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Here’s what you need to know today

• As Anthony Albanese wraps up his China trip, a new Pew poll has found a majority of Australians support stronger economic ties with China than with the US. 53% of Australians prioritised economic ties with China, up from 39% in 2021. Meanwhile, 42% prioritised economic ties with the US, down from 52% in 2021. Still, 76% of Australians reported having an unfavourable view of China. (ABC News)
  
  

• Some good news for Australia’s housing market. Home building starts surged 11.7% in the first quarter of 2025, which marks the fastest growth since early 2023. While positive, Master Builders Australia did highlight the new starts number is still 25% behind where it needs to be to meet the government’s target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Rio Tinto has a new CEO. The Australian mining giant has appointed Simon Trott, the boss of its iron ore division, to lead the company. Trott, 50, has spent more than 20 years at Rio and before running the iron ore division was the company’s Chief Commercial Officer. (AFR)
  
  

• President Trump has announced his third trade deal. After striking deals with the UK and Vietnam, the US President announced a deal with Indonesia that would see the tariff on Indonesian goods reduced from 32% to 19%. In return, Indonesia would not tariff US exports, and agreed to buy $15 billion worth of US energy, $4.5 billion in agricultural products and 50 Boeing jets. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• President Trump also announced his proposed pharmaceutical tariffs would start on 1 August. He had previously threatened 200% tariffs on pharmaceutical imports to the US starting in 18 months, now he plans to start them on 1 August at a low level and build them over the coming year and a half. CSL shares fell 1% on the day. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• America’s inflation accelerated in June, with consumer prices up 2.7% in the past 12 months. This is the highest increase in 5 months. For context, in May, prices were up 2.4%. Economists are pointing to companies starting to pass on the effects of tariffs through to the end consumer as a key reason for this uptick in inflation. (WSJ)
  
  

• Google has agreed to a first-of-its-kind deal to use 3,000 megawatts of hydropower to power its AI data centres. The company will spend $3 billion for this hydropower, and it just the latest example of the hyper-scalers (Amazon, Microsoft or Google) spending big to secure energy supply for their data centres. (Quartz)
  
  

• Reporting season has kicked off in the US, and as always the banks have gone first. Headlining the results was investment bank JPMorgan Chase which posted profits of $15 billion for the second quarter, up 9% from last year. Citigroup and Wells Fargo also posted better-than-expected results. (Bloomberg)
  
  

• Meanwhile, the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, got even bigger. The company reported its assets under management are now a record $12.5 trillion. But it wasn’t all good news, shares were down 6% after one client withdrew $52 billion. (Quartz)
  
  

• Earlier this year, Australia’s corporate regulator, ASIC, lost in court in an attempt to stop Block Earner launching in Australia. Block Earner is a lending platform that will allow Bitcoin holders to borrow up to 60% of their crypto’s value to fund home deposits. (Capital Brief) This has us asking: if you can lend against crypto, why is it so hard to lend against stocks?

What the…?

It might be peak European tourist season, but here’s your reminder that there are other places to travel. North Korea wants your tourism dollars. Kim Jong Un has just opened Wonsan-Kalma, the country’s biggest tourist zone with accommodation for almost 20,000 visitors.

For North Korea, this is more than just a summer getaway location. The country sees tourists as a way to boost its stores of foreign currency, which it needs for International trade.

Don’t start looking up flights just yet. Security experts believe North Korea will lift its ban on foreign visitors for Russia first and then China. The chances of an Australian passport getting you in remain very slim. (ABC News)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Our investing elevator pitch

This is the start of our book Get Started Investing: It's Easier Than You Think to Invest in Shares. Pick up your copy on Amazon or wherever books are sold (Amazon) 

Investing. Getting started is not as hard as you think.

It’s a daunting idea, seen as a lot of work to understand the markets and a lot of risk for your hard-earned money. We never learn about it in school and it can be hard to learn yourself, with all the charts, data and jargon. For many people, it feels overwhelming, daunting and ends up in the too-hard basket.

That’s unfortunate, because the stock market is an amazing wealth-creating machine. It’s our opportunity to invest in some of the smartest people, in some of the best companies and in the cutting edge of innovation. There’s a lot of noise out there. Our perception of investing from movies and TV is fast-paced day trading, shouting across crowded trading floors or spending days sitting in front of multiple computer monitors.

The good news is you can forget all that.

Investing in shares makes you a part-owner of a company. That company is created to earn a profit for its owners (i.e. you!). You don’t need to plant yourself in front of a computer for hours a day. You don’t need to check your investments daily, weekly or every monthly. Some of the most successful investors have bought great companies and then done nothing for decades. They simply buy a good company and then let that company’s management do all the work. That’s an opportunity we should all be taking advantage of!

Got someone in your life that should start investing? Pick them up a copy of our book, Get Started Investing, sold on Amazon or wherever books are sold. (Amazon)

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