Today’s News

The Big Picture

• Come trade ideas at FinFest - Australia’s largest finance festival. The market is closed, the bar is open and Equity Mates is putting on an event you don’t want to miss. In Sydney on Saturday 24 October, you will hear from Australia’s best investors, business leaders and entrepreneurs, all while enjoying bars, food and entertainment. (Register Now for Early-Bird Tickets)
  
  

• Baby boomers’ wealth grows ninefold as millennials’ share cut in half. New research from the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre revealed baby boomers’ wealth grew from $640 billion to $6 trillion since 2002, now equal to one-third of all Australian wealth. In the same period, millennials’ share of national wealth has been cut in half, now worth roughly $1.5 trillion. (SMH | 9News | BCEC)
  
  

• Aussies pile into cash amid global uncertainty. Inflows into cash, money markets, and fixed income ETFs spiked to 7% of all domestic fund flows since the Iran conflict began as investors look to conserve cash and redeploy it once markets stabilise. (AFR)
  
  

• ScoMo cleared of Robodebt corruption. The National Anti-Corruption Commission cleared the former prime minister of corrupt conduct pertaining to his involvement in the Robodebt scheme. The scheme demanded 443,000 welfare recipients repay debts they didn’t owe, leading to financial distress, several suicides, and $475 million of government compensation for victims. (ABC)
  
  

• Consumers cop increased shipping costs due to Iran war. With the Strait of Hormuz rendered uncrossable, trade ships are being forced to sail all the way around Africa. The longer journeys and higher oil prices are increasing the cost of shipping by roughly 15% to 20%, which Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc claims will be passed on to consumers via higher costs of goods. (BBC)
  
  

• Panic petrol buying creates vicious cycle. Regional petrol stations are running out of fuel as panicked buyers hoard gas and diesel, doubling and tripling demand in some areas. Farmers are acutely feeling the squeeze as a three-week waitlist for diesel puts pressure on tight farming timelines. (Guardian | AFR)
  

Companies in the news

• Amazon leads record $65 billion borrowing spree. The tech/ecommerce giant raised $37 billion in their Tuesday bond issuance. Nearly a dozen companies, including Toyota and Ford, rushed to take advantage of calmed markets and issued investment-grade bonds on Tuesday, bringing single-day issuances to $65 billion, the highest on record. (FT)
  
  

• Nvidia signs mysterious AI deal with Thinking Machines. The AI lab will deploy a gigawatt worth of Nvidia chips in exchange for an undisclosed Nvidia investment in Thinking Machines. This marks yet another vague circular AI deal centering around an Nvidia client deploying Nvidia chips in exchange for a Nvidia investment. (AFR)
  
  

• Oracle shares surge 10% on strong revenue forecast. The tech giant grew quarterly revenue by 22% to $17 billion and forecast $90 billion for the next fiscal year. The stock has fallen over 50% since its August peak, but investors appreciated the strong forecast, boosting the stock by 10%. (FT)
  
  

• Anthropic opens shop Down Under. The AI giant behind the Claude AI tools announced a Sydney office and infrastructure investments in Australia and New Zealand. Investment in Australian AI infrastructure is ramping up; NextDC is constructing a $7 billion data centre, the largest in the southern hemisphere, in Sydney’s Eastern Creek. (AFR)
  
  

• Creditors face $2.5bn shortfall on UK private credit collapse. The collapse of private credit-financed Market Financial Solutions sent ripples through the banking world as it was alleged the firm fraudulently double-pledged collateral to obtain financing. This has left major creditors like Barclays, Jefferies, and Apollo with a $2.5 billion hole; an additional $445 million is missing. (FT)
  
  

• Lynas inks landmark Japanese rare earths deal. The miner signed a 12-year agreement to supply a rare earth element to its Japanese trading partner in a deal that furthers Western governments’ efforts to break China’s dominance over rare earths supply. The stock shot up 14% on the news. (AFR)
  

What the…?

Katie Perry wins court case against… Katy Perry. Australian designer Katie Perry and American popstar Katy Perry have been in a legal battle since 2009 over the right to sell clothes bearing the Katie/Katy Perry branding.

Designer Katie adopted the trademark before she had ever heard of Singer Katy and had been selling clothes under the Katie Perry label for a decade before Katy toured Australia and took issue with Katie’s brand.

After 17 years, two trips to the Federal Court and a majority decision from the High Court, Katie was found to not be in breach of trademark law. Katie was awarded legal costs, meaning Katy will have to pay Katie’s legal fees for the entirety. (ABC)

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

An introduction to debt recycling

We posed a question to Dylan Partiger-Green, financial adviser at Bold Wealth, on the reason investors use debt recycling.

So I think in the spirit of starting simple, maybe just give us like a key articulation of why use debt recycling?

Dylan: I think there's two big points to debt recycling that make it such a good strategy. One is you have an immediate tax benefit potentially to taking debt that was previously non-deductible and moving that into being tax deductible, right? So for a lot of our clients are in top marginal tax brackets or high marginal tax brackets, there's a clear benefit of being able to claim some of your mortgage, and particularly if you're already investing into market-based investments that generate income and you're paying tax on that anyway, well, it's a bit of a no-brainer in that sense. So there's that one benefit. The big benefit, and this is where I'd probably refer to the episode we did, I think it was last year where we did the debt recycling versus super versus money in the offset strategy.

Ready to get your debt working for you with debt recycling? Fill out the form on our website and we’ll match you with one of our hand-picked advisers.

Today in Equity Mates