Wendy Armitage was expecting the “ouch factor” when she went to pay her bill at a car repair shop in Adelaide a fortnight ago.

As she was going to pay her $900 excess, the former accountant was shocked to see that she would have been hit with a substantial surcharge for the convenience of tapping her card.

“On their sign beside the point of sale, it was stated that there was a card surcharge of 16.5 per cent,” she told The Business.

Read the latest on the government’s proposed ban on surcharges by business reporters Kate Ainsworth and Nassim Khadem

We reported yesterday that many Westpac and St George customers had experienced an outage, leaving them unable to access their internet and app banking.

Around 4pm AEDT on Tuesday, Westpac said it had restored services but it appears this morning there are further interruptions.

According to outage tracker website Downdetector, there were more than 2,000 reports of issues at 8am Wednesday, across Westpac, St George and BankSA.

The bank says it’s (again) working to fix the problem.

We’ve asked Westpac for more detail and will keep you updated.

Despite the recent drop in Nvidia and ASML stock, excitement for tech stocks in general has been growing again in recent weeks.

James Reilly from Capital Economics says the renewed interest will push the US stock market higher, even though a lot of optimism is already priced into stocks and there are several risks on the horizon.

The idea that positive market reactions would be easy to achieve always seemed odd. After all, US large cap indices have burst through to new all-time highs over recent weeks; and a large part of that has been driven by earnings expectations, not just valuations.

What’s more, while expectations for Q3 have fallen, there is little sign of that having happened to earnings expectations over, for example, the next year as a whole.

Mr Reilly said the idea that the market would easily react positively to earnings was always a bit strange, especially since major US indices recently hit new all-time highs.

A big part of that rise has been due to high earnings expectations, not just stock valuations. While estimates for the current quarter have been lowered, expectations for the next year haven’t seen a similar adjustment.

In short, we think that depends largely on investors’ enthusiasm for AI growing.

Such enthusiasm propelled stocks higher in Q2 but took a back seat in Q3, with other parts of the market doing the heavy lifting.

But enthusiasm appears to be returning, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index back around a 2-month high and NVIDIA closing at its all-time high yesterday.

Our base case of a soft landing for the US economy and aggressive Fed rate cuts is one which would accommodate AI hype, steady earnings growth, and a further compression of US equity risk premia to around dotcom-bubble levels.

Businesses are experiencing the highest rate of late payments since the COVID-19 crisis, with industries like hospitality and construction struggling the most.

CreditorWatch has reported that 4.9% of payments were overdue by more than 60 days in September — a 21.4% increase from the same period last year and a 7.9% rise since the start of 2024.

There’s been a consistent increase in overdue payments since mid-2022.

CreditorWatch chief executive Patrick Coghlan said this was due to growing cashflow challenges faced by businesses, driven by weaker consumer demand.

“The fact that the construction and hospitality sectors have the highest rates of payment defaults and construction has the highest rates of arrears, mirrors the latest ABS data showing declining building approvals and flat spending in cafes and restaurants across much of 2024,” he said.

Construction and hospitality have the highest rates of payment defaults at 1.77% and 1.67%, respectively.

Business closures in the food and beverage industry are on the rise, with an 8.3% closure rate over the past year, expected to increase to 9.1% in the coming year.

The information, media and telecommunications sector has the highest rate of late payment among all industries at 5.9%, followed by Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services (5.7%) and Financial and Insurance Services (5.2%).

The ATO’s efforts to collect unpaid debts after the pandemic have contributed to a surge in business insolvencies.

Court actions aimed at recovering debts have increased by 13.7% from July 2023 to July 2024 — well above pre-COVID levels.

The drop in the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ came after Dutch chipmaker ASML reported disappointing earnings, missing sales expectations for the third quarter and lowering its forecast for 2025.

ASML’s stock plunged by about -16%, causing a wider drop in chip stocks, including Nvidia, which lost -5%. 

ASML works closely with Nvidia and makes most of the equipment used to make high-tech AI chips.

Nvidia is the second-largest company in the world, behind Apple. It overtook Microsoft in June. The tech multinational has seen its shares nearly triple this year alone, largely owing to its AI computing strategy.

A few stocks to watch at the start of trade — Medibank Private and NIB Holdings.

Government figures show the number of people with top-level gold coverage dropped by more than 400,000 between December 2020 and the end of last year, Rachel Carbonell reports.

Private Healthcare Australia [PHA] represents health insurers. Its CEO, Rachel David, said the group had done its own analysis and noticed a similar trend.

“For the first time, we’re seeing hard evidence that people with private health insurance, who are desperate to keep it, are really struggling with cost-of-living pressure,” she said.

While the number of people with private health insurance overall has risen modestly, Dr David said data seen by PHA showed more than 216,000 policies were downgraded in the first half of this year alone.

Shares in ASX-listed insurers Medibank and NIB rose yesterday, so they’ll be ones to watch today to see if the reports have raised any concerns for investors.

Read more here:

Oil prices fell to a near two-week low as concerns eased about supply disruptions in the Middle East.

Israel has assured the US it won’t target Iranian oil. Both OPEC and the International Energy Agency also cut their global demand forecasts, mainly due to weakness in China. 

Tim Ghriskey, a strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, told Reuters falling oil prices are good for the economy, suggesting reduced inflation and a belief that Middle East oil assets won’t be attacked.

For Australians who love to tap and go, using their debit card to pay for goods and services, there is often a hidden surcharge.

Analysis of Reserve Bank data shows surcharges levied on each transaction, which can vary between merchants, have been costing Australians nearly $1 billion a year.

The Albanese government has threatened to ban debit card surcharges by 2026 in a bid to protect consumers from excessive charges.

Check out the below from business reporter Nassim Khadem:

• ASX 200 futures: -0.4% to 8,319 points
• Australian dollar: -0.4% at 67 US cents
• S&P 500: -0.8%  to 5,815 points
• Nasdaq: -1% to 18,315 points
• FTSE 100: -0.5% to 8,249 points 
• EuroStoxx 50: -1.5% to 4,448 points
• Brent crude: -3.7% to $US74.62/barrel
• Spot gold: +0.4% to $US2,661/oz 
• Iron ore:  -1.2% to $US106.30 /tonne
• Bitcoin: +1.1% to $US66,647

Prices current around 7.40am AEDT.

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

Good morning!

Rachel Clayton from the ABC business team here.

Thanks for joining me on our daily business blog where we’ll bring you the latest on the markets, finance and economics.

Overnight on Wall Street, US indices fell.

Australian shares are set to decline off the back of it.

The Dow Jones was down 0.7% , while the broader S&P 500 fell -0.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq -1.2%.

The ASX 200 is looking like it will open lower off the back of a record high yesterday with futures down -0.5% to 8,313-points.

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