Black Friday sales surge, ASX jumps after Wall Street's tech-heavy rally, Boeing shares plummet

The local share market has snapped its four-day losing streak with its best gains in over three weeks.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index on Tuesday finished up 69 points, or 0.93 per cent, to 7,520.5. It was the ASX200's best performance since a 1.65 per cent gain on December 14.

The Australian dollar was buying 67.12 US cents, from 67.06 US cents at Monday's ASX close.

Here's the top movers and losers.

Online retailer The Iconic has vowed to refund customers who have been left out of pocket, after their accounts were compromised and fraudulent orders were made without their permission.

Some customers affected by the incident have been left out of pocket by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

The Iconic, which is one of Australia's biggest online fashion websites, says it has not been the victim of a cyber attack.

Instead, a spokesperson from The Iconic told the ABC that the issue was "credential stuffing".

That is where an unlucky customer's email and password with one site is the same as another site. Fraudsters use this to get into websites and make purchases or hack accounts.

It is unclear how many customers or accounts have been compromised, or how many fraudulent orders have been made.

More on this story from the ABC's Kate Ainsworth.

More on our petrol price situation with ABC's Dan Ziffer

As my colleague Dan points out, we don't force people to own more fuel efficient cars in Australia, and we don't have a high tax on petrol compared to many markets.

Is this adding to high petrol prices?

Years after the first COVID-19 case, lots of us are sticking with working from home in our tracksuits, at least part-time.*

With a lack of colleagues at home (unless you count the dog) you'd think employers wouldn't be putting pressure on workers to have good inter-personal skills.

But, as it turns out, demand for workers who get along with others has surged since the pandemic started.

That's the core finding of a new study by the CSIRO.

The science agency's researchers analysed more than 12 million online job ads captured between 2015 and 2022.

They found job ads, especially for roles that involved working from home, are increasingly mentioning interpersonal skills.

"We observed job postings offering remote work were 1.2 times more likely to mention interpersonal skills than face-to-face roles," Lead author and CSIRO scientist David Evans said.

He said the results were unexpected given the unemployment rate hit a historic low at 3.5 per cent between 2021 and 2022.  

"Periods of low unemployment are usually associated with a dampening of employer’s skills expectations," he added.

So, while you can keep your trackies, the next time you apply for  a job, you might want to talk up your ability to network over Teams and your love of taking endless phonecalls at home.

*This may be me right now on this blogging shift.

I am asking myself this question, as I prepare to cover tomorrow's monthly CPI indicator release for ABC News.

The data drops at 11:30am AEDT.

The last dataset showed us housing was one of the biggest inflationary pressures, with an annual rate of 6.1% in October.

Housing for CPI includes rents, which we know are still rising, as well as the cost of buying property and paying bills for electricity and utilities.

Housing CPI as measured doesn't include data on mortgage repayments, which we also know is getting harder for Australians. That is as the RBA hikes interest rates, which it says will bring down overall demand and therefore inflation!

Food prices (not including booze) also shot up 5.3% in the last data CPI release.

I'll be taking a closer look at food prices tomorrow when the CPI data is released, as we see the increasing politicisation of this topic and increasing questions being asked of profit making supermarket giants.

So what is in store for tomorrow's data?

CBA's Stephen Wu reckons the overall annual head figure will drop 0.5% to 4.4% in November.

"We are confident the data will show a continued easing in inflationary pressures," he notes.

"We expect to see the impact of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events in the November CPI indicator," he says.

"Prices for goods, such as garments, household products, and audio, visual & computing equipment should see outright price declines owing to discounting activity. 

"Meanwhile fuel prices eased in November, with further declines occurring in December."

But there will be inflationary pressures continuing.

"Offsetting this is the expected resumption of strong rents inflation," Stephen writes.

"Importantly, Wednesday’s release will include an update on market services price inflation that was not available in October.

"This will confirm the degree to which inflation remains a ‘homegrown and demand‑driven’ issue – to use RBA Governor Michele Bullock’s words back in November. "

As well as this data, the RBA board also has the full quarterly CPI data out later this month.

More on the latest ABS data on building approvals out today.

As noted, the very small gain in approvals in November, which are still at a 10.5 year low, was driven by multi-unit dwellings.

There was a 6.7% monthly gain in approvals for these sorts of dwellings, which typically means apartments or big unit complexes.

This followed an even larger jump of 17.4% in October.

As CBA notes:

Any rise in multi‑unit dwelling approvals is a positive for future housing supply in the rental market.

