📈 Renting now more than half of median pay | Ampol profit jumps 5x on Middle East war

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The Big Picture

• Renting now costs more than half of median pay in every Australian capital city. A new report from housing advocacy group Everybody’s Home has found renting a unit now consumes more than half the take-home pay of a median-income worker in every Australian capital city. The average apartment costs $614 per week, equivalent to 56% of the income of someone earning $70,000. Northern WA, the Gold Coast and Sydney are the three most expensive places to rent nationally according to the report. (ABC)
  
  

• Albanese vows no change to WA's GST deal on his watch. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared Western Australia's GST arrangements will not change while he remains in office. The arrangement guarantees WA receives at least 70 cents for every dollar of GST collected in the state, a floor introduced after years where WA received a disproportionately small share of GST revenue because its mining boom. "There will be no change to WA's GST arrangements whilst I'm prime minister," Albanese told reporters. (ABC)
  
  

• US-Canada trade war deepens as both sides dig in. Canada has confirmed retaliatory tariffs matching the US's 50% levies will take effect from September. Donald Trump said Canada wanted "the benefits of being a state, without being one", while Canadian PM Mark Carney said talks collapsed because the US "asked too much and offered too little." Both sides are now entrenched with no clear resolution in sight, as a deeply integrated trading relationship faces its most serious disruption in decades. (BBC)
  
  

• Singapore offers $76,000 per child to reverse record-low birth rate. Singapore has unveiled a package offering parents more than $76,000 per child as it battles a record-low fertility rate of 0.87 children per woman, down from 0.97 in 2024. Singapore is on course to become a "super-aged" society this year, where more than 21% of the population is aged 65 or older. Demographers say a fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to maintain a stable population without net immigration. (FT)

Companies in the news

• Ampol profits jump 5x as Middle East conflict boosts margins. Ampol's net profit surged to $857.2 million in the June half, up from $180.2 million a year earlier, as disruptions to global fuel markets from the Middle East conflict supercharged margins and its international trading operations. The company quadrupled its interim dividend to $1.85 per share, up from 40 cents a year ago, with CEO Matt Halliday forecasting the beneficial tailwinds from Middle East and Russian supply disruptions would continue well beyond the first half. (AFR)
  
  

• KPMG cuts 5% of workforce as scandal impacts revenue and contracts. KPMG Australia will axe 27 partners and around 360 staff as it restructures following a sharp loss of government contracts due to its audit leaks scandal. Revenue fell from $2.28 billion to $2.26 billion in FY26, with the firm unable to retain most of its ongoing government work after reports that partners misused client data in order to win bids for other major audit clients. (ABC)
  
  

• Adore Beauty surges as Bendigo and Aussie Broadband disappoint. Adore Beauty jumped over 19% despite posting a full-year loss, with investors focusing on record FY26 sales and a strategic turnaround story even as interest rates continue to squeeze household budgets. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank reported earnings of $530.2 million, up 3%, with its digital bank Up a standout, though the broader home loan book shrank and mortgage arrears crept higher. Aussie Broadband slumped 6.5% despite growing NBN market share and a 7.5% rise in net profit to $35.3 million, with investors wanting more from the telco given its 41% growth in broadband connections. (Capital Brief | AFR | Rask Media)
  
  

• Shein targets US$27 billion valuation in stock market debut. The fast-fashion retailer is intending to raise capital that would value it around US$27 billion when it lists on the Hong Kong stock market in September. The valuation is a dramatic fall from the US$100 billion it attracted in 2022, reflecting weaker sales growth, higher costs and the collapse of earlier listing attempts in the US and London due to regulatory scrutiny. (BBC)
  
  

• Anthropic's most powerful AI model struggles to attract new users. The Fable 5 model accounts for just 11% of overall spending on the company's tools despite launching more than two months ago, as corporate clients opt for cheaper alternatives. The slow uptake adds uncertainty ahead of what is expected to be one of the biggest IPOs in history. Despite the Fable 5 disappointment, Anthropic's overall revenue has grown nearly sevenfold since the start of the year and the company recorded its first adjusted operating profit in the second quarter. (FT)
  
