Here’s what you need to know today

• US trade officials have pointed to a number of Australian laws that they claim restrict free trade between the two nations. These include: Australia’s strict biosecurity laws that restrict the sale of US beef, pork, poultry, apples and pears, Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme that allows generic drugs to compete against US brand-name drugs, and Australia’s proposed local content rules that would require all media companies, including US streaming services, to produce some content in Australia. (AFR)
  
  

• Meta have announced their latest project: a humanoid robot, powered by AI, that can do household chores. Meta wants to develop the AI, the sensors and other software and is in discussions with robotics companies for its open-source Llama AI to become the platform for this technology. We stopped listening after you mentioned a robot doing our household chores - sign us up! (Quartz)
  
  

• Airbnb saw its share price jump 14% after beating revenue and profit expectations for the quarter. Revenue was up 12% year-on-year and quarterly profit was $461 million compared to a $349 million loss in the same quarter last year. (Airbnb)
  
  

• A2 milk saw shares up 19% as the company upgraded its full year revenue forecast and declared its first ever dividend. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Star Entertainment Group has received a $650 million debt financing proposal from US-based Oaktree Capital Management to help the troubled casino operator avoid bankruptcy. (ABC News) Oaktree has a track record financing struggling casinos, as it emerged a big winner out of the bankruptcy of Caesar’s Palace in the US. (Institutional Investor)
  
  

• BlueScope Steel served as another reminder that earnings season is an expectations game. The Australian steelmaker reported underlying profit fell 57% from the same time last year, but shares were up 11%, because the market was expecting worse. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Google has acknowledged it won’t meet its 2030 climate goals. Reporters have gone back to look at its 2024 environmental report where the tech giant disclosed a 48% rise in emissions since 2019. No prizes for guessing the main driver of this rise: energy demands from data centres. (The Guardian)
  
  

• Another not-so-fun fact from Google’s environmental report: its data centres consumed 6.1 billion gallons (or 23 billion litres) of water in 2023 - the equivalent of 41 golf courses. While energy consumption has been the biggest focus of data centres to date, finding ways to cool servers without losing so much water would be a huge environmental win. These zero-evaporation cooling systems do exist - as Microsoft unveiled in December last year. (Thurrott)

What the…?

“Mr President, we want to introduce you to the toughest game on earth, rugby league, in the world’s sport and entertainment capital, Las Vegas. We know you love physical, tough contact sports. There’s no sport more brutal than rugby league, our players don’t wear pads or helmets.”

That was Australian Rugby League Commission Chair Peter V’landys on Fox News, hoping to get President Trump to join him in Las Vegas for the start of the NRL season.

Two weeks ago V’landys called Trump “a walking billboard” as he explained to Channel 7, “You’ll have American media cover our event ad nauseam, you’d probably get the most publicity rugby league’s ever had if he turns up.” And let’s be honest, he’s right, it would be the most free publicity an Australian sport could hope to get. (The Guardian)

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Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Getting your kids invested

This question came in from Jeremy:

How should I speak to my kids about investing, and what are their investing options?

We put it to Hugh Lovibond, Senior Financial Adviser at Millennium Wealth:

It’s an amazing idea to get your kids involved in investing at an early age. This will provide them with a wealth of knowledge and experience to use throughout their adult life.

The first consideration when it comes to investing is what structure do we want to use to purchase any investments in.

Kids can only generate $416 per annum in income before they pay at least the highest marginal tax rate. So having investments in their personal name may not be ideal.

It would be worthwhile considering the following alternatives:

• Investing in you or your partners names on behalf of your children

• Education/investment bonds

• Family Trust structures

I would recommend talking to an accountant/financial adviser before making this choice.

Once you have decided on a preferred investment structure, then I would recommend teaching them the basics around investing so they can start to get involved.

This may include talking about why you are investing in the first place & possibly even setting some goals for the money. Such as wanting to build 50k in investment by the time they turn 21 to help fund their university costs.

I would give them a basic idea around how compounding returns work & how it will give them a much larger amount of money to use in the future.

I would then talk to them about their time frame and encourage them not to touch the money until at least a designated point of time. For example when they turn 21.

When it comes to the investments themselves, I would try and keep them as simple and low maintenance as possible while keeping the investments focused on shares/property exposure.

Some potential options would include:

• Listed index ETF’s. These are simple and cheap ways to get exposure to various markets across the world. A good example would be VGS which is The Vanguard MSCI Index International Shares ETF. You will need a simple broking account which can takes minutes to set up online.

• Education/investment bonds - Providers like Generation Life provide you with a large variety of unlisted managed fund investment options to select between.

Interested in speaking to a financial adviser? Fill out the form on our website and we’ll match you with one of our hand-picked financial advisers.

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