- Equity Mates
- Posts
- 📈 Australia warned about income tax reliance | BYD almost topples Toyota
📈 Australia warned about income tax reliance | BYD almost topples Toyota
Presented by
The Big Picture
Australia warned about reliance on income tax. A recent OECD report has singled out Australia for collecting 62.1% of tax revenue from personal income and corporate profits in 2023, compared to 36.4% for other advanced economies. (AFR)
Data centres reignite nuclear power debate. Australia’s Minister for Energy Chris Bowen has rejected the idea that Australia should embrace nuclear power to generate enough clean energy to meet the demands of the AI data centres. Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has been leading this argument, arguing 30 countries around the world are today building large-scale nuclear reactors. (Capital Brief)
Did Albo cave to the bookies? That is the question being asked by members of the Prime Minister’s own party after he rolled out watered down restrictions on gambling companies. One major loophole that has been identified in the new laws: streaming services will be able to show unlimited gambling ads. (Capital Brief | SMH)
US celebrates a disrupted 250th birthday. Fourth of July celebrations were disrupted by extreme weather after the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning for much of the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Then, a storm warning in Washington DC saw the national mall evacuated before Trump’s speech. Before the evacuation, hundreds of masked white nationalists had marched through the streets of Washington DC. (NY Times)
Companies in the news
BYD almost topples Toyota. The Chinese electric vehicle maker is close to beating Toyota as the most popular car brand in Australia. In June, Toyota sold 19,100 cars - down 5.4% year-on-year. Meanwhile, BYD sold 18,900 - up 131.5% year-on-year. Third place for the month was Ford, at 9,200 cars - less than half the sales of Toyota or BYD. (AFR)
Tesla sales jump 25%. The electric car maker sold 480,000 cars globally in the second quarter of 2026, up 25% year-on-year and more than the 406,000 expected by Wall Street. Europe was a particular bright spot, with sales 77% in the first 5 months of year. (NY Times)
Korean stocks end the week strong. SK Hynix was up 11% and Samsung was up 8% on Friday, as investors seemed to get over worries about a slowdown in the AI data centre boom. Earlier in the week, Meta’s announcement that it would sell excess compute capacity had investors worried Big Tech had been overbuilding data centres. (Bloomberg)
Anthropic cracks down on Chinese access. The American AI giant is closing loopholes that allowed Chinese companies to access their AI tools through third-parties. One example, reported by the FT, was Ant Financial who got around restrictions by setting up Claude accounts for their Chinese employees through their Singapore office. (FT)
OpenAI considers giving the US government 5%. In a bid to get alignment with Washington and clear any political obstacles, the company behind ChatGPT is considering gifting the US government a 5% stake in their company. OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion, meaning this stake would be worth $42.6 billion. (FT)
PEXA drops 21% as government suggests cutting revenue. PEXA is Australia’s electronic conveyancing system, that replaced traditional, paper-based property settlements. It is a monopoly with much of its pricing set by state governments. And unfortunately for PEXA, the NSW regulator has suggested cutting its fees from 2028. PEXA’s share price dropped 21% on the news. (Capital Brief)
Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce’s big New York wedding
Over the weekend, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got married in front of 1,000 guests at New York’s Madison Square Garden. CNN reported the celebration cost between US$10 million and US$20 million (A$29 million).
Venue hire alone is reported to cost US$1 million a night, with lighting starting at US$650,000, flowers potentially exceeding US$1 million, and labour, security and custom builds adding significantly to the bill.
Start your business right with ANZ
Starting a business is exciting - but it also comes with plenty of ‘what ifs.’
What if it doesn’t work, what if you’re not ready?
With ANZ, you don’t have to figure it out alone. They can help you set your business up properly from the start - with step-by-step checklists, practical set-up tips and cashflow tools designed to give you more confidence as you begin.
Instead of focusing on what could go wrong, you can start thinking about what’s the best that could happen.
Property’s greatest advantage is over
After the recent Budget, Ren has taken a look at the age-old question: property or shares? What he found may surprise you. Below is an excerpt from our latest Equity Mates Explains video. Head over to the YouTube channel to watch it in full. (YouTube)
Ren: Let's start with a fact that surprises most Australians.
Over the long run, shares outperform property. In 2015, the Federal Reserve of San Francisco published a paper The Rate of Return on Everything that looked at nearly 150 years of data to uncover long term returns across a range of asset classes.
Between 1980 and 2015, Australian housing delivered a return of 7.16% per year after inflation. Not bad.
In that same time, Australian shares delivered 8.78% per year after inflation.
But let’s zoom out even further.
Between 1870 and 2015 - 145 years - Australian housing returned 6.37% per year after inflation.
Australia’s shares after inflation returned 7.81% per year.
Over the long term shares have outperformed property.
So why are Australians obsessed with property investing? One word: leverage.
Want to watch Ren break down the changes and see how property and shares stack up in a post-Budget world? Check out the full video on YouTube.