  

• Alibaba raises US$10.2 billion in share sale to fund AI push. The e-commerce giant saw shares fall nearly 10% after it launched a share sale at a discount to fund AI chip development, infrastructure and model building. Despite the sell-off, the offering attracted $28 billion in orders, with major sovereign wealth funds from Europe, Asia and the Middle East among the buyers. The raise comes a week after Alibaba reported quarterly net profit fell 75% due to AI spending. (Reuters)

Time is running out to secure your FinFest 2026 tickets!

Less than 25% of tickets remain for Australia's biggest investing festival, back at Carriageworks in Sydney on Saturday 24 October.

Hear from Joe Aston, Scott Phillips, Andrew Brown and many more of Australia's best investors and entrepreneurs. Whether you are just getting started or have been investing for decades, FinFest is the one event on the Australian calendar you do not want to miss.

 Grab your ticket before it is too late.

Amazon caught destroying rare books to train AI models.

A report by 404 Media is claiming to have tracked a shipment of rare books to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, where workers are stripping the spines off books and scanning their pages before destroying them, all to generate training data for AI models.

The practice came to light after a bookseller became suspicious of an anonymous bulk order for 1,000 rare books placed an Apple AirTag inside one of the books and tracked it to the facility. The bookseller summed it up, "there are different types of value like historical, intellectual, sentimental and all of those the AI companies don't care about. They just want the content as a bunch of words strung together." (Futurism)

Investors want income without taking on excessive risk and fixed income could be the answer. With yields still elevated relative to recent history, bonds are once again offering attractive returns alongside genuine diversification benefits. 

PIMCO believes investors can now potentially earn equity-like returns from high quality fixed income, without relying solely on equities. It's why many are reassessing the role bonds can play in a portfolio today. PIMCO is one of the world's leading active fixed income managers, with a broad range of Australian solutions, including actively managed ETFs, designed to help meet different investment objectives.

To learn more about PIMCO's range of income and fixed income solutions, including their active ETFs, visit pimco.com.au. Read the PDS and TMD and consider whether the product is right for you. PIMCO Australia Management Limited is the issuer

Is Commonwealth Bank finally too expensive?

Henry Jennings from Marcus Today and Julia Weng from Paradise Investments go head to head on Commonwealth Bank on a recent episode of Buy or Sell.

Commonwealth Bank (CBA) just reported its FY26 earnings and home loan applications are down 15%. Sydney house prices are falling at an annualised rate of 10 to 15%. Loan arrears are deteriorating across every major bank. And yet the company’s share price is still sitting around near all time highs at around $160 a share.

Julia's bear case:

The macro environment cannot save CBA this time. Three rate hikes and a significant change in budget policy towards housing have created a confluence of headwinds, slower credit growth, lower margins and rising provisions, that are going to flow through to earnings. Lower house prices are a new dynamic that Australian banks have not had to deal with for a long time. As Julia put it, CBA is still the best franchise in the nation, no doubt, but it is priced for perfection with no growth on the horizon. Sell.

Henry's bull case:

Every broker under the sun has had a sell on CBA for years and been wrong every single time. Henry's logic is less about the fundamentals and more about market structure. CBA is such a dominant part of the ASX 200 that when passive inflows eventually return, they will push the stock higher whether the fundamentals justify it or not. At $160, he would rather be on the buy side. A reluctant buy, but a buy nonetheless.

• We chat with Dr. Don Hamson aka ‘The Dividend Doctor’ on Equity Mates Investing about how someone can replace their salary with dividend income. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)

• & Jess sits down with the founder of Mind Her Money, Isabelle on Get Started Investing to help her figure out whether AI can analyse her spending to help find more money to invest. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)