Category: 3. Business

The Reserve Bank is expected to cut the cash rate for the third time this year on Tuesday, in a move that will give further relief to millions of householders with a mortgage – and hopefully spark some life into Australia’s struggling economy.

The economics teams at Australia’s four largest banks are now unanimous that the RBA board will lower the central bank’s cash rate target by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.6% at the end of the board’s two-day meeting.

Traders in financial markets are even more bullish, pricing in consecutive 0.25 percentage point rate cuts in July and August, followed by a third by November.

That would take the cash rate to 3.1% from 3.85%, but experts are less convinced rates will fall that far this year, with most suggesting two cuts, rather than three, is more likely.

Whatever the case, the outcome will mean interest bills will be hundreds of dollars lower for borrowers, who emerged from the pandemic period with more debt than ever.

A rate cut on Tuesday will drop the repayment on a $500,000 home loan from $3,200 per month to $3,124 – a saving of $76.

That’s a saving of about $230 per month by the time the RBA rate cuts in February, May and potentially next week are passed on to borrowers.

Graph showing the change in price of selected goods and services in Australia

So far, however, the prospect of lower interest bills for the 3.3m mortgaged households has done surprisingly little to boost consumer spending.

Total household spending has barely budged this year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with signs of life only emerging in the latest figures from May.

NAB’s head of market economics, Tapas Strickland, said consumption was on track for another weak quarter.

“That still argues to the view that the RBA should cut rates next week, and quickly bring the cash rate down towards neutral” – or to 3.1% by November, he said.

Retail sales have been particularly weak.

After bouncing around wildly as the country went in and out of Covid lockdowns, sales per person, and after adjusting for inflation, have steadily declined to be only 4.5% above pre-pandemic levels, according to figures provided by AMP.

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Graph showing that real retail spending per person is weak

While inflation is now firmly under 3% and expected to stay there for the foreseeable future, Australia remains a much more expensive place, a fact we are reminded of every day.

Prices are 21% higher than they were five years ago, according to the ABS’s consumer price index (CPI).

Belinda Allen, a senior economist at CBA, said she had been surprised by how consumption was not picking up in response to falling inflation, climbing wages and lower interest rates.

The CBA’s internal data on its millions of banking customers suggest many Australians are keeping the extra cash in their pockets.

“We see roughly one-third of all transactions in the economy, (and) there just does seem to have been this shift by the consumer to save and pay down debt rather than spend,” Allen said.

“We’ve been waiting for this to shift, and it looks like it’s taking longer than we expected.”

Allen’s early theory is that households remain “scarred” by the experience of the past few years.

This reticence to spend, alongside the potential fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war, is a key risk to what is otherwise a reasonably positive outlook for the Australian economy in the months ahead, she said.

‘I had a few open orders I was dealing with, and then the site just went down,’ says Stanley Louissaint, founder of Fluid Designs. ‘No word on fulfillment, no system access… nothing. The backlog is obvious.’

Ingram Micro late Saturday confirmed that it had been hit with a ransomware attack and that it is “working diligently to restore the affected systems so that it can process and ship orders.”

The $48 billion distribution behemoth, which notified law enforcement and has launched an “investigation” with the assistance of leading cybersecurity experts, “apologized” to customers, vendor partners and others for any “disruption” caused by the incident.

Bleeping Computer reported Saturday that Ingram Micro has been hit with a ransomware attack associated with the Safepay ransomware organization.

Ingram Micro’s website and online ordering systems have been down since Thursday, according to Bleeping Computer.

On Sunday morning, users visiting the Irvine, Calif.-based company’s website were met with the message “Ingram Micro is currently experiencing a cybersecurity incident, for more information ‘click here’,” which directs users to their official statement about the incident.

Among systems impacted are Ingram’s flagship AI-powered Xvantage platform and the Impulse license provisioning platform, according to Bleeping Computer.

When reached by CRN on Sunday to confirm that Xvantage was down and orders could not be shipped, Ingram referred back to their official statement.

