Here’s what you need to know today

• Bitcoin continues to fall. The worlds largest cryptocurrency fell more than 7%, it’s biggest single day fall since March. It is now down 30% since early October. Strategy, the Bitcoin treasury company was forced to raise US$1.4 billion to ensure it will meet future dividend and interest payments on its debt. (WSJ)

• KFC operator hopeful Zinger Bahn Mi continues record growth. Collins Foods, the operator of 292 of 800 KFC outlets in Australia, saw revenue increase to a record of $750m for the first half of FY26. The CEO of the ASX listed company has said the company is focused on new products like the Zinger Bahn Mi and Zinger Kebab to drive growth. (AFR)

• Woolworths accused of creating ‘poor door’ in affordable housing development. The supermarket giant is said to be using ‘exploitative’ tactics to fast-track developments with supermarket outlets attached on the bottom. Experts have compared one Victorian project to similar developments in New York and London which included seperate entrances for housing affordability residents labelled ‘poor doors’ (ABC)

• Australian government releases national AI plan. The plan moves away from a previous plan of ‘industry guardrails’ proposed by former industry minister Ed Husic. Earlier in the year, the Productivity Commission argued for the AI guardrails to be put on hold to increase economic activity from the AI boom. From 2026, a $30m AI safety institute will monitor the development of AI. (ABC)

• Netflix makes majority cash offer for Warner Brothers Discovery. The world’s largest streaming company joined the likes of Paramount Skydance and Comcast in a second round of bids for Warner Brothers Discovery. No official bid figures have been released but analysts expect the sale to conclude “in weeks”. (Reuters)

• Apple names former Microsoft AI researcher as new AI lead. The news comes as experts have previously criticised Apple for lagging behind its peers in the AI race. Apple’s AI offering, Apple Intelligence, has not been well received by users, while the AI-improved Siri was delayed until 2026 earlier in the year. (CNBC)

• Blackstone, Apollo & KKR agree to Bank of England private credit stress test. The US firms will help the Bank of England (BoE) assess how the private credit market would handle a major crisis. The BoE intends to assess the impact a crisis would have on the wider financial sector and global economy. (Financial Times)

• 10-year Japanese government bonds hit 17 year high. This comes after speculation of a potential interest rate hike from the Bank of Japan (BoJ) later this month. Markets are now assigning a 80% probability of a rate increase at the next policy meeting. (Trading Economics)

• Circular deals continue in the world of AI. Nvidia announced a US$2bn investment in the AI tool development company Synopsys. OpenAI also announced a stake in Thrive Holdings whose parent company is one of OpenAI’s major investors, Thrive Capital. (CNBC, Reuters)

• Samsung launches first multi-folding phone in South Korea. The Galaxy Z TriFold is the first of its kind with the ability to fold into thirds. The phone is set to be priced at 3.6 million South Korean won or around AU$3,700. (Reuters)

• Airbus shares fall 10%, more A320 fleet quality issues found. Shares in the aerospace manufacturer fell further after reports of aircraft fuselage panels were flawed. This comes as the company announced roughly 6,000 within the A320 fleet were impacted by a software glitch over the weekend. (Reuters)

• US & UK announce zero tariff deal on pharmaceuticals. Under the agreement, the US will exempt UK imported pharmaceuticals from tariffs. In return, the UK will pay an increased 25% net price for US medicine. The deal will likely bring the spotlight back on Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which US drugmakers claim is “unreasonable and discriminatory”. (AFR)

What the…?

North Korea just made learning Russian mandatory in schools. The subject will be compulsory for students from 4th grade onwards. The co-chair of the intergovernmental commission of the Russian Federation and North Korea, Alexander Kozlov said that the two countries are continuing to cooperate in education across various sectors such as banking, energy, medicine and geology.

The relationship between the two nations has grown stronger since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. North Korea has been sending supplies and troops to Russia to support their front line. Earlier this year, Russian tourists also started travelling to North Korean resorts with direct flights to Pyongyang available from Moscow. (Politico)

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Andrew Brown’s 2025 luxury stock bold prediction unpacked

Andrew Brown was back on the show to recap his bold predictions for 2025 in the Equity Mates Investing episode titled ‘Andrew Brown reviews his 2025 bold predictions’ (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

Andrew: (From Andrew’s original prediction at the start of 2025) Prediction number 11, let's go a bit global again. My prediction is that there'll be no rebound in luxury shares

Ren: Okay, luxury shares, they had been sold off massively. LVMH had had a bad 2024. So how did the global luxury sector go in 2025?

Andrew: One of the downsides of what I do here and why I'm going to extol my virtues of being brave is I don't get a chance to change any of this. I don't get invited back in July to say, okay Andrew, how the predictions going? Do you want to change any of this? And of course, had I been given that opportunity, of all the 14 predictions, this is the one that I would've reassessed because that's exactly what happened. They fell in an absolute heap in the first half of the year and then of course they've had some quite strong rebounds since then. Not enough to really invalidate what I said and I'll give some context to that in a second, but certainly they're miles off the lows.

Just to give you an idea, Richemont started the year at 164 Swiss francs. It fell to a low of 121 around about midyear, so down 26%, it's now 171, so it's flat on the year, but it's way off it's low. LVMH 683 euros down to 435, so it fell by 37% from where we were to it's low point, but it's bounced back to about 637. The two things there are basically pretty much linked. It's to some degree China is driving it and the belief that the Chinese consumer is coming off their low, it varies dramatically. They buy certain brands, they buy certain products and not others. Certainly Richemont, Cartier and Van Cleef brands have done extraordinarily well. LVMH is just luxury altogether, there's 75 different brands. Caring's done quite well because it's a very narrowly based company. It's really very much based around YSL and Gucci. They got down from 248 to 159 euros and they're now 321. So bounce hard and Hermes, they're down 14%.

Ren: Maybe it wasn't as bad as 2024, but I think the luxury sector didn't look like it rebounded hardly.

Andrew: It rebounded from mid year, but from where we were talking to where we are now, it didn’t rebound.

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