Today’s News

The Big Picture

• Markets steady as oil drops below US$90 on Trump’s claim war could end ‘very soon’. Oil prices have fallen below US$90 a barrel after comments from US President Donald Trump, who vowed to hit Iran harder if it attempted to block oil supplies. G7 nations also said they were ready to release oil stockpiles if required. The S&P 500 recovered the previous day’s losses as global market sentiment improved. (WSJ | BBC)
  
  

• ASX rebounds, reminding investors to ignore the noise. The ASX 200 finished up 1% and recovered $34 billion in market capitalisation after the previous day’s fall. With headlines like “Horror $94bn crash plagues ASX 200 on Monday”, it’s understandable how investors can get spooked by click-baity news stories. However, today’s performance is an important reminder to stay the course and remain invested. (AFR | Sky News)
  
  

• Labor secures Greens support to pass $3m super tax. After a year-long stalemate, the Labor government will pass legislation to increase the tax on superannuation balances greater than $3 million. It will impact roughly 1 in every 200 accounts, with the tax rate increasing from 15% to 30%, and balances over $10 million to be taxed at 40%. The bill is expected to pass the Senate this week with the backing of the Greens. (ABC)
  
  

• Australian total housing value tops $12 trillion. In the latest release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the total value of residential dwellings in Australia rose to $12.3 trillion at the end of December 2025. Growth was strongest in Western Australia (+7.8%), Queensland (+5.3%) and New South Wales (+1.7%). (ABS)
  
  

• Rapper-turned-politician wins landslide to become Nepal’s youngest PM. Balendra Shah, the former Kathmandu mayor, has won in a landslide, defeating four-time prime minister KP Sharma Oli in Nepal’s general election. Shah received four times the number of votes as his opponent, with many analysts citing decades of corruption, distrust and a lack of jobs for young people as key factors behind the victory. (ABC)

Companies in the news

• Anthropic sues Pentagon over ‘supply-chain risk’ designation. The AI company behind Claude, is suing the US government after being labelled a supply-chain risk. The company says the designation could reduce its revenue by billions, damage its reputation and core “First Amendment freedoms”. Anthropic’s lawyers argue the government is seeking to destroy the economic value of one of the world’s fastest-growing private companies. (FT)
  
  

• Ticketmaster parent company settles US monopoly case. Live Nation has reached a settlement with the US Justice Department in an anti-trust case. The dispute was initially sparked by Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in 2022, during which it was alleged the company would retaliate against concert venues that didn't use Ticketmaster. (BBC)
  

• Netflix passes on NRL's $4bn TV rights deal. The world's biggest streaming company has told the NRL it will not bid for any of the upcoming broadcast rights. Netflix's global sports executive said in an interview the company was focused on 'unmissable' events rather than entire seasons of sport. NRL chairman Peter V'landys flagged last month he wanted more than $4bn over five years — a figure that would eclipse the AFL's current six-year, $4.5bn deal. (AFR)
  
  

• Air NZ scraps earnings guidance over surging fuel costs. Air New Zealand has abandoned its earnings guidance, released just two weeks ago, after jet fuel prices surged in the wake of the Middle East conflict. The airline announced it may need to raise fares and adjust its flight schedule in response to the current global situation, and flagged it will also need to find ways to cut costs. (RNZ)
  
  

• Telix shares jump after positive prostate cancer trial results. Telix Pharmaceuticals shares rose 7% yesterday after a global Phase 3 trial of its prostate cancer treatment returned positive results. (Capital Brief)

What the…?

Former karaoke company wipes billions from trucking stocks. Just when you thought the AI hysteria couldn't get any crazier — Algorhythm Holdings, a Florida-based trucking software company, recently released an article claiming AI could dramatically improve trucking efficiency. Sounds normal enough, until you realise that up until September 2024, Algorhythm Holdings was known as the Singing Machine Company and sold karaoke machines. The company purchased an AI-powered freight logistics software firm shortly after and sold its karaoke business in August of last year.

The article was enough to send the entire logistics sector into freefall. Some stocks lost more than 20% by midday. The Dow Jones Transportation Average posted its worst single day since Trump's tariff announcement last April.

And Algorhythm Holdings has a market cap of just $10 million! The logistics stocks eventually rebounded, but if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the current state of AI in financial markets, nothing will. (WSJ)

A message from Schroders

Expanding globally is not just about hiring fast. It is about choosing the right structure. Get the latest global equity insights from Schroder’s worldwide team of portfolio managers and analysts at www.schroders.com.au/insights. You can also find information on investing in the Schroder Global Equity Alpha Fund (ASX:ALPH) on the site, and revisit out interview with Portfolio Manager Frank Thormann from 21st November 2025.

Today’s Insight

Why it’s so important to avoid the panic sell

This was taken from our recent Equity Mates Investing episode titled ‘Don’t panic sell, an Aussie minerals community stock pick & Emerging markets 101’ (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)

Ren: Let's start with the big news story, which is Iran. Now, we're not going to talk about the news or the geopolitics side of it but we want to talk about the investing side of it. There are two words that really are top of mind for us, which is don't panic.

Bryce: There are many reasons why people think that these events can turn to market crashes and make silly decisions off the back of that. But history shows us that usually when these events occur, the performance of the stock market preceding these is actually quite good.

Ren: So we've got short-term and long-term numbers, both of these are from the US. Let's start with the short term. There are charts, which if you're watching on YouTube will flash up, but it's looking at the S&P 500 around major geopolitical events. It's looked at 26 major geopolitical events going back to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In that 60-year period across 26 major geopolitical events, in the 150 days after the event, the average, the stock market is up 6% in 150 days. So a bit less than half a year. That's the short term that the market often ticks up after these events kick off. But we're long-term investors here. And as you zoom out and look long-term, the numbers really tell the story, which is going back to the outbreak of World War II in 1939, looking at the 10 years after the event happens, looking at six different events, World War II, Bay of Pigs, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, and the first Gulf War, the stock market has at least doubled in that time. After World War II, 10 years after it started, up 108%, that was the worst of the six. The best of the six 10 years after the Gulf War started up 461%.

Bryce: And that would've finished at the dotcom crash.

Ren: Well, yeah, it probably was right at the peak. So look, I think the takeaway is the natural inclination is to panic and sell, but what history tells us is that the stock market often ticks up in the short term, but keeps grinding higher in the long term.

Today in Equity Mates