[Related: CrowdStrike Remains Cybersecurity ‘Gold Standard:’ Analyst]

However, for partners like Stanley Louissaint, founder and principal of New Jersey-based MSP Fluid Designs, the bigger issue has been the company’s silence.

“The biggest issue in this situation isn’t even the attack itself,” Louissaint told CRN. “It’s the lack of openness and communication. That’s what completely takes the trust out of a distributor-partner relationship.”

He said his last communication from Ingram was an advertising email on June 26. Since then, despite having open orders and active business with the distributor, he hasn’t received a single update.

“I had a few open orders I was dealing with, and then the site just went down,” he said. “No word on fulfillment, no system access… nothing. The backlog is obvious.”

While his company wasn’t critically affected, thanks to diversified sourcing from other distributors, he expressed concern for businesses that rely solely on Ingram.

“There are companies completely stuck. They can’t ship, can’t fulfill orders, can’t operate,” he said. “That’s why we never put all our eggs in one basket.”

He also raised questions about Ingram’s preparedness and response strategy.

“What was your contingency plan? What’s your disaster recovery process? Was it tested? Clearly, something failed,” he said. “Are you paying the ransom? Are you not? People want transparency.”

The CEO for an SP500 solution provider, who did not want to be identified, said given that Ingram has confirmed it cannot ship orders at this point his company is actively working on a “plan B” to ensure its customers are not impacted by shipping delays.

“Our first priority is meeting our shipping commitments to our customers,” said the CEO. “We also have an obligation to our OEMs so we can recognize revenue. We are reaching out now to our larger OEMs and TD Synnex to make sure our customers are taken care of if this is not resolved quickly. We need to make sure we understand shipping status and timing. If this isn’t resolved by Wednesday next week we are going to have to move our business.”

While many partners express frustration and concern, James Rocker, whose New York-based company is a Trust X Alliance partner with Ingram, is confident the distributor is handling the attack the best they can.

“At this time, Ingram Micro has not released an official statement out of their respect for the situation and investigative process,” he said via text message. “We believe it’s important to allow their team to gather all the facts before drawing conclusions and making public commentary. Cyber threats are an evolving and persistent challenge across the entire channel, and this event is a reminder that even the most prepared organizations are not immune.”

Rocker, founder and CEO of Hauppauge, N.Y.-based MSP Nerds That Care, remained optimistic and said he’s confident in Ingram’s “transparency, response efforts and commitment to minimizing disruption for partners and customers.”

“It’s critical that we as an industry continue to raise the bar on cybersecurity, share intelligence and support one another through incidents like this,” he said. “We trust Ingram Micro is taking the necessary steps to investigate thoroughly and will communicate when appropriate. Until then, we’ll monitor the situation closely and remain focused on ensuring our clients and partners are secure.”

Steven Burke contributed to this report.

Story Continues

The authors of a paper that went viral with attention-grabbing headlines urging people to throw out their black plastic kitchen tools have corrected the work for a second time.

But a letter accompanying the correction suggests the latest update still fails “to completely correct the math and methodological errors present in the study,” according to Mark Jones, an industrial chemist and consultant who has been following the case. “The errors are sufficient to warrant a restating of the abstract, sections of the paper and conclusions, if not a retraction.”

The paper, “From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling,” originally appeared in Chemosphere in September. The study authors, from the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future and the Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, looked for the presence of flame retardants in certain household plastic items, including toys, food service trays and kitchen utensils. 

The researchers found toxic flame retardants in several items that wouldn’t ordinarily need fire protection, such as sushi trays, vegetable peelers, slotted spoons and pasta servers. Those items, the authors suggested, could have been made from recycled electronics — which do contain flame retardants. 

Then, for kitchen utensils, the authors used findings from another study, which measured how toxic chemicals including BDE-209 transfer from black plastic utensils into hot cooking oil, to estimate potential intake based on findings in their own study. They estimated a daily intake of 34,700 ng/day of BDE-209 from using contaminated utensils, which “would approach the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose” set by the Environmental Protection Agency, they reported.

But the authors miscalculated that reference dose. They had put it at 42,000 ng/day instead of 420,000 ng/day. That hiccup led to the first correction to the paper, published in December. “This calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper,” the authors said in the corrigendum.

