Market Snapshot: ASX Fades on War Fears, Oil Jumps, Apple Sues OpenAI

Market snapshot

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By Stephen Letts

ASX 200 : -0.2% to 8,786 points (live values below)

ASX 200 (Friday): +0.5% to 8,806 points

Australian dollar: -0.3% to 69.31 US cents

Asia: Nikkei -0.9%, Kospit -4.3%, Shanghai flat

Wall Street (Friday): S & P 500 +0.4%, Dow +0.3% Nasdaq +0.3%

Europe (Friday): Dax -0.2%, FTSE +0.2%, Eurostoxx -0.2%

Spot gold: -0.9% to $US4,082/ounce

Oil: Brent futures +4.1% to $US79.12/barrel, WTI futures +4.2% to $U74.41/barrel

Iron ore (Friday): +0.6% to $US99.30/tonne

Copper (LME, Friday): +2.4% to $US13,481/tonne

Bitcoin: -0.8% at $US63,672

Prices current at around 11:30am AEST

Live prices on the major ASX indices:

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ASX starting to fade on war fears

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By Stephen Letts

After a bright enough opening, the ASX has stated to fade.

At 11:00am AEST:

ASX 200: -0.1% to 8,796 points

All Ordinaries: -0.1% to 8,992 points

With oil prices on the rise again, the energy sector has led the way this morning. The small utilities sector has been weighed down by a slump in AGL (-4.4%) after a broker downgrade from Macquarie.

The key oil and gas producers have all made gains, with the Brazil-focussed Karoon Energy up 2.7% after announcing it was restarting operations at its Bauna Well.

The fuel refiners and retailers have also made gains. Ampol is up 1.6%

The banks, with exception of Westpac (-0.1%), are generally holding their ground. CBA is up 0.2%.

In the mining sector, the big iron ore producers are in demand on the back of spot price increases out of China on Friday. Fortescue is up 1.3%.

The rest of the sector, particularly in gold mining, is under pressure with Northern Star down 2.6%.

Retail is a mixed bag. Non-discretionary stores, such as the supermarkets, are largely lower (Coles is down 2.1%), while discretionary retail is doing better. Wesfarmers has gained 0.7%.

The tech sector is softer. Xero is down 3.2% after its CEO announced she had sold her entire ordinary share holding to pay a tax bill.

The top movers' list on the ASX 200 is headed by biotech Mesoblast (+6.5%) after receiving a broker upgrade from Bell Potter.

At the base of the bottom movers' list sits Kingsgate (-14.0%)— hit not only by the general gold miner sell off, but also on the news operations at its Chatree gold mine in Thailand have been significantly impacted by a mechanical fault.

Fraudsters targeting Telstra customers post-outage

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By Emilia Terzon

Telstra is warning its customers to be careful about phone calls from people claiming to be representatives of the company, after the telco's chaotic national outage.

It appears scammers are trying to take advantage of the situation by trying to get customer information.

Here is more from the telco today:

We've seen reports of fraudsters calling customers, claiming to be from Telstra and trying to take advantage of the outage.

Please be extra vigilant. If you get a call from someone claiming to be from Telstra asking for your details in light of the outage, hang up and call us directly.

Our teams are working as quickly as possible to resolve any remaining issues.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we've worked to put things right. We don't take that for granted.

Have you got a suspected Telstra scam call? What did the person say? Tell us in the blog or email our journalists on [email protected]

Telstra tells business customers to complain for compensation

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By Emilia Terzon

Telstra has put out another update about last week's outage, which created chaos nationally with triple zero calls dropping out, payments failing and even trains grinding to a halt.

Australia's biggest telco is reiterating that its system issue (which took Telstra's systems back 20 years in time!) is now fixed. It is also now urging people to look out for scam calls:

Please be extra vigilant. If you get a call from someone claiming to be from Telstra asking for your details in light of the outage, hang up and call us directly.

The big issue now is compensation. Businesses spoke to my colleague Nassim Khadem last week, with estimates that the cost of the outage could be in the hundreds of millions.

Telstra now says the best way for customers to claim for compensation is by making an online complaint.

It is telling business customers they will need to provide a range of supporting documentation, such as point of sale records, EFTPOS transactions, or invoices.

