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Here’s what you need to know today

• The US and China agreed to extend their 90-day tariff truce that was due to expire on 12 August. However, US negotiators noted, the final decision would rest with President Trump who is due to be briefed later this week. The US also declined to ease restrictions on high-end microchips that are critical to advanced AI applications. (Bloomberg)
  
  

• Some of Aussie investors favourite companies had good days: DroneShield reported Q2 revenue was up 480% year-on-year (Capital Brief), PolyNovo forecast this year’s profit would be almost triple last year’s (Capital Brief) and Mineral Resources extended a great month (up 42% and counting) after confirming it would meet full year production forecasts. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Australia’s annual inflation rate slowed to 2.1% in the second quarter of 2025, down from 2.4% in the first quarter. This increases the chance of an RBA rate cut, but don’t count your chickens yet, the RBA’s preferred measure of inflation - trimmed mean inflation - dropped from 2.9% to 2.7%. This is within the RBA’s 2-3% target but higher than the RBA’s official forecast of 2.6%. (ABC News)
  
  

• Australia has entered the space race. The first ever Australian-made rocket was launched by Gilmour Space from a launchpad in Queensland. While the rocket crashed and exploded 14 seconds after takeoff, CEO Adam Gilmour wrote on LinkedIn, “Of course, I would have liked more flight time, but happy with this.” (AFR)
  
  

• Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts and its share price fell 22%. What was once Europe’s most valuable company has fallen 58% in the past 12 months as it cuts guidance for the second time this year. Revenue still rose 18% year-on-year and profit was up 40%, but there was a lot of expectation built into the drug maker’s share price. (Quartz)
  
  

• Boeing’s turnaround continues (as Mr. Beat-Up predicted on Equity Mates Investing!) with shares up 49% since that episode. The company reported it delivered 150 commercial aircraft in Q2, up 63% year-on-year, helping boost revenue 35% to $22.7 billion. It wasn’t all good news with the aircraft maker still unprofitable. (CNBC)
  
  

• The bad news continues for Australian casino giant Star Entertainment. The same week the company reported revenue was down by almost one-third, it also told investors it was unlikely to reach a deal to sell its share in the Queen’s Wharf project in Brisbane leaving it once again strapped for cash. Star made a $27m loss this quarter, down from a $23m profit same time last year. (AFR)
  
  

• Stellantis is the latest carmaker to report a huge tariff bill. The car maker behind Chrysler and Jeep expects to pay $1.7 billion in tariffs this year. This follows Volkswagen’s $1.5 billion tariff bill for the first 6 months of this year and General Motors’ projection that the full-year tariff impact could be as high as $5 billion. (Quartz)
  
  

• AI companies continue to reach eye-watering valuations. Anthropic, the company behind the AI chatbot Claude, is set to raise money at a US$170 billion valuation. This is almost triple the $61.5 billion valuation it raised at just 4 months ago. (Financial Times)

What the…?

Alchemy - the idea of turning base metals into gold - captured the dreams of scientists from ancient times to the middle ages. But with the advent of the modern scientific method, the idea of turning other metals into gold faded.

Well one nuclear fusion company believes it has achieved what was previously thought impossible. The FT reports that San Francisco-based Marathon Fusion has managed to turn mercury into gold using a process known as nuclear transmutation.

Now don’t get too excited yet. The startup is yet to publish its research for peer review. And even if it does work, the resultant gold would be so radioactive that it wouldn’t be safe to handle for 14-18 years. Still, a pretty amazing breakthrough. (Financial Times)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Add to offset or invest in stocks?

This is an excerpt from the Get Started Investing episode ‘How to save thousands and wipe out your mortgage’ (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

Bryce: So the main thing to consider with the offset account is that it is an after tax benefit. 

Let’s say your home loan interest rate is 6%. You're saving paying interest to the tune of 6% or effectively getting an after tax return of 6%. You then need to compare that to what you would expect to get in the stock market to decide what is better. Now, there is a bit of a formula here to find out how to do that. They suggest taking your home loan rate, adding your marginal tax rate, which will give you what the expected return should be for you to put money in the stock market rather than your offset.

Let's take 6%, a marginal tax rate of 30% is about an 8% return that you need to get. The reason you do that is because obviously when you're investing, you then need to consider the tax that you're going to pay on the returns from the investment. So you need to be able to compare apples-with-apples.

Ren: 7.8%, the stock market has historically returned more than that. Obviously the tax brackets go up and 30% might not be the right number if you're paying off a mortgage and you've got money to invest. And if you're in that circumstance in life, you might be adding 37%, you might be adding 45%. So then the return rates get higher.

Bryce: Yes. And also I think that you need to consider the time horizon here because obviously that the stock market return on average is over a long period of time. You shouldn't be expecting that literally every year, year-on-year.

Ren: You’re paying off your mortgage over a long period of time too…

Bryce: Well. I know, but in my view, you can have an outsized return earlier on, getting into your offset account.

Ren: So I think that's one way to think about it. It's the mathematical version. It's expected return. There's no perfect answer because unfortunately the expected return is a forecast….We don't know what the stock market will do over the next however many years. 

There's also then an overlay that needs to come onto it, which is what your personal circumstances and your goals are. And I think with these two assets [offset and an investment portfolio] the way you build wealth and the choices that give you, are different. If someone wants to get to retirement as quickly as possible, you don't want to have a mortgage hanging over you in retirement. Mortgage payments would really eat up your super balance or you might have to work for longer to keep affording that mortgage. So in that case, you're probably thinking about getting out from under the mortgage as quickly as possible. And in that case, the offset can be really powerful. 

Want to check out the full episode? All Get Started Investing episodes are available on their very own YouTube channel:

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