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The Big Picture
US crypto bill collapses in the Senate. The bill would have created the first US federal rulebook for digital assets, but failed yesterday after Democrats refused to back it without tighter limits on how Donald Trump could profit from the industry. Trump, who reported earning more than $1 billion from his crypto businesses last year, has vowed to make the US the "crypto capital of the world." (FT)
One in five Melbourne apartments sell at a loss. Cotality's latest report shows the June quarter was a tough one for apartment sellers in Australia’s two biggest cities. Over 20% of Melbourne apartments sold at a loss and 1 in 10 Sydney units.
Houses were still highly profitable with 97.9% of all home sold selling for a profit. (The Guardian)
Houthi drone intercepted near Mecca as oil route crippled. The interception yesterday triggered the first emergency alert for Islam's holiest city since the war began, as the rebels tighten their grip on Red Sea shipping. A drone strike days earlier knocked out Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, which had kept oil flowing around the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude has pushed above US$108 a barrel, and Commonwealth Bank warns it could hit US$150 if inventories run critically low. (Al Jazeera | ABC)
Iran war has cost the US $38 billion. A Congressional Budget Office report puts the price of the conflict at a minimum of US$38 billion, rising by an estimated US$3 billion for every month it continues. Hours after the report landed, the House voted in favour of ending the war, its third such vote, though none have reached the president's desk and Trump would almost certainly veto. (The Guardian)
Companies in the news
Anthropic signs its first Australian data centre lease. The Claude developer has taken a long-term lease at Queensland's Western Downs Digital Park, a roughly $30 billion project and Australia’s largest. The site will run an already-trained model rather than train a new one, letting Anthropic sidestep the copyright fight with the Albanese government over what Australian data can be used to build AI. (AFR)
Suncorp debt collector accused of bullying pensioner over false claim. Former ACCC chair Allan Fels has condemned debt collector ARMA Group as illegal and deceptive after it spent months pressuring an 81-year-old woman over an insurance claim she was not liable for. Suncorp, whose subsidiary AAMI engaged the collector, dropped the claim, apologised and paid $1,500, admitting it acted "prematurely". The watchdog is now taking ARMA and sister firm Force Legal to court over 320,000 allegedly misleading notices. (ABC)
OpenAI teams up with rivals Anthropic and Google on AI safety. OpenAI's policy chief Chris Lehane says the ChatGPT maker has spent the past few weeks in talks with rivals Anthropic and Google DeepMind on managing AI's risks. Lehane, speaking in Washington where he was meeting lawmakers, added that OpenAI would support any bipartisan legislation aimed at curbing catastrophic AI risks. (Reuters)
Meta CEO Zuckerberg sides with Nvidia over AI slow down. Mark Zuckerberg has argued AI firms are already driven to avoid harm because they face heavy liability if their models cause it, siding with Nvidia's Jensen Huang in a widening AI safety rift. He said companies that fail to focus on alignment, the work of keeping AI true to human values, will fall behind. (CNBC)
Fashion label Cue falls into receivership after 57 years. The Sydney fashion business, founded in 1968, was placed in receivership on Tuesday after FTI Consulting said rising sales could not keep pace with overhead costs. Cue and its sister brand Veronika Maine will keep trading while a sale process begins immediately. (ABC)
Aussie rocket maker Gilmour Space targets 2028 US float. The Queensland satellite and rocket company is raising up to US$500 million, hoping to ride renewed investor appetite for space companies after SpaceX's blockbuster June listing. Valued at more than US$1 billion in January, Gilmour has begun talks with both Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange about a float as early as 2028. (Capital Brief)
Have you got your ticket to FinFest 2026?
Time is running out to grab your FinFest 2026 ticket. We are just 6 weeks out from Australia's biggest finance festival.
Hear from industry experts, chat with the Equity Mates team and enjoy a drink or two at Carriageworks on 24 October
Gotta hoard ‘em all
Pokémon cards have been thrust back into the spotlight after prices for the vintage collectables continue to soar. Bankers and lawyers are now reportedly piling in, buying "anything they can regardless of the price". That's according to one Liverpool dealer who quit his £70,000 data analyst job after his card-flipping side hustle outgrew it, and is now on track for £4 million in sales this year. This comes after a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator card sold for a record $23.2 million in February.
The value sits almost entirely in vintage cards, which unlike the billions printed annually are genuinely scarce, and condition is everything. One rare Pikachu sold for around £250,000 in mint grade versus roughly £15,000 with a barely visible flaw. Everyone is waiting for the bubble to pop, one 20-year veteran of the trade said, but it just keeps going higher. (AFR)
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The 90s Telco Lesson from Soul Patts
We sat down with Todd Barlow, CEO of Soul Patts earlier in the week on Equity Mates Investing to dig into how a 123-year-old investment house thinks about markets, permanent capital and the AI trade. (Spotify | Apple | YouTube)
Soul Patts has been investing through technological revolutions for over a century and CEO Todd Barlow joined the boys to break down his thoughts on the current one. His starting point is the telecommunications industry in the 1990s.
If you had a crystal ball in 1996 and could see how dependent the world would become on mobile phones, data and the internet, you would have gone back and loaded up on telco stocks. You probably would have bought Nokia. You might have bought Blackberry. And you would have done terribly.
Even the telcos that survived turned out to be capital intensive, fiercely competitive and ultimately disappointing investments. The companies that actually captured the value of the internet, Google, Amazon, the social media platforms, were built much later and looked nothing like what you would have predicted in 1996.
Todd thinks AI will follow the same pattern. The technology will be transformative. The ultimate winners are probably not obvious yet, and may not even exist.
So rather than trying to pick those winners, Soul Patts asks: What will benefit from AI but cannot really lose even if the technology evolves in unexpected ways? Their answer is energy. AI needs power, but so does the electrification of transport, manufacturing and everything else. Even in a world where AI becomes dramatically more efficient, energy demand keeps growing.
Constant portfolio “improvements” can cost you money. In our latest Equity Mates website article we break down why reacting to news and adding complexity can backfire for your portfolio. (Read the full article here)