The latest corrigendum, published July 3, states the formula the authors used to estimate exposure to the flame retardant BDE-209 “was misinterpreted.” It continues:

This misinterpretation led to an overestimation of the BDE-209 exposure concentration. The corrected estimated BDE-209 exposure is 7900 ng/day instead of 34,700 ng/day.

“While we regret the error, this is a correction in one exposure example in the discussion section of the study,” lead author Megan Liu of Toxic-Free Future told us by email. “The example was not part of the core research objectives or methods of the study.”

Jones, who spent his career at Dow Chemical, told us the second corrigendum is “inadequate and still incorrect.”

“If the error is sufficiently large to only provide context, the statement in the Conclusions that brominated flame retardants ‘significantly contaminate products’ no longer can be supported and must be corrected or retracted following the reasoning presented in the second corrigendum,” Jones wrote in a letter to the editor published with the second correction.

Jones took to task some of the calculations and other estimates Liu and colleagues made, which the authors refute in a response to Jones’ letter, also published in Chemosphere this week. 

The Elsevier journal was delisted from Clarivate’s Web of Science in December for failing to meet editorial quality criteria. Last December an Elsevier spokesperson told us the publisher’s ethics team was“conducting in-depth investigations” of “potential breaches of Chemosphere’s publishing policies.” The journal had published more than 60 expressions of concern in 2024 and has retracted 34 articles so far this year.

Part of delisting means Clarivate no longer indexes the journal’s papers or counts its citations. Google Scholar shows seven citations to Liu’s paper, and Dimensions lists four scholarly citations.

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Related

• Investors seem to keep focusing on yields, which are high for the moment
• New Leadership might seek to address rating concerns
• April 2026 allows testing investors’ sentiment with a call option on a bond maturing in May

The value of international bonds issued by Afreximbank remains strong on European secondary markets, even after Moody’s downgraded its rating on the institution on July 1, 2025. “The bank’s recent move into unsecured sovereign lending has introduced significant risks, diverging from its traditional trade finance focus and exposing it more acutely to challenging operational conditions,” Moody’s wrote. The U.S. rating agency echoed concerns previously raised by Fitch Ratings in June.

Credit Concerns vs. Market Performance

Moody’s flagged loans to Ghana and Zambia as potential threats to the bank’s equity base, as both countries are undergoing debt restructuring under the G20 Common Framework, which requires losses comparable to those borne by private creditors. The agency also cited a decline in the quality of the bank’s funding due to reduced diversification in funding sources.

The immediate concern for investors centers around a Eurobond maturing on May 17, 2026. As of July 4, the bond was trading at 95.39% of its face value, below the peak of 102.8% reached in September 2021, but still 14.4% above its low of 81.6% in October 2022. Analysts at JPMorgan recently told CNBC Africa that this resilience reflects investor appetite for higher yields rather than deep concern over sovereign exposure.

Dr. Georges Elombi, formerly Executive Vice President and appointed President of Afreximbank on June 30, 2025, expressed disagreement with Fitch’s assessment, questioning assumptions that African sovereigns would default: “Why wouldn’t they honor their commitments as stakeholders in the bank?”

Leadership Continuity and Strategic Outlook

The methodology behind credit assessments remains a point of contention. Both Fitch and Moody’s apply conservative frameworks that, in their view, elevate the probability of default. Ghana and Zambia represent 3.02% of Afreximbank’s outstanding loans and 8.04% of its equity. While restructuring is ongoing, neither country has defaulted. This view contrasts with international accounting standards, which classify a loan as non-performing only after 90 days of missed payments.

Despite the ratings pressure, Moody’s acknowledged the bank’s liquidity buffer is sufficient to meet obligations for 18 months. Fitch also suggested this window could cover any temporary suspensions in sovereign repayments.

Afreximbank has bolstered its position by recovering repayments and raising $823 million through Panda and Samurai bonds between late 2024 and early 2025. The bank’s liquidity reserve now stands at $9.5 billion—an important confidence signal for investors.

