Live markets updates: Wall Street indices close at record highs, ASX could test new records too

A new record might be hard to achieve today for the flagship ASX 200 index, it is down 7.6 points or 0.08% to 8,972.4 points in the opening minutes of trading.

Forget Cash Converters, eBay, or whatever the Trading Post turned into … the best place for weird things seems to be the Australian government’s procurement site: AusTender.

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(I’ll accept that for vintage Masters of the Universe figures, the former are probably better sources).

My favourite from this week is A25/017 from the National Capital Authority, for the maintenance and report of the National Carillon.

The what? For shame.

The National Carillon is situated in the National Triangle, Canberra. And what is it?

“It houses 57 stationary bells weighing between 6 tonnes and 8 kilos. Each bell is played from a specially designed keyboard. The instrument requires regular monitoring, adjustment and preservation.”

That’s where you come in, although mainly if you have experience and skill in maintaining other Carillons and are willing to do the contract job for between $100,000 and $130,000 over a period of two years.

Apply within.

Residents who buy houses in greenfield sites are often promised extensive facilities: train stations, shopping centres, sports fields.

The reality is often more like: Maybe. Not sure when. No backsies.

So glad my wonderful colleague Margaret Paul has dug into this.

Consumer regulators are now examining the extravagant promises as ministers wake up to the reality that there’s a lot of unhappy people on the fringes.

Josh Rowe’s For Every Scale is a fascinating newsletter that has the tech innovators’ lens across current events.

A startup winner and a rare thing in tech — someone able to communicate — this week it’s looking at Telstra’s crack at AI.

He calls it “automation theatre”

Here are some of the choice cuts about how Telstra wants to “cast itself as Australia’s AI pioneer”.

“It is designed to reassure investors, impress partners, and present a story of digital leadership by 2030.

“But the last three months reveal a different narrative. 

“Job cuts are explained away with contradictory reasoning. 

“Customer complaint metrics show Telstra is performing worse than its competitors. 

“And its pending joint venture with Accenture risks hollowing out the very AI capability Telstra claims is central to its future. 

“This is not a transformation. This is automation theatre.”

Mr Rowe links to an interview CEO Vicki Brady did with The Guardian in late May: “We don’t know precisely what our workforce will look like in 2030, but it will be smaller than it is today,” citing AI efficiencies in customer service and engineering as a “significant unlock”.

“Just six weeks later, Telstra announced 550 job cuts, about 2 per cent of its workforce, targeting the enterprise division. The company insisted that these were “not a result of AI,” but rather structural repositioning.

“This whiplash is corrosive. Investors hear inconsistency. Employees hear spin. Unions hear obfuscation.

“You cannot trumpet AI as a workforce game changer in one breath and then deny its influence in the next. And for those whose jobs hang in the balance, the contradiction doesn’t read like strategy; it reads like betrayal.”

The Scoreboard That Matters

Here’s Mr Rowe’s take on complaints:

“Telstra’s strategy materials boast of a “greater than 66 per cent reduction in TIO complaints since FY21”. Internally, that may appear to be a win.

“However, the ACMA’s most recent report (January–March 2025) tells a different story. Telstra had the highest rate of TIO escalations among major telcos at 10.2 per cent, compared with 8.1 per cent at Optus and 5.5 per cent at TPG. It also averaged nine days to resolve complaints, against an industry average of six.

“Customers do not live in historical baselines. They live in the present, and today, Telstra is performing worse than its peers. 

“For staff on the frontline, the numbers tell another uncomfortable truth: the tools being rolled out are not making their lives easier. And regulators will see through the gap between claims of AI-driven service excellence and the independent scoreboard that shows decline.”

Risk On, Optionality Off

Given every large business is engaging AI, the warnings from Rowe are broader than just for Telstra.

“Telstra’s AI narrative is glossy, but the substance is thin. Contradictions on jobs, weak customer metrics, and a dangerous dependency on Accenture undermine the story. 

“Customers will experience longer waits. Employees will feel more pressure. Unions will see through the hollowing out. Regulators will question oversight. And investors will eventually demand proof.

“Until Telstra proves real ROI and improves customer outcomes, its AI strategy should be seen for what it is: automation theatre. 