However given the inherent volatility, it is difficult to know if there has been any material change in the underlying momentum of multi‑unit dwellings and if these gains can be sustained.

The trend measure for multi‑unit dwelling approvals paints a weaker picture, being 0.5% higher in the month but remaining 12.4% lower over the year.

Here's ABC reporter Alison Xiao on our news channel today.

Trading in Worley shares are still suspended, with it likely they'll remain in a halt until Thursday.

The ASX listed company requested the halt today, after reports in a major Australian newspaper that it has faced allegations of corruption in Ecuador, where the contracting giant does business.

Its shares are in a trading halt as Worley prepares to makes an announcement, ASX guidance says.

They will stay in a halt until the announcement or the resumption of normal trade on Thursday.

Not just a good question, also the title of an interesting program put together by my business colleagues that looks at a lot of the key factors that will determine what happens to the huge market this year.

Check it out here:

More on the announcement by US mining giant Alcoa today that it is shutting down one of its three WA alumina refineries.

As ABC News reports, the company's announcement on Tuesday morning only mentioned job losses for its own employees at the Kwinana industrial strip.

It said the plant's workforce would be cut from about 800 to about 250 in the third quarter of this year, when all production would stop.

Staff numbers would be further reduced to about 50 in 2025.

But the shutdown of production at the Kwinana plant is also expected to affect around 250 contractors, according to the WA government, bringing the total impacted number of workers to about 1,050.

More on this story here:

The shortfall of new housing builds is continuing, new ABS data out today shows, which will put pressure on both rents and house prices.

The data shows building approvals were at their lowest level in 10.5 years in November. There was actually a monthly approvals rise of 1.6% but this is still off a very low base.

The minor boost was from more apartment block approvals, with house approvals actually dropping.

This data comes as we got other data today showing asking rents are still rising. They're up 11.5% or $60 a week, REA's national data for 2023 shows.

Rents are rising as vacancy rates remain extremely low. And a shortfall of new builds won't help this.

"Delays, the upward rebasing of build costs, and higher interest rates have made it a difficult landscape for getting new projects off the ground," Oxford Economics' Maree Kilroy says.

"Against a backdrop of strong population growth, a sustained mismatch between demand and supply for housing is locked in for the next few years at a minimum."

Leading CBA's economists to summarise:

"Tight rental conditions are likely to prevail together with upward pressure on home prices.

"The 'big picture' story suggests tougher times ahead for builders and building material suppliers."

The silver lining for small-time tradies?

"The historically high level of renovations also suggest that Aussies are updating their homes without upgrading their locality," CBA ends.

If you bought a new car in the last 12 months, chances are you picked an SUV or a ute over sedans or hatchbacks.

Don't worry, I haven't been looking in your garage — that assessment is according to Australian car sales data for 2023, which shows all of the top 10 cars sold last year were SUVs or light commercial vehicles — and smaller passenger cars made up just a fifth of all sales.

It's not a new trend, though. For years, Australians have steadily been upsizing their vehicles (so much so that some regulators have even proposed increasing the standard parking size to compensate for our big car habit).

But a report from The Australia Institute last year showed that a reason more of us are drawn to driving larger vehicles is because our tax system "makes it attractive to do so".

Big cars have some big benefits, like comfort and flexibility for drivers and their passengers — but the bigger the car, the more damage they can cause to the road because of their weight.

Professor Brian Fildes from the Monash University Accident Research Centre says larger vehicles can also present more safety issues, and Richard Denniss from The Australia Institute points out that big cars are big polluters.

So, could we make smaller cars more popular and get more Aussies to quit their big car habit?

Mr Denniss believes it's possible, if government ended the tax discounts for bigger vehicles.

But of course, not everyone agrees that it's the government's place to decide what cars we should or shouldn't drive — like Tony Weber, the CEO of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.

He believes that the biggest issue when it comes to road safety is all about our behaviour.

If you're feeling driven to read more (sorry), you can find the full story from political reporter Jake Evans below:

If you've missed it this morning, new figures released by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) show that the scheme has received its largest number of complaints in its five-year history in 2023.

AFCA received 100,000 complaints in total in 2023, with nearly 9,000 about scams — almost double the number of complaints made about scams in 2022.

The  financial dispute resolution scheme is intended to be a last resort for people if they cannot reach a solution with their bank, but AFCA says it is seeing an "unsustainable" increase in the volume of complaints that are being escalated.

