Here’s what you need to know today

• It is international forum season. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Malaysia for the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) conference as well as the East Asia Summit. That will then be followed by the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in South Korea. The world will be watching as US President Trump and Chinese President Xi are expected to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit. (ABC News)
  
  

• Australia’s Fair Work Commission has ruled in favour of Australian’s right to work from home. In a ruling against Westpac, the commission ruled that employers must cite “reasonable business grounds” for refusing an employee’s work-from-home request. (SBS News)
  
  

• Optus is shaking up its senior ranks in the wake of the recent triple-0 outage. The company has announced it will replace one board member, its Chief Financial Officer and its Chief Information Officer as part of the shake up. It comes as Australia’s Parliament prepares a motion to hold a Senate inquiry into the telco’s failures. (ABC News)
  
  

• A $1 billion wind farm has started operations in central Queensland after three years of construction. The Clarke Creek wind farm is one of Australia’s largest and will create enough energy to power more than 300,000 homes. (ABC News)
  
  

• India may stop buying Russian oil. The latest round of international sanctions on Russia, this time aimed at Russia’s two largest oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil, has reportedly changed the calculus for Indian companies. This follows the US imposing a 25% additional tariff on India in August for continuing to buy Russian oil. (NY Times)
  
  

• President Trump has said he will raise tariffs on Canada by 10%. This came after the province of Ontario aired a TV ad showing former US President Reagan expressing his disdain for tariffs. The ad reportedly angered Trump and caused him to pause negotiations with his northern neighbour. (Financial Times)
  
  

• The US Government is considering taking equity stakes in more American firms. After taking stakes in Intel, MP Materials and Lithium Americas, the Wall Street Journal reported that quantum computing firms like IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum were discussing equity stakes in exchange for federal funding. (WSJ | CNBC)
  
  

• Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff are being celebrated in Silicon Valley after President Trump confirmed he had cancelled planned troop deployments to San Francisco after receiving calls from the Nvidia and Salesforce founders. (CNBC | Truth Social)

What the…?

Amazon has unveiled a prototype of AI powered smart glasses designed to be used by its delivery drivers.

The "Amelia" glasses include a camera and built-in display, and pairs with a waistcoat with a button drivers can press to take photos of deliveries.

Amazon estimates that the glasses could create up to 30 minutes in efficiencies per 8 hour shift by minimising repetitive tasks and helping drivers to quickly locate packages in their vehicles. (BBC)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today

4 steps to find great stocks

This is an excerpt from our recent episode on Get Started Investing titled ‘4 Simple Steps for Anyone to Pick Great Stocks’ (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

Alongside the episode, we created our 4-Step Stock Checklist, download it for free.

Ren: We've got to start by asking a question that I think not enough people ask. What game are you playing?

Bryce: There are plenty of ways to make money in the stock market and it's important that you understand the way that you're trying to make money.

You would've heard things like value investing, momentum, looking for quality, looking for growth, technical analysis, day trading, you name it. There are plenty of ways to make money in the stock market and all of them work at different times and people make money in many different ways. But when it comes to understanding what works, they all have different methodologies of going about it.

Ren: And I think to this question that we're answering today, what makes a great stock? They all have different answers to that question. Let's look at a momentum investor, which is a pretty far step removed from what we do. What makes a great stock for them will be a lot of momentum indicators or technical indicators. Their indicators and their criteria are just completely different to what we're going to talk about today. But it's not like they're wrong and we're right or vice versa because we'll make money, they'll make money, whichever game you choose to play, if you play that game well and consistently and in a disciplined way, you can make money in the share market.

So I think it's not about, there's not one right answer to this question, but it is having a clear and consistent answer to this question. The follow up question becomes what game are we playing?

Bryce: We are playing a game of trying to find long-term compounders that are great companies. We are looking for great companies that become great investments. That is the game that we are playing.

Ren: That leads to our four step checklist. So let's hit them briefly and then we'll go into detail.

• Number one: A company that makes a great product or service

• Number two: They can earn above market profit from that product or service for years to come.

• Number three: They can reinvest that profit in productive ways.

• And then finally: We can buy that company at a reasonable price.

Bryce: Simple. Who needs a finance degree when you have a simple four step checklist like that.

Want to hear us unpack those four steps? Watch the full episode on the Get Started Investing YouTube:

A message from Vanta

APAC’s fintech sector is booming. And so are security risks. 

With rising compliance demands, growing cyber threats, and increasing reliance on third-party vendors, fintechs are under more pressure than ever to protect sensitive data and demonstrate trust. 
 
This free guide explores how leading fintechs can navigate security risks without slowing down innovation.  Here’s what’s inside:   

• Three biggest security challenges facing fintechs in APAC today  

• How automation helps fintechs accelerate compliance, build trust and manage vendor risk  

• Real-world case studies from fintech trailblazers who’ve scaled trust with Vanta 

Learn how to overcome fintech security obstacles, so you can focus on business growth. 

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