“For leaders watching this unfold, the lesson is clear. AI cannot be outsourced, spun, or left unmeasured. Anything less is a risk.'”

Waking up to the US market news? Here’s Kyle Rodda of Capital.com on where he saw it:

“Solid US data eased concerns about a slowdown in the US economy, pushing Wall Street to record highs and offsetting a set of Nvidia results that proved to be somewhat of a damp squib. 

“The preliminary GDP figures showed an upward revision to 3.3%, revealing a V-shaped rebound underway after the modest trade policy induced contraction in US growth in Q1. That, along with jobless claims and a preliminary PCE read in line with expectations, pushed the S&P 500 to record highs, hitting 6500 for the first time, as markets consolidate expectations of a September rate cut. The odds of that are currently around 86%. 

“Tech stocks were also outperformers, pushing the NASDAQ towards record highs too, despite weakness in Nvidia shares.

“One half of the rate cut equation will be revealed tonight: the final PCE Index read heading into next week’s Non-Farm Payrolls report. The data is tipped to reveal a lift in the annual core PCE Index to 2.9%, as tariffs push what was already stubborn and sticky inflation away from the Fed’s target. 

“Despite this, the markets are likely to carry on calmly through such reading, with the Fed’s last SEP forecasting a lift to 3.1% by the end of the year and still the potential for two more cuts. The negative surprise will be if the data prints with a “3” in front of it. Should it do so, it could spark a lift in the rates curve that could weigh on stock prices and boost the Dollar.”

You might be wondering why US President Donald Trump wants to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, claiming he has constitutional powers to do so, and why she’s not budging.

Ms Cook has said she has no intention of resigning, Mr Trump has no power to fire her and that she will sue him if he attempts to remove her.

Governor Cook has now filed that lawsuit challenging Mr Trump’s attempt to remove her from office.

Her lawyers wrote that the allegedly mislabelled home loan application was a clerical error that fell short of the materiality threshold to remove her from office for cause.

The spat has rattled financial markets and is likely to cause further uncertainty and instability as it brings into question the independence of the US central bank.

Here’s a great explainer from the ABC’s Rudi Maxwell.

Businessman and economist Mohamed Aly El-Erian has some insights on the US and global economy worth listening to.

The former fund manager, Egyptian-American economist and businessman, now academic and advisor to Allianz thinks the AI boom is here to stay:

“Nvidia: The bedrock of the AI boom remains solid. Both supply and demand for critical AI inputs are robust, and adoption is spreading. 

“The impact on economy-wide variables, particularly productivity, will depend on significantly extending this diffusion in an efficient and scalable manner. 

“(History suggests that the pattern of widespread adoption for general-purpose technologies like AI can vary considerably in terms of speed and evenness.)”

And this on retail, which we’ll get a further read on today with a US inflation indicator:

“Retailers: Consumer demand remains resilient, including for companies serving lower-income households. While tariffs have increased costs, companies have only partially passed these costs on to consumers. This pass-through is notably uneven across different companies, sectors, and products.”

Shortly, we’ll explore the data from the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan study of consumer confidence, but for now, here are the key points

Consumer confidence fell 3 points to 92 in August, its lowest level in 10 monthsThe proportion of households thinking it’s a good time to buy a major household item (the best retail indicator) fell 4 points to -12Inflation expectations fell 0.3pts to 4.8%

Broke fashion retailer Mosaic Brands Limited — owner of well-known brands including Noni B, Rivers, Katies, Rockmans, Millers, Autograph, Beme, Crossroads and W. Lane — has been ordered by the Federal Court to pay $25 million in penalties for breaching consumer law, including taking money but failing to deliver items to consumers within a reasonable time.

It’s a win for the competition watchdog the ACCC, but a hollow one.

Why? Mosaic Brands is in liquidation , and since January 2025 they haven’t even been defending the matter in court.

Here’s what the court found:

Mosaic Brands breached the Australian Consumer Law over a six-month period when it failed to deliver 739,114 items across its nine brands within the delivery times specified on its websites, or a reasonable time. Of these items, 4,213 were not delivered at all.In doing so, Mosaic Brands was found to have wrongfully accepted payment from consumers and engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct. 

