Here’s what you need to know today

• Australia’s latest GDP figures paint a disappointing picture - up 0.8% for the year and up 0.3% in the September quarter. What has most disappointed economists is that the majority of this growth came from record state and federal government spending, rather than businesses or consumers. (ABC News | AFR)
  
  

• South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and then hours later, announced he would lift it. Lawmakers had voted to block the move and protestors had taken to the street, both groups arguing the move was unconstitutional. The President had accused the opposition party of sympathising with North Korea and under his martial law declaration had banned “all political activities”. (ABC News | SMH)

  
  

• Commonwealth Bank has backed down from its proposal to charge a $3 fee on all cash withdrawals (even over the counter at branches) after Treasurer Jim Chalmers called CBA chief executive Matt Comyn. (AFR)
  
  

• China has responded to America’s trade restrictions on advanced technologies and semiconductors. In response, China has now banned the sale of rare minerals that are critical to make semiconductors and advanced technology, including military equipment. China controls most of the world’s supply of these metals. (Quartz)
  
  

• Australia’s largest producer of rare earth metals, Lynas Rare Earths, saw its share price jump 5% yesterday on expectations that non-Chinese-controlled rare earth metals were about to become a lot more sought after.
  
  

• Rare earths is not the only forum where the US and China are butting heads. President Biden is currently in Angola, the first US President to visit the African nation, and he announced a $3 billion railway investment while declaring America is “all in” on its relationship with Africa. The context for this trip is China’s increased influence on the continent and US efforts to counter it. (AP News)
  
  

• France’s government is in turmoil as Michel Barnier looks set to be the first Prime Minister in 60 years to be ousted by a no-confidence motion. France’s economy is facing growing debt and a slowing growth, and the political fracture only adds to investors’ concerns. (Reuters)
  
  

• SpaceX is reportedly preparing a tender offer for early employees and investors to sell shares that would price Elon Musk’s space company at $350 billion. This would make it the most valuable startup, once again jumping TikTok-owner Bytedance, and would be a 67% increase to a $210 billion valuation earlier this year. (Quartz)

What the…?

China’s demographics are a structural problem for the world’s second most populous country. Decades of one-child policy and a preference for that child to be male has lowered the birth rate, with 2023 seeing the lowest brith rate since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

Another sign of the worsening demographic crisis: 2024 is on track to have the lowest levels of marriages recorded since records began. 4.74 million Chinese couples registered their marriages in the first three-quarters of 2024, a decrease of 16.6% from the 5.69 million couples in the same period of 2023 and well down from a peak of 13.5 million in 2013. (CNN)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

This is an excerpt from our conversation with Nick Griffin and James Tsinidis titled ‘Is climate the biggest opportunity since the internet?’ (Apple | Spotify)

Nick and James’ Munro Climate Change Leaders Fund (ASX: MCCL) is up 71% so far in 2024 so we thought it would be a good opportunity to revisit this interview.

Question: Why is climate one of the biggest technological changes and investment opportunities?

When you're investing, the biggest thing you can do is try and find some sort of structural tailwind that will ultimately lead you towards great companies. Those great companies will get you great earnings growth and earnings growth will equal share price growth. If you go back over time, the smartphone adoption effectively created Apple, e-commerce created Amazon, tap and go payments created Afterpay. Climate is just another one of these structural changes. From our point of view, it's reasonably obvious that we're going to attempt to decarbonise the planet. Most consumers care about it, most corporates care about it, and governments care about it. There's a range of estimates out there, but we think it's somewhere between 30 and 50 trillion dollars to electrify and decarbonise the planet across electricity, transport, packaging. That's steady revenue for the companies that enable decarbonisation.

Question: What are the key areas you're looking at within climate investing?

First is renewable energy itself and all the companies helping to transition from fossil fuels to renewable power sources - everything from solar panels, wind turbines through to the companies building and delivering it to consumers. Second is energy efficiency - retrofitting old buildings and homes with new insulation, heating, cooling systems. Third is clean transportation - everything from Tesla to companies that power electric vehicles in semiconductors, batteries, commodities, but also other transport forms that are harder to decarbonise like shipping with hydrogen. Last is the circular economy - everything from waste collection companies through to plastic recycling, companies benefiting from shifts from plastics to aluminium or containerboard.

Would you prefer to watch this interview? Check out the full conversation on YouTube:

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