Dr. Elombi’s appointment seen as a sign of policy continuity following the tenure of Dr. Benedict Oramah, will have to face these challenges, but also rising opportunities. Calls to establish an African credit rating agency are gaining traction. A recent Africa Finance Corporation report estimates the continent holds $4 trillion in untapped liquidity.

Experts continue to advocate for greater reliance on Asian and Middle Eastern capital markets to bypass the structural hurdles of Western financing channels. Afreximbank has an opportunity to test investor sentiment directly if it decides on April 17, 2026, to refinance its $600 million Eurobond, which is due in May 2026. Such an operation would help determine potential refinancing terms.

The original bond carried a 2.63% coupon—issued at a time when global yields were near zero. Today, 10-year Eurozone government bonds yield an average of 3.17%, while U.S. Treasuries hover around 4%. Afreximbank’s bonds continue to offer an attractive yield of 6.04%, with semiannual interest payments.

By Idriss Linge

People have been evacuated from a broken-down Eurostar train in northern France after waiting nearly four hours for help, passengers have told the BBC.

One person who was on board said they had been stuck on the train without air conditioning before emergency services and local rescue teams arrived to hand out water.

James Grierson said he was evacuated alongside a number of “very frustrated” passengers, and there was “no sign” of a replacement train to collect them.

Eurostar has been approached for comment. It had earlier posted messages on social media urging passengers to remain in their seats and wait for a replacement train.

The affected train was en route from Brussels to London before it suffered “some electrical failing 10 minutes outside of Calais”, Mr Grierson said.

Eurostar has not yet commented on the cause of the delay.

Pictures from the scene show dozens of people stood outside the stationary train, along with rescuers in high-vis jackets – one carrying an armful of bottled water.

Several passengers have messaged Eurostar on X, complaining of no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and a lack of updates.

The rail operator has replied to some of these messages apologising and saying a replacement train has been arranged to pick them up.

Research published at the end of last year by the Investment Company Institute with help from the University of Chicago found that gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 – are “outpacing” earlier generations in contributing to retirement, having more than three times more assets in their 401(k) retirement savings accounts than gen X households had at the same time in 1989, adjusted for inflation.

This mirrors a 2023 study from the TransAmerica Center for Retirement Studies, which found that gen Z is doing a “remarkable job” saving for retirement with many putting away as much as 20% of their income towards the future.

It’s no wonder why.

The oldest of this generation probably have early memories of the 2009-2010 financial crisis. They have lived through a global pandemic. Their social media accounts are frightening them with stories of political upheavals, global warming, indiscriminate violence, riots, chaos and anarchy. Older generations got this kind of news maybe once or twice a day. This generation gets it fed to them every minute. They yearn for security. And one way is to save their money.

The question is, are they doing enough? What more could be done? Here are three things we should be considering.

Maximizing ‘after-tax’ options

Thanks to the Secure2022 legislation, employers can now not only offer Roth 401(k) plans for their employees but can also contribute to those plans. We should all have one. That’s because – within income limitations – contributions to a Roth 401(k) are made after taxes have been paid but then grow tax-free and can be withdrawn without any tax liability after the age of 59 1/2. gen Zers – who are likely to be paying less in taxes now due to their relatively lower salaries – can put this money away at lower rates, rather than just defer taxation to a future year when, under regular 401(k) rules, distributions become required. And they can let these sums grow without worrying about paying any more taxes in the future. As an employer, you can provide investment options that can help maximize their returns too.

Another great after-tax vehicle is the 529 plan. By offering this plan, an employer can help their employees – both younger and older – put after-tax money away that will grow tax-free and can then be withdrawn if used to pay for higher education, private school or religious school. It’s a great way for gen Zers to save for their future kids’ education instead of paying for it out of funds that would be used for their own retirement years down the line.

Offering an HSA

Health Saving Accounts have exploded in popularity over the past decade, and it’s no surprise why. With these accounts – which need to be paired with a high deductible group insurance plan – employees can sock away pre-tax dollars to be used for medical expenses that are not reimbursed by their health plans. Gains and withdrawals are not taxed. The beauty of these plans is you don’t have to use them or lose them – any unused balances just roll over to the next year. Some call it a 401(k) for healthcare, and they’re not wrong. It’s a great way for younger employees to put away money that could help pay for their future healthcare costs without interfering with their retirement savings.

