📈 Australian rents hit record highs | SpaceX falls below IPO price

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The Big Picture

• Australian rents hit record highs across capital cities. Sydney leads the pack with the median house rent rising $50 in the June quarter to a record $850 per week. National median rents are up 6.4% in the past 12 months as vacancy rates are near record lows at under 1%, creating a landlord’s market. (ABC)
  
  

• IMF hikes global inflation forecast, downgrades Australian outlook. The latest World Economic Outlook predicts global inflation of 4.7% due to the ongoing Iran conflict. These inflation concerns have divided the US Fed, with half of its officials now supporting a rate hike. The IMF also downgraded its Australian GDP growth forecast to 1.9% from 2.0% for the year. (FT | AP | AFR)
  
  

• Global diesel supply tightens as Russia bans exports. This comes after Ukrainian drones hit Russian refineries, triggering a fuel crisis within Russia. Russia supplies 11% of the world’s diesel, adding further pressure to the already tight global diesel supply chain. (FT)
  
  

• Labor looks to crack down on AI-generated media. Labor’s draft national policy platform includes legal requirements for labelling on all AI-generated music, art, and cultural works. This follows reports that Adobe Stock hosted images that falsely claimed to be “Indigenous Australians” and “Aboriginal artwork” that were in fact generated with AI. (AFR) 
  
  

• European NATO members announce $72bn missile program. The new Deep Precision Strike project will be completed in the 2030s and follows ongoing demands by Trump for European allies to increase their defence spending and contributions to NATO. (BBC)

Companies in the news

• SpaceX closes below IPO price despite Nasdaq-100 inclusion. Elon Musk’s space-AI firm was fast-tracked onto the popular tech-heavy index on Tuesday, forcing index-tracking funds to buy up large swathes of SpaceX stock. In spite of this, the stock closed at US$148 the next day, below its IPO price of US$150, sparking fears there may be further room to fall. (ABC | CNBC)
  
  

• Telstra faces backlash on Triple Zero outage. The telco could face tens of millions of dollars’ worth of fines as hundreds of people were left unable to call Triple Zero. One Liberal senator even claimed an elderly woman died due to the outage, though this remains unverified. The outage follows the infamous Optus Triple Zero outage last year, which led to two deaths. (Guardian | ABC | AFR)
  
  

• Regulator launches Big 4 probe following KPMG scandal. ASIC will force consulting giants KPMG, Deloitte, EY, and PwC to handover documents on internal complaint handling following KPMG’s recent whistleblower scandal. The firms have historically faced minimal regulation, a concern ASIC has raised and is attempting to reform. (AFR)
  
  

• Meta to debut “record everything” AI glasses. One day after releasing an AI image tool that scans Instagram user’s photos, Meta announced they are testing prototype AI-enabled glasses that will constantly record audio and video around the wearer. Privacy advocates were unsurprisingly unhappy. (AFR)
  
  

• Firmus nears $2.9bn equity raise ahead of IPO. The Australian AI firm’s valuation will rise to $15.5 billion on the new funding round, which consisted only of existing shareholders. Firmus pitched the raise as the final piece of funding for its Launceston projects. (AFR)
  
  

• Space race renewed as Bezos’ Blue Origin hits US$130bn valuation. The rocket company is privately raising US$10 billion, with Bezos personally contributing US$2 billion. This follows the IPO of Elon Musk’s own space firm, SpaceX, last month, which has fallen after an initial spike (see story above). (CNBC)

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The latest beneficiary of AI is… house prices?

San Francisco is no stranger to tech wealth, but AI has accelerated the city’s economy beyond imagination. The clearest example is property prices, where over 140 homes sold for at least US$1 million more than their asking price in the first half of 2026. For comparison, that number was eight in 2025.

OpenAI and Anthropic are both headquartered in San Francisco, and their impending trillion-dollar IPOs will produce a whole class of multimillionaires in the Bay Area. No wonder San Fran now has the highest median home price in America. (Guardian)

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Cash isn’t lazy

Financial adviser Julie Bullen from Fox & Hare had some words of encouragement for community member Liam and his cash concerns.

I've got $35,000 sitting in a high interest savings account. I want to buy a place eventually, but leaving it in there feels lazy, but locking it up scares me.

Julie: Liam, cash isn't lazy if it has a purpose and it sounds like you're not clear on your goal, which is why you're not confident in what you want to do with the money.

So if you want to buy property, what you need to do is actually work out when you can do that. $35,000, it's a really good start on a deposit. So I'd be saying it's time for you to go and have a chat with a broker. How much can you borrow based on what you earn and what can that buy in your area? Is it what you're wanting to do?

If it's not, well, you've answered your question. Let's get it into the market so it starts working harder. If it is something that's achievable within the short term, so we're talking on to two, maybe three years time, keeping it in cash is actually the sophisticated decision.

Want to work with an adviser like Julie to figure out where to use your cash? Fill out the form on our website and we’ll match you with one of our hand-picked advisers to help you get started.

• Buy or Sell: It’s the question on many investors’ minds: Do I want in on SpaceX? We’ve got two experts and their opinions on today’s episode. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)