Were you impacted by the Telstra outage? Email our journalists on [email protected] or [email protected]

Have you heard from Telstra? Let us know

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By Alison Branley

The Business program is following all the fallout from the Telstra outage last week.

We want to hear from you.

If you were a customer who was affected last week have you heard from Telstra? Have you had a text or an email? What did it say?

Let our reporter know [email protected]

We're also asking the telco what it's been doing.

Xero on the slide after CEO sells off shares

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By Stephen Letts

The ASX-listed, NZ-based accounting software business, Xero is on the slide this morning after CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy sold down her stake in the company to help pay an impending tax bill.

In an ASX change of interest notification this morning, the NZ-based firm said Ms Singh Cassidy sold her holding of 29,608 ordinary shares on July 7.

The sale at $74.00/share netted $2,190,992.

At 10:30am Xero was down 3.3% to $70.95/share.

The notification said the sale was for "managing personal tax obligations."

Ms Singh still has skin in the game at Xero, holding 171,381 Restricted Share Units (a form of performance-based remuneration) and 1,038,308 unlisted options), but no ordinary shares.

Musk and Altman tee off again

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By Daniel Ziffer

World's richest man Elon Musk and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman have been sparring in court and in public for some years now, about AI, the fate of the company and who is ripping the public off.

It's keenly about the ownership of OpenAI, but there's more to it.

Musk has taken to calling his competitor "Scam Altman".

Here's a recent explainer about how it got to here.

ASX 200 opens 0.2% higher

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By Stephen Letts

Despite mounting tensions in the Gulf, the ASX 200 has eked out a 0.2% gain on opening (10:10am AEST).

Aussie dollar slips along with Wall Street futures as oil rises

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By Stephen Letts

The escalation in missile and drone fire over the Gulf has sparked a busy morning across trading desks this morning.

Here are some early takes:

AUD/USD: -0.2% to 69.37 US cents

Brent Crude: +3.1% to $US78.39/barrel

Gold: -1.1% to $US4,072/ounc

S & P 500 futures: -0.1%

Nasdaq futures: -0.3%

Dow futures: -0.1%

Regis bails out on Vault Minerals takeover battle

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By Stephen Letts

Australian gold producer Regis Resources says it will not match a $5.6 billion bid from Genesis Minerals to buy Vault Minerals, as the returns would not meet its targets.

Vault, in a separate ASX filing, said it intends to terminate the Regis scheme of arrangement and enter into a definitive agreement with Genesis for its offer.

Regis' board concluded that the terms that would be required to match the Genesis Proposal do not meet the value and return thresholds that it applies to all growth opportunities, the company said in a statement.

Regis says the termination of the scheme will result in a break fee of around $50.7 million payable to the company.

Separately, Genesis confirmed that the terms of its proposal for Vault are unchanged and remain open for acceptance pending the termination of the Regis scheme.

Reuters

War and weather drive wheat prices higher

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By Stephen Letts

Benchmark global wheat prices are continuing to rise, spurred on by wilting northern hemisphere crops and the potential closure of Russian exports.

Euronext wheat climbed more than 5% on Friday to a seven-week high as rumours about a closure of the Sea of Azov to shipping sparked concern about disruption to exports from Russia, the world's biggest wheat supplier, traders said.

September milling wheat on Paris-based Euronext settled 5.5% up at €216.25 a metric ton.

Chicago Board of Trade wheat also rallied to a seven-week peak.

Ukraine has struck Russian tankers in the Sea of Azov that connects with the Black Sea, and traders said there was talk in about a possible closure by Russia to all shipping.

"It's the reason for the rally on Matif (Euronext) and CBOT," a futures trader said, noting that the risk to a route that accounts for millions of tons of Russian wheat exports unsettled investors.

The idea of disruption to Russian exports caught off-guard market participants who had been focused on forecasts of large harvests this summer in Russia and elsewhere in the Black Sea export region.

Favourable crop conditions in the Black Sea zone have tempered reaction to recent torrid weather in Western Europe.

Grain trade association Coceral cut its outlook for this year's soft wheat production in the European Union and Britain in a special update following extreme heat in Europe though, like other forecasters, it made a steeper cut to its maize harvest estimate.

November maize on Euronext settled 2.7% up this week as more hot weather in France threatened further damage to maize crops.

