Price current around 12.25pm AEDT
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
Research company SuperRatings has just finalised its super fund performance estimated for the 2024 calendar year.
Executive director Kirby Rappell said it’d been a year of “surprisingly strong and consistent positive returns for the industry”.
He said super funds had benefited from international share exposure leading to double digit returns.
“The median balanced option expected to return 11.5% return for 2024, with the vast majority of options are expected to deliver a return of over 10% for the year and leading providers expected to return over 12.5% for the period.”
But risks remain for 2025, Rappell said, including a correction in the sharmarket and ongoing impact of inflation.
The Aussie sharemarket has barely moved since the open.
There’s only a couple of hours left of trading with the market due to close at 2.30pm AEDT today for the final day of trading for 2024.
The ASX 200 hit a record high of 8,515 points earlier this month, and has gained 8% so far this year – setting it up for its biggest annual rise since 2021.
Financials have fallen today by -0.5% with the Big Four down between -0.3% and -0.6%.
Miners slipped -0.9% to hit a one-week low after copper prices closed lower on Monday as market participants awaited economic data from top consumer China.
With 2024 drawing to a close we are looking ahead to what we can investigate in 2025.
Are there any business or work issues, stocks, companies and the like you want us to start looking into next year?
Let us know in the comments or you can email me at clayton.rachel@protonmail.com
I mentioned earlier reports from the AFP that China was behind a recent cyber breach of the US government.
We’ve now published a detailed story breaking down what happened and what’s next:
Here’s a snapshot of how UBank is asking customers to re-upload debit/Eftpos cards.
The Australian Banking Association is urging customers to manually update Eftpos cards in digital wallets to avoid payment issues on January 1.
The ABA says an automatic update is being rolled out to the almost 20 million Eftpos cards on digital wallets, including Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
About 60,000 cards will not be updated automatically.
To make sure payments can still be made from the start of 2025, everyone with a digital debit card added before July 2023 needs to delete and then re-add their Eftpos/debit card to their digital wallet.
Most Eftpos users have likely received an email from their bank asking them to do this.
Analysts from wealth management firm Wedbush expect tech stocks to be up as much as 25% next year.
“We believe tech stocks will be robust in 2025 on the shoulders of the AI Revolution and $2 trillion+ of incremental AI cap-ex over the next 3 years.”
The analysts note there will be “some white knuckle moments” next year due to fears about the US fed reserve and tariffs imposed on China but believe the below will be the top 10 winners:
“Nvidia and Cloud Stalwarts remain the AI driving force. The start of this $2 trillion+ of AI spending all began with the Godfather of AI Jensen and Nvidia as they remain the only game in town with their chips the new gold and oil.
“The stalwart cloud/hyper-scale players in 2025 will continue to play an instrumental role in this key phase of the AI Revolution being led by Microsoft and now also seeing Google and Amazon both finding major cloud and AI momentum into the coming years.”
The ASX 200 has opened (as predicted) lower after Wall Street’s losses earlier today.
The Australian dollar is down -0.1% to slightly more than 62 US cents.
The majority of sectors opened lower.
Healthcare fell -1.1%, followed by Basic Materials (-1%) and Industrials (-0.9%).
The bottom movers at the open were led by Life360 Inc which fell 2.5% and Emerald Resources 2.4%.
The top movers on the final day of trading for the year were Karoon Energy up +1.9% to $1.37 and real estate investment trust Charter Hall +1.1% to $3.86.
The law waits for no-one and in two days brand new rules will come into effect.
Here’s a short breakdown of what’s being introduced. For more you can read the story below by reporter Dannielle Maguire.
Vehicle Efficiency Standards
Passport Fee Increase
Victorian Short-Stay Levy
Aged Care Worker Pay Rise
Centrelink Payment Increases
Criminal Penalties for Wage Theft
Mandatory Climate Reporting
Thinks for a great year, Guys! Wishing you all the very best for the year ahead. My big hope for 2025 is for the mighty, mighty Broncos to perform a lot better, both on the field and in the market. Cheers.
– Scott
You too Scott! Thank you for following the blog this year … here’s to an even better 2025.
(I’m a Kiwi so unfortunately cheering for an Aussie rugby team goes against my nature)
All I’m saying today is Thankyou guys for your reporting on the markets here and OS markets wish you all Happy New Year and we’ll do it all again in 2025🙋
– David-W
Thank you so much David! Right back at ya!
I need some help with stock. My beer stock. Should I go for Asahi or xxxx gold?
*Not too be construed as enjoyment advice…
– Natty
Interesting question Natty! (But I must reiterate this blog is not financial advice.)
In saying that, I’ve just had a quick read of what’s been going on with Asahi and XXXX Gold out of interest.
The Asahi company recently signed a long-term deal with the Australian Turf Club to supply alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks at all four of ATC’s clubs, which could be a sign of a brighter future.
But it’s been a rough year for the stock, which fell almost 4% in November.
Kirin — which owns XXXX Gold — has also seen losses, with the share price dropping 1.8% over the year.
That’s largely been due to a drop in sales and market share in Japan.
It certainly is an interesting time for alcohol companies with signs pointing to Gen Z turning away from drinking — have you seen how many 0% beers are on the market now?!
The Agence France-Presse (AFP) is reporting a Chinese state-sponsored actor was responsible for cyber attack on the US Treasury Department this month.
The wire agency says a letter to Congress it’s seen revealed the attack allowed the alleged Chinese actors access to some government workstations.
The breach was carried out via a third-party cybersecurity service provider, with hackers also able to access some unclassified documents.
The Treasury Department has not responded to Reuters requests for comment.
It was estimated that in 2022 multinational companies shifted $US1 trillion into tax havens across the world.
New transparency laws — regarded as some of the toughest in the world — were passed by the Australian government aiming to stop that.
For more on how Australia is cracking down on the sneaky ways some companies hide profits and wriggle out of paying tax, take a look at this analysis piece by business reporter Nassim Khadem.
It’s been a big year for markets – not least because of Trump’s forecast trade wars with China, Mexico and Canada.
Interest rates have been in the spotlight, tech stock Nvidia has become the darling of the share market worldwide, and China’s economy has been slow to recover.
Business reporter David Chau has more on the winners and losers of 2024 and what’s ahead for 2025:
US Treasury yields dropped on Monday, reversing last week’s big gains as investors moved their money into the bond market after losses on Wall Street.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.5%, its largest drop in a day since late November.
Experts have told Reuters the trend could be because last week’s big sell-off in bonds encouraged some investors to take profits and move their money.
Some analysts also think the shift was influenced by moves in the stock market. As stock prices fell, investors looked at bonds as a safer option.
Despite Monday’s drop, the 10-year Treasury yield is still up by about 40 points since early December.
Good morning everyone and happy last day of 2024!
This is Rachel Clayton here to take you through market movements on the last day of the year until 2.30pm because the market is closing early today so we can all get to those NYE celebrations.
Are there any stocks or issues you’d like investigated today?
Send us a comment here or email me on clayton.rachel@abc.net.au with any ideas.
