

• OpenAI previews new device, despite Apple’s legal threats. OpenAI’s first physical device will be a screen-free smart speaker designed to act as a portable AI companion. The AI giant is pushing ahead with plans despite Apple sending legal letters to dozens of OpenAI employees, accusing them of stealing Apple’s trade secrets in making the new device. (AFR | FT)
  
  

• Telstra bosses admit they ignored a critical software update. In the Senate inquiry on the Telstra outage, the telco admitted the manufacturer of a timing device had been warning the 15-year-old piece of equipment needed a critical software update, but Telstra did not act on it. Optus and TPG confirmed they had received a similar warning and updated their devices. (AFR)
  
  

• Coles abandons $4 billion pet care play. Australia’s second-largest supermarket will not acquire Greencross, the owner of Petbarn and Australia’s largest chain of vet clinics. (AFR)
  
  

• Netflix down 7% after disappointing earnings. Quarterly revenue rose 13% to $12.6 billion while profit rose 9% to $3.4 billion. However, a forecast for slowing growth for the next quarter saw shares drop 7%. In the past 12 months, Netflix is down 46%. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• SpaceX down 5% after failed launch. Shares fell after Elon Musk’s rocket company aborted a Starship test launch on Friday. The company is now valued at $1.6 trillion, down $1 trillion or almost 40% from its record $2.6 trillion valuation in June. (Bloomberg)
  
  

• Zip to leave New Zealand. The Australian Buy Now, Pay Later operator announced it would be leaving the New Zealand market and would focus on its core Australia and US divisions. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Meta reports huge demand for AI data centres. Investors have been concerned about Meta investing too much in data centres, however, CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded saying companies were asking to buy access to Meta’s data centres “almost every week”. This comes as Meta and Anthropic finalise a $10 billion deal for the maker of Claude to use Meta’s computing power. (Reuters)

Have you got your ticket to FinFest 2026?

The market is closed and the bar is open. Come trade ideas at Australia’s biggest investing festival.

1,200 people have already secured their tickets to FinFest. Make sure you do before they sell out.

You’ll hear from some of Australia’s best investors and entrepreneurs and leave with the knowledge and confidence to take the next step in your investing journey.

This is going to be big. You don’t want to miss this.

Trump family launches Truth Social fast-track access

Trump Media and Technology Group have announced their latest product: Truth API - a subscription that will give customers ultrafast access to President Trump’s Truth Social posts.

Who would pay for faster access to content that is posted for free? Wall Street traders. The President’s posts have the ability to move markets - as we’ve seen recently with the Iran conflict and oil markets. Traders who pay for this subscription will be able to trade on the president’s posts before the public is able to react to them. (FT)

The Big Debate: Is Microsoft a Buy or a Sell?

In the latest episode of Buy or Sell, Ally Selby sat down with two fund managers, Sam Ruiz and Alex Pollak, who disagreed on Microsoft. Here’s a summary of their positions.

Alex Pollak (Loftus Peak): Buy

“AI is happening and it's got global ramifications for every single business on the planet. So, it's just hard to see, you know, Microsoft has got, you know, the largest SaaS application businesses in the world. It’s hard to see how those applications ultimately don't have significant chunks of AI running on them and in them.”

Sam Ruiz (T. Rowe Price): Sell

“I'm a hyperscaler bear that doesn't think you'll lose much money but just thinks thinks that there's better opportunity elsewhere. With Microsoft, I'm the same. I'm a sell near-term. I think that there's better opportunity elsewhere.

This is a business that effectively owns enterprise, so they've got a moat around their ecosystem, which is great. They could have, we think, developed a better version of Copilot and locked people into AI. It’s getting a little bit better, but we just don’t see that there’s going to be a ramp in volume of how they monetise that.”

Want to hear the full debate? And hear Alex and Sam’s views on Alphabet, Amazon and Meta? Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple.

• Equity Mates Investing: Tune in to the latest episode of our Decade Ahead series where we look at the future of digital entertainment. From streaming to smartphones, the way we spend our leisure time is changing and that is having huge implications for the industry and for investors. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)