"We believe many financial firms could be doing a better job of handling complaints within their own internal complaints processes, so only the most complex cases reach AFCA — which is the role we are meant to play," AFCA CEO David Locke said.

"Instead, the volume of complaints reaching us is putting unnecessary pressure on the external dispute resolution system and inevitably causing further delays for consumers."

Want to know more? You can keep reading this story below:

Emilia here to take you through the afternoon.

Australian investors are feeling a lot cheerier today, after fresh woes about Wall Street dragged down stocks last week.

We've got a healthy rise around 1% on both the ASX 200 and the All Ords, with all sectors but energy in the green.

Energy is down after Saudi Arabia announced sharp price cuts to oil exports. Woodside and Santos are both down 0.2 per cent.

Today is on track to be the ASX200's best performance since a 1.65 per cent gain on December 14.

At midday the market had clawed back nearly half of its 176 points of losses during a four-day losing streak.

The gains came after a similar rally on Wall Street, where the S&P500 rose 1.4 per cent after good news there about inflation.

We have our own inflation indications tomorrow in Australia, with monthly figures (albeit delayed from November) due out.

They'll be watched closely by the RBA as it prepares to decide what to do with rates next month.

The ABS has put out other economic data today, showing that retail turnover rose 2% in November, during Black Friday sales. This of course makes that data volatile, analysts are warning.

All of the Big Four banks are higher, with ANZ and CBA both up 1.1 per cent, Westpac climbing 0.9 per cent, and NAB climbing 1.4 per cent.

In the heavyweight mining sector, BHP was up 0.8 per cent, Fortescue had added 1.1 per cent and Rio Tinto had gained 0.3 per cent.

The Australian dollar was buying 67.24 US cents, from 67.06 US cents at Monday's ASX close.

Here's the stockboard.

It was a very bad day on Wall Street for Boeing, but it hasn't been bad news all round for the aircraft manufacturer, with Fitch Ratings releasing an update on how it views Boeing's credit profile in the wake of the 737 MAX issue.

The credit ratings agency says Boeing's credit profile remains on a "positive trajectory" despite the grounding, but forecasts its 2024 financial results will be "slightly weaker" than it expected during its review of the aircraft manufacturer last year.

Fitch also does not expect there will be "material cancellations" of the MAX 9, noting that "particularly due to the low percentage of the overall orderbook that the MAX-9 represents".

"We believe the high switching costs for airlines to change fleet plans, coupled with the time-to-delivery for new aircraft orders also insulates [Boeing] from material cancellations," the agency noted.

If you missed it yesterday, there is mounting pressure for the Australian competition watchdog to investigate claims that supermarkets are price-gouging at the checkout, while reaping substantial profits.

Yesterday, Queensland Premier Steven Miles shared a letter he sent to the bosses of Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Aldi last week, asking for a personal meeting and for them to explain the widening gap between the prices farmers receive for their produce and the prices customers pay at the checkout.

The federal opposition has backed calls for an ACCC inquiry into alleged price gouging by supermarkets, which has the support from Bundaberg farmer Trevor Cross, who says some of the prices farmers are being paid are equivalent to what they received in 1978.

The calls for an ACCC inquiry into price gouging claims follows a union-backed inquiry currently being held by former ACCC boss Allan Fels, while a Senate inquiry looking at supermarket prices is set to begin next month.

You can read more about this story below:

United States mining giant, Alcoa, has announced it will halt production at one of its three West Australian alumina refineries, cutting over 750 workers.

The company, which has been operating in WA for over sixty years, will stop production at its plant on the Kwinana industrial strip, south of Perth, later this year.

Announcing the move this morning, Alcoa said the plant’s workforce would be cut from about 800 to about 250 in the third quarter of this year, when all production would stop, and then further reduce staff numbers to about 50 in 2025.

The company’s Executive Vice President, Matt Reed said the decision was being made due to a variety of factors including the plant’s age, operating costs and current market conditions.

If there's one graph that shows what a huge effect the growing phenomenon of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are having on retailing, it's this.

You can see the massive spike in retail sales during November compared with other months.

In 2023, online retail turnover, as measured by the ABS survey, jumped by more than a billion dollars (or by nearly 27%) in November compared to October.

Every year recently, that spending has then eased back slightly in December before dropping off sharply in January.

So, at least online, we're doing most of our purchases well ahead of Christmas during the November sales events, and now largely ignoring the more traditional January discounting period.