📈 Inflation cools but rate hike still looms | South Korea's market crashes again as chip giant disappoints

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The Big Picture

• Inflation falls but underlying pressures keep interest rate hike in play. Australia's headline inflation rate fell to 3.8% in June, down from 4% in May and below expectations, driven largely by three consecutive months of falling fuel prices. However, economists warn the RBA is unlikely to stand down entirely, with underlying inflation remaining unchanged at 3.6% annually, meaning all eyes will be on the Reserve Bank for their interest rate decision on August 11. (ABC)
  
  

• 1.8 millions Australians told to check their offset accounts. ASIC has found weaknesses in how offset accounts were set up and managed across eight banks examined, representing more than 70% of Australia's home loan market. The failures left the banks paying $55 million in compensation over two years. ASIC warned the problem is particularly difficult for borrowers to detect as mortgage repayments may stay the same, hiding the fact borrowers are paying more interest than they should. (ABC | AFR)
  
  

• Fuel discount to end this weekend despite oil price pressure. The government confirmed the fuel excise relief will end at midnight on Sunday, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers saying it was "never the government's intention" to make the change permanent. The discount, which had reduced fuel by 32 cents each litre of petrol before being halved to 16 cents in July, will lapse despite ongoing pressure on global oil prices from the Iran war. (ABC)
  
  

• US intercepts ‘surprise’ Iran attacks and teams with Saudis. Iran fired multiple ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan in an attempted surprise attack, shattering a brief pause in fighting. The US and Saudi Arabia responded with joint strikes on Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq, with the US warning any further attacks on American troops or Saudi energy infrastructure would trigger further retaliation. (The Guardian)
  
  

• US bans foreign-made humanoid robots over national security. Citing "unacceptable risks" to national security, the US government banned banned imports of foreign-made humanoid robots with the move primarily targeting Chinese-made machines. The Federal Communications Commission warned that foreign-made robots could allow "malign actors to surveil Americans" or be remotely commandeered by foreign intelligence services. (BBC)

Companies in the news

• SK Hynix earnings miss triggers second straight Korean market circuit breaker. The world’s second largest memory-chip maker reported a record 557% surge in operating profit to US$42 billion for the June quarter, but missed analyst forecasts sending shares down 12%. Samsung fell almost 8%, with the broader sell-off triggering circuit breakers on the KOSPI being the second consecutive day a circuit breaker has occurred and the ninth time this year. A circuit breaker is an emergency safety rule used to temporarily stop trading when the market drops rapidly. (FT | KBS)
  
  

• Coca-Cola, Boeing and Visa headline other notable earnings results. Coca-Cola reported better than expected revenue up 7% with Coke Zero leading the charge seeing a 16% sales volume increase, as shares jumped 5% on the news. Boeing reported a record backlog of commercial aircraft at 6,200 however Air Force One costs pushed losses below expectations, shares were up 4.7%. Visa saw revenue rise 14% year-on-year but plans to cut 2,600 jobs or 7% of its workforce. (Barron’s | Yahoo Finance | WSJ)
  
  

• Rio Tinto delivers biggest dividend in four years. Rio Tinto posted a $9.5 billion half-year profit, and paid shareholders its biggest interim dividend in four years at $3 per share. Iron ore remains the largest earnings contributor at 43%, but copper is growing in importance, now accounting for 36% of underlying earnings as data centre construction drives demand. (AFR)
  
  

• CSL shares climb on patented production boost. CSL has announced clinical trials to scale its Horizon 2 processing technology, which extracts significantly greater quantities of immunoglobulin, a protein in blood plasma used to treat immune deficiencies, from the same volume of plasma. The breakthrough could meaningfully boost CSL's production capacity without requiring additional plasma donations. Shares finished up 7% on the news. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• FIFA's plan to sell a slice of the World Cup sparks outrage. FIFA has announced plans to form a new commercial entity called FIFA Forward Enterprise and sell a 20% stake at US$20 billion. The proposal has drawn criticism from around the world, even the new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham declared "the World Cup is not a product" and accusing FIFA of selling out the game. (FT)

Younger couples lead the way in prenup surge

Prenuptial agreements are surging in popularity among everyday couples, with nearly half of married millennials and more than one in three Gen Z Americans now signing one. In the UK one London lawyer reported "a big increase in demand" over the past 18 months, with around one in three married under-35s now having a prenup.

Online platforms have made them far more accessible, with some couples paying as little as a few hundred dollars compared to the traditional $9,500 legal fee. Lawyers say the trend is being fuelled by later marriages, the great wealth transfer from older generations, and a growing desire to protect inherited assets rather than leave outcomes to a court. (BBC)

Super is anything but boring. 

It certainly doesn’t spark as many debates as crypto. But boring doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful – it's often the quiet achiever.

Thanks to potential tax advantages and decades of compound interest doing its thing, super could be one of the most powerful investments Aussies ever own.

From the first super contribution to fine tuning their strategy, MLC's tools (and obviously their experts) can help build a plan with confidence. 

Products issued by NULIS Nominees (Australia) Limited (ABN 80 008 515 633, AFSL 236465) as trustee of MLC Super Fund (ABN 70 732 426 024). General information only. Visit mlc.com.au for PDS & TMD. Consider if it’s right for you.

The Semiconductor Index just had its worst month. Here’s why

Research Analyst Riley Terriff breaks down what is rattling the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX), one of the best gauges AI in markets right now. Make sure to read the full article on the Equity Mates website via the following link - Rocks in the SOX

The SOX doubled in value over five years from 2021 to early 2026. Then it doubled again in two and a half months. The index is up 72% in 2026 alone.

But in the past month it has dropped 5% or more on six separate occasions and is now down 16% from its all-time high. No bad earnings reports or softening earnings forecasts. Just three themes dragging down investor sentiment.

Competition. Chinese startup MoonShot released Kimi K3, an open source model that now outperforms all but two of the most powerful models from Anthropic and OpenAI, and it can be downloaded for free. If US companies cannot charge premiums for superior performance, the incentive to keep investing in AI chips weakens. For the SOX, that is the nightmare scenario.

Financing. OpenAI has already cut its investment commitments from US$1.4 trillion to US$600 billion. Oracle and SpaceX are on the edge of junk-status debt. Amazon had to offer buyers extra basis points just to get them to buy its long-term bonds. SpaceX's US$85 billion IPO sapped much of the AI-hungry liquidity in equity markets, with OpenAI and Anthropic's trillion dollar IPOs still to come. The question is whether there is enough money and appetite to keep financing AI's cash requirements.

Emotion. The SOX is now 4.9 times more volatile than the S&P 500, a 30-year high. For context, at the peak of the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, that ratio was 4.2. Nobody wants to miss the gains, but nobody wants to be the last one standing when the music stops playing at the AI musical chair party.

• Equity Mates Investing: In April 2026 Anthropic's most powerful AI model was let loose on 200 organisations, and it found over 10,000 unknown software flaws. AI has just blown the doors off cybercrime, so today in our next Decade Ahead episode we're looking at Cybersecurity. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)

• Get Started Investing: Jess sits down with Hayden Quinn. Most Aussies know him as the guy from MasterChef, but that's only part of the story. Behind his TV career, he's built multiple businesses, backed startups, bought property, and recently built an ETF portfolio for his five-week-old daughter, Rosie. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)