Today’s News

The Big Picture

• Australians rush to fill up amid petrol price fears. Motorists across the country are panic-buying petrol as fears grow over rising fuel costs linked to the Middle East conflict. Economists warn prices could jump up to 40c a litre in the coming weeks as oil supply routes face disruption. Queensland’s peak motoring body has already referred some major fuel retailers to the ACCC over price increases that appeared shortly after the conflict began. (ABC)
  
  

• $15bn of Australian exports caught in Middle East turmoil. It’s not just petrol feeling the impact of the war. Australia’s Trade Minister estimates $15bn worth of exports could be disrupted by the conflict. Agricultural exporters are already reporting containers stranded at sea and are beginning to cancel future shipments. (ABC)

  
  

• Insurance costs through Strait of Hormuz surge. The cost of insuring ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz has increased twelvefold since the war began. The spike comes despite US President Donald Trump promising the US Navy would ensure safe passage for global trade through the critical oil chokepoint. (FT)
  
  

• Carney calls for ‘middle-power’ alliances in Canberra. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney became the first Canadian leader to address the Australian Parliament since 2007, calling the two countries “strategic cousins.” He urged closer cooperation on AI, critical minerals and trade as middle powers look to rely less on both the US and China. (AFR)
  
  

• China lowers growth target to lowest level since 1991. China has set its GDP growth target for 2026 at 4.5–5%, its lowest goal in more than three decades. Officials blamed slowing domestic demand and weaker global economic conditions. (FT)
  
  

• Nepal heads to the polls after Gen Z-led uprising. Nepalese voters are heading to the polls in the first election since a student-led revolution forced the Prime Minister to resign last year. A new political party led by Kathmandu mayor (and former rapper) Balendra Shah is tipped to perform strongly. (The Guardian)

Companies in the news

• Star casino executives facing millions in fines. A court has ruled the former CEO and legal counsel of the casino operator breached their director duties. Both face seven breaches each, with potential penalties of up to $1m per breach. (ABC)
  
  

• QatarEnergy halts gas exports amid conflict. The world’s largest LNG producer has declared force majeure, allowing it to suspend gas export obligations due to the Middle East conflict. Analysts say it could take at least a month to restore normal production, tightening global energy supply. (Reuters)
  
  

• IREN raises billions, buys Nvidia chips and partners with the Swans.
  AI data centre builder and bitcoin miner IREN had a busy week: buying more than 50,000 Nvidia B300 GPUs, raising $8.5bn for new data centres and signing a sponsorship deal with the Sydney Swans as their official AI cloud partner for the 2026 AFL season. (Capital Brief | Sydney Swans)

  
  

• Musk defends tweets in market manipulation case. Elon Musk appeared in court over claims he manipulated markets before acquiring Twitter in 2022. Musk told the jury that people “read too much into” his posts on X. (BBC)
  
  

• News Corp strikes $150m AI content deal with Meta. News Corp has signed a US$150m licensing deal with Meta, allowing the tech giant to use its US and UK news content to train AI models. OpenAI struck a similar agreement with the media company in 2025 worth US$250m. (The Guardian)

What the…?

Turns out the Breaking Bad plot might not be that unrealistic. Walter White’s transformation from mild-mannered chemistry teacher to drug kingpin after a cancer diagnosis made for great TV — but new research suggests the premise may not be entirely far-fetched.

Danish and Dutch researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Tilburg found that cancer patients are 14% more likely to commit a crime in the 10 years following their diagnosis compared to those without the disease. The biggest increases were seen in economic crimes, including drug dealing and burglary. (The Economist)

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Today’s Insight

Debt recycling explained (30 seconds or less)

This was taken from our recent Equity Mates Investing episode titled ‘Ask an Adviser: Debt Recycling - Everything you need to know | Dylan Pargiter-Green’ (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)

Ren: Now Dylan, debt recycling. It's a hot topic in the Equity Mates community. I said that you've built an interactive debt recycling calculator for people to go and put their own information in. And we'll include a link to that in the show notes in the YouTube description. But we thought this would be a great episode to start at the beginning and then get more advanced and unpack debt recycling for everyone. Make this a resource for everyone to really understand it. So let's start at the beginning. Debt recycling, what is the absolute simplest way to explain it?

Dylan: Well, debt recycling in 30 seconds or less. So debt recycling is simply the mechanics of turning your non-deductible debt being debt on your principal place of residence, most commonly, into deductible debt that is used for investment.

There's several different ways of starting that process, but generally the process is taking some capital that you already have, whether that's invested or cash, making a lump sum payment on your principal place of residence mortgage to pay it down so that you at a moment in time have a lower amount of debt. Then subsequently taking out a new piece of debt, whether that's a completely separate loan or a split, and investing that into some sort of income producing asset, which we know then creates the capacity to claim a tax deduction on the costs of that debt, therefore the interest.

Today in Equity Mates