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Here’s what you need to know today

• America’s stock market hit an all-time high. The S&P 500 is up 5% for the year and is up 24% since the sharp market fall after President Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcements. This record high is despite political unrest in the US and conflicts around the world, a good reminder of why we don’t try to time the market, stay invested and continue dollar-cost averaging. (AFR)
  
  

• Plumbing supplier Reece Group saw shares fall 19% on Friday after it warned profit would fall year-on-year due to housing market softness in Australia, New Zealand and the US. That’s not a good sign for Australians hoping to see growth in the number of houses being built. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• James Hardie has moved its primary listing from Australia to New York. The Australian building products group was the source of plenty of scrutiny earlier in the year after its $14 billion merger with American decking company Azek was seen as a way to move from the ASX to NYSE without shareholder approval. Despite complaints from shareholders since, the company has been able to complete the move. (AFR)
  
  

• Australia’s corporate regulator, ASIC, is investigating the botched PointsBet takeover bid last week. Share registry Computershare was conducting the vote, and initially announced that Japanese company Mixi’s takeover bid had reached the 75% threshold for acceptance. It then had to reverse its call a day later. (AFR)
  
  

• Former Australian Treasurer and chair of Cbus Superannuation, Wayne Swan, has called on the government to not raise mandatory super contributions beyond 12%. Traditionally many in the Labor Party, including Paul Keating, thought 15% should be the target. But, Swan argues, the data suggests that 12% is enough for Australians to achieve a comfortable retirement. (AFR)
  
  

• US President Donald Trump announced he would be ending trade talks with Canada and announcing their tariff rate after learning of Canada's plan to impose a digital-services tax on American tech companies. This tax would require digital platforms that earn over $14.7m revenue in Canada to pay a 3% levy on revenue earned in Canada from certain digital services. (Al Jazeera)
  
  

• For those who have lost count, a reminder that Trump’s 90-day pause on Liberation Day tariffs is set to end on 8 July. So it seems it will be more than just Canada that is about to find out their tariff rate for exporting goods to the US. (Axios)
  
  

• The Trump Administration has been given a lot more freedom to operate after the US Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that federal judges cannot issue temporary, nationwide injunctions for Presidential executive orders. Now, if a Trump Administration executive order is unconstitutional that can now only be stopped by the Supreme Court. (NY Times)
  
  

• Nike’s shares were up 15% on Friday after it reported better-than-expected quarterly results. The results were still the worst quarterly earnings in more than 3 years with revenue down 12% to $11.1 billion. Nike also warned it expected about $1 billion in tariff related costs. However, it wasn’t as bad as expected and shares were up on Friday. (The Guardian)
  
  

• Chip maker Micron reported a bumper set of earnings, showing it is becoming a big beneficiary of the AI boom due to demand for its memory chips. Year-on-year, revenue is up 37% and earnings per share is up 208%. (Quartz)

What the…?

The Gold Coast may soon be home to the Southern Hemisphere’s tallest building. One Park Lane is a proposed 101-storey tower that will rise 393 meters in the air, higher than Jakarta’s Autograph Tower (383m), Gold Coast’s Q1 (322m) and Melbourne’s Australia 108 (316m).

While it will tower over its neighbours, it won’t come close to the tallest building in the world - Dubai’s Burj Khalifa stands at 830m. (ABC News)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Should I pay off debt or invest?

This is an excerpt from a recent Ask an Adviser episode on Equity Mates Investing with Alex Luck and Scott Taylor from Everest Wealth. (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

Question: How should I balance paying off debt versus investing?

It really depends on the person themselves and their tolerance towards investing. But what sort of debt are we talking about? Because if we're talking about a credit card or a personal loan or a car loan, well the interest rate's typically going to be eight, 10, even 20% for credit cards if you're out of the interest free period. So it probably makes sense to focus on those debts because long-term investment markets are kind of eight to 10% on average for a diversified portfolio.

If you're talking about a mortgage, obviously we're in a cycle at the moment where interest rates are coming down. So potentially then it does make sense to invest because you will get a better outcome longer term. But you need to be comfortable, one, in sitting in that debt for longer potentially, and also comfortable with the potential volatility in the share market.

So how we attack it is: what is someone's end objective or goal? Do they need to take that risk on? Because from what you and Alex were just saying, if someone can get to their goals and their aspirations by just paying off their debt and being really conservative, maybe that's right for them. But that's not often the case and people generally have a long time horizon. So then investing typically makes sense. But it's just balancing out the short-term goals—families and travel and private schooling or whatever it may be for someone—and then just seeing what that timeframe is broadly. That helps us make the decision. But most of the time it's a combination of the two; it just depends on the percentage of one to the other.

Prefer to watch our conversation with Alex and Scott? Check out the Equity Mates YouTube channel for the full video.

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