Some of them might be just 300 to 500 millimetres across, but one of the biggest potential sources of economic conflict is wafer-thin pieces of silicon.
Our need for chips to power devices, machinery and industry has become evident since a COVID crush exposed our reliance on a small number of manufacturers.
Chief business correspondent Ian Verrender breaks it down.
Fuel is going down.
The average price, nationally, of one litre of unleaded fuel is down one cent from a year ago: it’s now 173.2 cents.
The Australian Institute of Petroleum produces a comprehensive weekly report you can access which goes through some of the issues.
The key element is that we’re a price-taker. We ride on the global price of crude oil, which is then refined into products like unleaded fuel and diesel.
Generally, our price is predicated on the wholesale price in Singapore — known as the terminal gate price (TPG) — and we have a lag of some weeks from the prices there flowing through to the petrol pumps.
Australian shares are poised to open lower today following weakness in global peers.
If it conforms to Wall Street-tracking, our local technology stocks are expected to lead the fall.
The local share price index futures fell 0.8%, a 36.4 point discount to the close of the underlying ASX 200 index.
New Zealand’s benchmark NZX 50 index has fallen 0.8% to 12,821-points in early trade.
After disruptions hit some Westpac and Commonwealth Bank customers, a finance and risk management expert has advised Australians to take matters into their own hands.
What Professor Elizabeth Sheedy told the ABC’s Stephanie Chalmers might seem counter-intuitive regarding fees — but money isn’t much use if you can’t use it.
“Everyone should be banking with at least two banks.”
“This goes beyond who is offering the best deal — it’s about making sure you are going to be able to access your money.”
In the digital-age equivalent of stuffing cash under the mattress, Professor Sheedy, from Macquarie Business School, has warned it’s a matter of people spreading their risk across institutions.
Embattled airline Qantas got the final kick yesterday, in a long legal saga about sacking workers that has seen then repeatedly lose — all the way to the highest court in the land.
But did it save them money anyway?
The Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) estimated the total compensation bill would exceed $100 million, but Dan Trindade, a workplace relations lawyer with firm Clayton Utz, said the figure may be substantially higher.
“Looking at the figures, it would seem that the outer limits of what that might be up to say, $100,000 per individual employee, depending on how much they were earning at the time,” he told my colleagues Kate Ainsworth and Emilia Terzon.
“That might be roughly … $170 million in economic loss. Then you look at the non-economic loss, and if you average those three amounts out … that would equate to about the same amount, about $170 million in economic loss.
“It’ll probably end up somewhere between $300-350 million in compensation.”
Qantas has to pay an immense sum after it illegally sacked hundreds of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But even with a substantial compensation bill, hefty legal fees and a potential financial penalty, Mr Trindade said the airline had saved millions.
“What they’ve done was the right decision financially, because it will have saved them money.
“The evidence before the courts was that it would be about $580 million saved over five years.
“Even with compensation, even with penalties likely to be added on top of that, and legal costs, Qantas are going to come out ahead.”
If you’re catching up on the big news that kicked off the week, Qantas is facing a multi-million-dollar compensation bill after it illegally sacked hundreds of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Federal Court ordering three former employees will receive a share of $170,000.
Last year, the High Court ruled that the airline broke the law when it stood down 1,700 ground crew members in August 2020, after Qantas appealed two previous Federal Court verdicts.
At the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday, Justice Michael Lee ruled that Qantas would be required to pay varying degrees of compensation based on three “test cases”.
Here’s coverage from The Business last night.
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ASX 200 futures: -0.8% to 8,308-points
Australian dollar: =0.7% at 66.57 US cents
Dow Jones: -0.8% to 42,931-points
S&P 500: -0.2% to 5,854-points
Nasdaq: +0.3% to 18,540-points
FTSE: +-0.5% to 8,318 points
EuroStoxx 50: -0.9% to 4,941-points
Spot gold: stable at $US2,719/ounce
Brent crude: +1.4% to $US74.07/barrel
Iron ore: -1.7% to $US105.37/tonne
Bitcoin: -1.9% to $US67,635
Prices current around 7:30am AEDT.
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
Hello and welcome,
Daniel Ziffer from the ABC business unit with our week-daily blog covering markets, business, finance and economics news.
The ASX 200 looks set to slide, based on the futures market. It’s tipped to fall -68-points or -0.8% to 8,308-points.
That’s off the back of a mixed lead from Wall Street, where US indices split in fortunes.
The blue-chip Dow Jones is -0.8% to 42,931-points. The broader S&P 500 is at -0.2% to 5,854-points while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lifted +0.3% to 18,540-points.
Grab a coffee and let’s get started.
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