Sydney fell 1.4 per cent and Melbourne 1.2 per cent, and the downturn has now spread to the capitals that had been holding up: Brisbane fell 0.6 per cent and Adelaide 0.2 per cent, each a second consecutive monthly decline after revisions, while Perth rose 0.1 per cent. Over the July quarter the five-city aggregate fell 2.0 per cent, with Sydney down 3.7 per cent and Melbourne down 3.0 per cent. The Guardian attributed the falls to the Middle East conflict feeding through to household budgets and to the capital gains tax and negative gearing changes.

That removes the 16 cent a litre discount that had been running since 1 July and adds 1.1 cents of indexation. The excise was originally cut from 52.6 cents in April, by 26.3 cents for three months, after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz drove petrol and diesel to record prices. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has confirmed the relief was always temporary. The September-quarter consumer price index is the first reading to carry the fully restored rate.

The rate falls to 1.5 per cent where enough deals are struck, and the government expects the scheme to direct between $200 million and $250 million a year to Australian journalism, allocated by the number of journalists a publisher employs. The government has said it anticipates the law covering Meta, Alphabet's Google and TikTok, and legislation is due later this year.

Battery-electric share alone has risen every month this year on Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries data, from 8.4 per cent of sales in January to 23.4 per cent in June. A fleet shifting this fast narrows the base the restored fuel excise is levied on, and it is demand that fuel retailers do not get back when crude falls.

He said the proposed agreement would include the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear threat, and that the pause depends on a deal being reached rapidly. The strait has been closed to most traffic since 28 February. Iran and Oman are still exchanging proposals on how the two shipping corridors would be managed, with Tehran having rejected an Omani plan to split traffic evenly, and the Financial Times reported on Sunday that an agreement is close.

The group also reached agreement in principle to pause increases after September for the rest of the year, which would leave roughly 2 million barrels a day of cuts dating to 2022 in place while members negotiate new baseline quotas. Reuters reported that this year's monthly increases have largely stayed on paper, because export disruption from the Gulf, Russia and Kazakhstan has held actual barrels below quota. The core signatories were Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman.

The dollar is at 157.44 yen, down 1.7 per cent on the day and 3.8 per cent over five sessions, after the yen reached its weakest level against the dollar since 1986 last week. The New York Federal Reserve executed the buying, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's notepad at Friday's cabinet meeting listed a purchase of US$5 billion to US$10 billion of yen. Katayama said both governments are prepared to counter declines they judge excessive.

That is the highest Japanese policy rate since September 1995, after a 25 basis point increase in June. Reuters reported the Bank has signalled a strong possibility of raising rates again soon, which would narrow the yield gap to United States assets that has pulled the yen to 40-year lows and is the reason the intervention was needed.

Delaware Life Insurance and Clear Spring Life and Annuity control about US$85 billion between them. Private credit valuation and ratings practice is also an ASIC enforcement priority in Australia for 2026: the regulator's surveillance of 28 private credit funds found a number with either no valuation policy or an inadequate one, and it has since issued stop orders on retail private credit target market determinations.

CNBC attributed the fall to attacks in and around the Persian Gulf, volatile energy prices, questions over Federal Reserve policy and a slide in semiconductor shares, alongside investors challenging technology valuations and the returns on rising capital spending. Eight Nasdaq-100 constituents rose over the month, led by Autodesk, up almost 21 per cent.

AstraZeneca is valued at about US$263 billion and Bristol Myers Squibb at about US$133 billion, and a deal on those terms would make AstraZeneca the world's fourth-largest drugmaker by market capitalisation. Talks have run over several months and the Financial Times reported they could still be delayed or collapse. Both companies have large oncology divisions, which is where antitrust scrutiny would concentrate, and both declined to comment. Neither stock has traded since the report.

Atkore makes electrical conduit, cable management and safety products used in construction, energy, data-centre and telecommunications projects, so the deal would take Prysmian from cable into the electrical hardware that surrounds it, the same build-out that is driving hyperscaler capital spending. No price has been reported. Prysmian declined to comment and Atkore did not respond to a request for comment.

Banco BPM walked away after Credit Agricole, its largest shareholder, said it saw no value in combining two mid-sized banks and would prefer to fold its own Italian unit into Banco BPM. Monte dei Paschi is itself defending a 35 billion euro offer from Intesa Sanpaolo, so the outcome sets the shape of Italian bank consolidation and the pricing reference for the next European bank deal.

Chief executive Tim Cook told analysts memory costs accounted for more than the entire sequential decline in Apple's adjusted gross margin, and that Apple will pay more for memory in the September quarter than it did in the June quarter. June-quarter revenue was a record US$109.4 billion, up 16 per cent. The same memory shortage is what pushed Amazon's capital spending guidance higher.

Amazon Web Services revenue was US$42.2 billion in the June quarter, up 37 per cent against the 31 per cent analysts expected and the division's fastest growth in 18 quarters. Contracted cloud commitments rose to US$496 billion from US$364 billion over the quarter, and group net sales were US$200.6 billion, up 20 per cent from US$167.7 billion.

That sits behind Avengers: Endgame's US$357 million in 2019 and follows a record US$72 million from preview screenings. Openings of that size are shared with the exhibitors as well as the studio, which in Australia includes Event Hospitality and Entertainment, owner of Event Cinemas.