Reuters

Telstra: Employees affected by outage won't be penalised

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By Alison Branley

Telstra has told the ABC its employees and frontline team members should not, and will not, be disadvantaged as a result of last week's Telstra outage.

Amid the chaos, an audience member got in touch with us concerned that Telstra call centre workers at its head office in Exhibition Street, Melbourne couldn't make it to work because of the associated V/Line outage.

"Their rosters have been marked with unpaid absences. One coworker was two hours late and was asked to make up the hours as time-in-lieu the next day," they told us.

Telstra said in a statement it had reinforced with its teams that no-one should be disadvantaged "and have asked our partners to take the same approach".

"We're sorry for any instances where this may not have occurred. We will undertake a full review to identify and rectify any cases where employees were adversely impacted as a result of the outage," a company spokesperson said in a statement.

NZ dairy giant trims milk prices on weak demand and global oversupply

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By Stephen Letts

In a move likely to have a flow-on impact on Australian dairy farmers, the big New Zealand player Fonterra has trimmed the top end of its milk price forecast for the 2026/27 season as softer-than-expected demand and robust global supply drag down prices.

The dairy producer cut the annual forecast for farmgate milk price — the price it pays to farmers for milk — to the range of $NZ8.00 to $NZ10.50 per kilogram of milk solids (kgMS) from $NZ8.00 to $NZ11.00 per kgMS.

Reuters

Oil jumps on opening trade

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By Stephen Letts

It's hardly surprising given the escalation in Gulf hostilities over the weekend and the targeting of commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian drones, but the price of oil has spiked this morning in early trade.

At 8:20am AEST:

Brent crude futures: +3.8% to $US78.92/barrel

West Texas Intermediate crude futures: +3.8% to $74.13/barrel

Apple sues OpenAI, two former employees for trade secrets theft

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By Stephen Letts

Apple has sued OpenAI and two former employees, alleging misappropriation of its trade secrets to benefit the ChatGPT-owner's foray into consumer hardware, a dramatic escalation of already simmering tension between the two companies.

The complaint accuses OpenAI of orchestrating a broad effort to systematically acquire and exploit Apple's confidential information through former employees, recruiting practices and supplier relationships to accelerate its push into the consumer hardware business.

"We have no interest in other companies' trade secrets," OpenAI said in a statement.

"We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere."

The lawsuit sets up a battle over who will control future AI devices that may not use traditional apps or operating systems — devices which, if successful, would direct consumer attention away from Apple's best-selling iPhone.

Analysts believe OpenAI is working on a phone or other device of its own.

Tensions between the two tech companies have strained their relationship, as the race to develop AI products has intensified competition for talent and proprietary technology.

"Apple sees OpenAI moving from partner to potential rival, while OpenAI is trying to reduce its dependence on the iPhone and build a direct relationship with consumers," PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore told Reuters.

"Even if the allegations are not proven, the lawsuit could delay OpenAI's hardware ambitions and further weaken what is already becoming an increasingly fragile partnership."

Apple's lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, comes just after OpenAI successfully fended off a legal challenge from Elon Musk's xAI.

The two former Apple employees named in the suit are Chang Liu, a former senior system electrical engineer, and former vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, Tang Yew Tan. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

Apple alleged that Liu failed to return a company-issued work laptop and later used an authentication bug to access Apple's internal network, downloading "dozens of Apple's confidential hardware-related files."

The iPhone maker also claimed that OpenAI's hardware chief Tan had been "methodically using Apple's confidential information to benefit OpenAI" before his departure by emailing himself information about Apple suppliers and internal industry summaries.

Tan worked on the iPhone for most of his 24-year tenure at Apple, according to his LinkedIn page.

Apple alleged that Tan encouraged Apple employees to bring parts from Apple to job interviews at OpenAI for "show and tell" sessions, citing an incident in its filing where one OpenAI job candidate allegedly said that he "didn't even know we could take those from the office."

OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, the company's commercial arm, and io Products, which OpenAI acquired, were also named as defendants.

Reuters

US earnings season opens with big banks reporting

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By Stephen Letts

The big investment banks lead off Wall Street's second-quarter results season this week.

Expectations are pretty bullish, with earnings across the S & P 500 expected to be about 24% higher than this time last year.

Apart from the likes of Citi