Today’s Top Stories

Only got a couple of minutes? Here are the key stories you need to know.

• Central bankers back Powell: Michele Bullock, governor of Australia’s Reserve Bank, joined central bankers from 11 other countries criticising the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of US Fed chair Jerome Powell. Three former Fed chairs also supported Powell, who claims the investigation is because of his refusal to decrease interest rates. (BBC)
  
  

• Iran crisis deepens: Anti-government protests continue in Iran with at least 12,000 people killed by the Iranian regime, but that number could be as high as 20,000. Trump is continuing to encourage protestors, telling them “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS”. (CBS)

What’s Making News?

A look at the stories making headlines and moving markets.

Australia

• Queensland to allow political donations from property developers. The government is reversing the 2017 ban which followed allegations of corruption in multiple council elections. Anti-corruption groups have raised concerns, particularly with the infrastructure build ahead of the 2032 Olympics. (AFR)
  
  

• Victoria fires rage on: 11 active fires remain across Victoria, with crews using milder weather to get ahead of the blazes. More than 500 structures have been lost or damaged by the January fires, which have now burnt over 4,000 square kilometres. (ABC) 
  
  

• SXSW Sydney cancelled: Major industry conference SXSW will not return to Sydney after poor sponsorship revenue and lacklustre speakers led to underwhelming reception. SXSW has a five-year contract with the NSW government but will not return for the final two years. (B&T)
  
  

• Harris Farm nears $1 billion in sales: Australia’s largest premium grocer, Harris Farm, narrowly missed $1 billion in sales for fiscal 2025 as sales grew 18% year-on-year. It remains unprofitable, recording a loss of $11 million. (AFR)

Global

• US-Taiwan trade deal nears: Insiders suggest trade deal negotiations between the US and Taiwan are close to closing, with a deal potentially coming this month. The deal would reduce US tariffs to 15% and have the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) build at least five new US-based plants. (NYT)
  
  

• US inflation comes in low: US inflation in December came in at 2.7%, which was lower than expected but still above the Fed’s target of 2%. (CNBC)
  
  

• Trump says big tech will pick up AI tab: President Trump indicated that Americans won’t be on the hook for rising utility bills due to power and water consumption from data centres. Microsoft answered the call and stated they will pay higher utility bills for their data centre consumption. (CNBC)
  
  

• UK retail sales shrink: UK retail spending rose at the lowest rate in seven months, increasing only 1.2% on an annualised basis due to a “drab Christmas”. (FT)

Company Watchlist

Here are the companies with big announcements or price movements

• JPMorgan miss drags down market: The S&P 500 fell following underwhelming Q4 results by JPMorgan, the largest US bank and the first of the major US banks to report earnings this season. The bank took a $2.2 billion hit to net income from its recent deal to take over the Apple Card portfolio, which sent it from beating Wall Street expectations to falling short. (WSJ | Yahoo Finance)
  
  

• Pentagon takes stake in missile maker: The US Department of Defence is investing $1 billion into arms maker L3 Harris, which will spin off a missile subsidiary as a part of the deal. The DoD will then own common equity in the missile-specific subsidiary, raising questions around conflict of interest. (FT)
  
  

• Payday for BlueScope investors: BlueScope Steel will pay investors a special $438 million dividend after rejecting a $13.2 billion takeover offer. The company distributed excess cash from several major asset sales. (AFR)
  
  

• Boeing beats Airbus on orders: Boeing logged more orders than Airbus for the first time in seven years, booking nearly 1,200 orders in 2025. (CNBC)

What’s got us thinking

Investing is a lifelong journey. Here’s what we’ve been learning lately.

The race towards AGI

This is an excerpt from the Best of the Best series, where Ren spoke with Daniel Kelly, CIO at Viola Private Wealth. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)

Ren: If you could invest in only one theme or structural trend that you think will define the next 10 years, what would it be?

Daniel: It is Artificial Intelligence. Everybody needs to be familiar with what AGI is - Artificial General Intelligence that is going to change the world to be completely unrecognisable compared to what you know now. It's what Elon talks about all the time. There's something called the singularity. The singularity is the middle of a black hole beyond which not even light can escape. The creation of AGI, which is what Open AI and all these large tech companies. They're trying to create the singularity. It's a bit scary to say that, but once that happens, we could have millions of years of intellectual advancement in a moment or a day.

Ren: I was listening to an economist podcast, and they were saying a different way to think about this AI investment super cycle isn't a bubble, but it's a race. And the idea is whoever gets their first and creates the first super intelligence will very quickly create the second and the third and the fourth super intelligence. Let's say that all these companies have a 1% chance of creating $10 trillion worth of value. How do you value that? Well, maybe oversimplified maths, but you say, well, 1% of 10 trillion, a hundred billion, and then all of a sudden it's like even the slightest remote chance of achieving these things justifies some of this spending.

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What the…?

A look at one story that has us scratching our head

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