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- 📈 RBA holds rates again on high inflation | Southern Cross Media profits drop 58%
📈 RBA holds rates again on high inflation | Southern Cross Media profits drop 58%
Here's what you need to know today
Riley Terriff
August 12, 2026
The Big Picture
RBA unanimously holds rates on elevated inflation. The central bank will hold its cash rate target at 4.35% for the second consecutive month, saying global oil supply disruptions are causing higher fuel prices to be passed through to a broader range of goods and services. Inflation came in at 3.8% for June, down from 4.6% in March but still above the RBA’s upper target of 3%. (RBA)
Regulator cracks down on rising car insurance premiums. ASIC has pressured car insurance companies to explain rampant price increases after premiums rose roughly 50% between 2019 and mid-2025, well above inflation. Car insurance is in the spotlight as the regulator takes insurance brand RACQ to court for sending out over half a million misleading renewal documents. (ABC)
US private equity logjam worsens to over 33,000 unsold companies. Buying and selling companies is the business of private equity, but rising interest rates and a weak software sector have made the selling part more difficult. At the end of June, US PE firms held 33,575 unsold companies, up 1,124 year-on-year. The slowdown has led to a record amount of continuation vehicles wherein PE firms effectively sell companies to themselves. (NYT)
Chilean copper bailout spells trouble for industry. Chile’s state-owned copper miner Codelco will be allowed to reinvest all US$2.4 billion of its 2025 profits into expanding production, rather than going to Chile’s treasury as usual. Codelco produces 5% of the world’s copper and has underperformed in recent years, but renewed investment could rapidly increase production and flood markets with Chilean copper, driving down prices globally. (FT)
US regulator exempts data centre debt from investor protection rules. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced data centres won’t have to provide the same disclosures and investor protections required in similar deals. The requirements being exempted were brought in to protect investors following the Global Financial Crisis. (FP)
Yen continues to fall after US intervention. The yen rose nearly 4% after the US Treasury spent up to US$10 billion to boost it, but has fallen over 1% since the intervention. The US tried to bail out the yen to discourage Asian nations from devaluing their currencies and to prevent Japan from selling off US Treasury bonds, which increases the cost of issuing new debt for the US. (FT)
Companies in the news
Legacy media slump sees Southern Cross Media profits drop 58%. This follows the merger of Southern Cross audio brands with Seven West’s TV and newspapers. The audio business grew revenue by 1.4%, but TV and publishing revenues fell 6.6% and 3.1% respectively. Profits shrank 58% to just $9.9 million on $1.9 billion of revenue, equating to a profit margin of 0.5%. (Capital Brief)
More noteworthy reporting season results: Life360, SGH, and Austal. Family tracking app Life360 passed 100 million active users for the quarter and quarterly revenue grew 38%, but a 40% decrease in net income sent the stock down 18%.
Despite 32% annual profit growth, Seven Group Holdings forecasted flat earnings growth, sending the stock down 9%. Shipbuilder Austal lost $113 million, driven by a $175 million loss on its US business, which just received a $1. 7 billion buyout offer from Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group. (Motley Fool | Market Index | Capital Brief)Weak mortgage market sparks battle of the banks. Australia’s banks are ramping up competition for deposits as declining demand for mortgages forces them to compete in other business lines. Commonwealth Bank has joined Westpac, AMP, and BOQ in offering cashback, bonus reward points, and competitive savings rates to attract deposits. (AFR)
Nvidia partners with Wall Street giants for US$500bn AI package. Apollo, Blackstone, BlackRock, and KKR are among the firms helping arrange a new US$500 billion package to finance continued AI infrastructure development. Nvidia and other major AI names are desperate for capital to continue their buildouts as cash reserves run low. (FT)
Meta follows China’s lead with new open AI model. Mark Zuckerberg took a shot at rivals OpenAI and Anthropic in a 6,500-word essay, claiming businesses built around closed AI models won’t be able to compete with China’s open-source models. He and Meta walked the talk: Meta has historically open-sourced their models and will do the same with their latest Muse models. (CNBC)
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Myspace considers comeback as social media fatigue rises
Millennials, rejoice: The most popular social media website of the Y2K era is staging a comeback. Having been surpassed by Facebook in 2008, the owners of Myspace see the quirky platform as a potential alternative to the dopamine-heavy algorithm-driven platforms that now dominate social media, such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Social media fatigue describes the mental burnout felt by heavy social media exposure, and up to 60% of users say they have experienced it. Myspace sees itself as a potential antidote, as its “labour-intensive” format forces two-way engagement and not just endless scrolling. (CNBC)
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Adviser Insight: Where do bonds fit now?
Financial adviser Charlie Viola from Viola Private Wealth manages over $3 billion of client assets, yet he holds almost no bonds. Outside a handful of institutional mandates, they are effectively gone from client portfolios entirely.
His reasoning is simple: duration risk is dangerous, and the yield premium over cash does not justify the trade-off. If the “risk-free” government bonds are paying 4.75% to 5.5% and investment-grade bonds are offering only 0.5 percentage points above that, why accept liquidity constraints for a return that is functionally cash-like?
The traditional 60/40 framework saw investors put 40% of portfolios into defensive assets like bonds, but with private markets increasingly accessible, the defensive assets are now Australian asset-backed private credit and infrastructure.
If advisers at this end of the market are abandoning bonds entirely in favour of private markets for their defensive allocation, bonds look increasingly outdated for anyone who can access these asset classes.
Want to work with an adviser like Charlie to optimise your defensive investments? Fill out the form on our website and we’ll match you with one of our hand-picked advisers to help you get started.