Here’s ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe:

“Delivery times matter and it is unacceptable to mislead consumers about this aspect of a sale. A large number of Australians — and close to a quarter of online goods ordered from the Mosaic Group were affected by it.

“Our investigation revealed that more than half of the items in question were dispatched from Mosaic Brands’ warehouses 30 or more days after the order date, and about one-third were dispatched 40 or more days after the order date.”

“One person who reported to us experienced the dual disappointment of never receiving the goods they’d paid for and then having to wait six months for a refund.”

Astonishing element …  almost 740,000 goods that the court found Mosaic Brands wrongfully accepted payment for made up almost one-quarter of the total online items ordered and dispatched by Mosaic Brands during the six-month period.

Mosaic Brands entered voluntary administration in October 2024. The company then entered liquidation in July 2025.

Read the full ACCC release here.

And more of the human impact here:

Not much of the week left, but my colleague Stephen Letts put it well earlier — we’ll know a lot more about the direction of the world economy when we find out about US inflation.

Australia:

Fri: Private sector credit (Jul)

International:

Thu: US — GDP (Q2)

Fri: US — Core PCE inflation (Jul) Advanced goods trade balance (Jul)

        CA — GDP (Q2)

Overseas, Friday’s US Personal Consumption Expenditure Deflator — the Fed’s “go to” inflation measure — will be the most keenly observed data point of the week.

A spike in inflation may undermine the market’s certainty that a rate cut is on its way in September.

Having said that, the forecast is for a reasonably stable result, with core PCE edging up from 2.8% to 2.9%.

US GDP (Thursday) is forecast to see an upward revision of Q2 growth to 3.1%, largely because the first estimate contributions from net trade (+5.0pp) and inventories (-3.2pp) were outsized, owing to the pre-tariff import front-loading.

Chipmaker Nvidia has reported record revenue in the second quarter of 2025, beyond market expectations.

Nvidia’s 2Q25 financial report shows its dominant position in the AI semiconductor market.

The company reported revenue of US$46.7 billion in the second fiscal quarter, a 56% increase compared to the same period last year.

The primary engine for this? The data centre division, which alone generated US$41.1 billion in revenue.

The company′s new generation Blackwell chip platform accounted for U$S27 billion in sales.

Despite a third-quarter sales forecast of US$54 billion, the company’s shares experienced a slight decline. However, chief executive officer Jensen Huang, dismissed any concerns about a potential slowdown in the AI boom.

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In statements reported by Reuters, Huang framed the moment as the beginning of a new industrial revolution.

“The AI race is on.”

He projected that spending on AI infrastructure will reach between US$3 trillion and US$4 trillion by the end of the decade, and Nvidia is centrally positioned in this market.

This optimism is based on sustained demand from its main customers, the “hyperscalers”, whose purchase forecasts for 2026 have already committed much of the production of Blackwell chips.

– with Reuters

ASX 200 futures: -0.3% to 8,928 points

Australian dollar: Flat at 65.31 US cents

Dow Jones: +0.2% to 45,636 points – record close.

S&P 500: +0.3% to 6,501.9 points – record close.

Nasdaq: +0.5% to 21,705 points.

FTSE: -0.4% to 9,216 points

EuroStoxx: 0.2% to 553 points

Spot gold: +0.6% to $US3,416/ounce

Brent crude: +0.4% to $US68.3/barrel

Iron ore: +0.1% to $US101.59/tonne

Bitcoin: +0.6% to $US111,993

Prices current around 7:30am AEDT.

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

Hello, I’m Daniel Ziffer from the ABC business team and I’ll be taking you through the morning on our business, finance and economics blog.

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Overnight, two of Wall Street’s three key indices were at new highs as investors gleaned from Nvidia’s results that the AI boom is a real thing.

The blue-chip Dow Jones of 30 mega-companies like Boeing and Visa was +0.2% to 45,636 points — a record close.

The broader S&P 500, that covers 500 of the largest listed companies in the US, hit an intraday record and a new record close, up +0.3% to 6,501.9 points.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq was +0.5% to 21,705 points.

Our market is set to tremble off its record highs, with the ASX 200 futures index tipping a slide of -0.3% or 30 points to 8,928 points.

There’s lots to get to, all of it news, analysis and information and none of it financial advice.

Let’s get started!