Matching student loans

Agree or not, the Trump administration has reversed course with its predecessor and is now demanding student loan repayments. The result is that many younger people are going to need to face the reality of making good on their debt. One fallout will surely be less cash available to put away for retirement. But as employers, we can help. The Secure 2022 legislation now makes it legal for us to match their student loan payments with contributions to their 401(k) plans. This way even if they don’t have enough funds to put away for the future, employers can help make up the difference. This is something we should all consider.

Providing counseling

As a certified public accountant, I have spent my life dealing with money – both my own and my clients’. And yet every day I learn something new and still have to rely on the internet to clarify and research financial questions that I have. Now, imagine being a 25-year-old trying to figure out all the options. It’s impossible. A good employer should have an outside financial counselor on retainer who can provide one-to-one advice for their employees once or twice a year. My best clients do this. And it’s not just about retirement. It’s buying a house, getting insurance, owning a car … all the financial decisions that in the end affect what’s left over for retirement.

According to a recent Goldman Sachs survey 60% of gen Z respondents report “having a personalized financial plan, not just for retirement but also for goals like buying a home or a car” and 68% “believe their savings are on-track or ahead of schedule”.

Sounds great. But I’m betting that “plan” could be improved. Employers should be providing more help to help save for retirement. And the good news is that they have got a generation eager to take it.

(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia raised prices for its main crude grade for buyers in Asia next month as demand for oil and fuels holds up. The move, a day after OPEC producers agreed to a fourth round of big output hikes, suggests the kingdom is confident about the market.

State producer Aramco will raise the price for Arab Light crude, its flagship grade, by $1 a barrel to $2.20 a barrel more than the regional benchmark for Asian customers, according to a price sheet from the company seen by Bloomberg. 

Three refinery officials in Asia expressed their surprise at the size of the increase. Aramco was expected to raise Arab Light by 65 cents a barrel, according to a survey of traders and refiners. 

On Saturday, the Saudis on Saturday led the OPEC group, which includes partners like Russia, in agreeing to raise production by 548,000 barrels a day in August, in part to take advantage of strong summer consumption. The increase, faster than traders and analysts foresaw, may contribute to a crude surplus later this year with Wall Street firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. anticipating that prices sink near $60 a barrel in the fourth quarter.

The OPEC increase puts the group on pace to unwind the layer of voluntary output cuts by eight members by September, which is one year earlier than originally outlined. The countries had announced increases of 411,000 barrels for each of May, June and July — already three times faster than scheduled.

Read: OPEC Will Boost Supply Even Faster With Larger August Hike (2)

Oil spiked above $80 a barrel last month as Israel exchanged missile barrages with Iran in one of the most dramatic escalations of conflict in the Middle East in recent years. Markets had largely shrugged off prior geopolitical tensions linked to Israel’s war in Gaza and attacks on Hezbollah as those conflicts failed to impede the flow of oil.

While a wider war involving Iran could put energy production and export infrastructure at risk, Brent crude fell back below $70 a barrel soon after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Tehran and Jerusalem and limited the US involvement in attacks.

Demand for crude and products has largely held up amid summer use with margins for refiners rising. Still, traders see the market softening later this year as consumption wanes and the OPEC increases contribute to a surplus of crude in storage. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies are set to bring back to market 2.2 million barrels a day overall this year once it unwinds the voluntary cuts.

–With assistance from Alex Longley and Alaric Nightingale.

(Updates with industry reaction in third paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

By Bill Peters

‘While the broader macro environment has been more resilient than feared, overall airline-industry demand has looked tepid,’ analyst says

The second-quarter earnings season will begin a little more quietly than usual this week, with results from Delta Air Lines Inc. due on Thursday.

Wall Street’s advice? Keep expectations low.

TD Cowen analyst Tom Fitzgerald, in a research note last week, cited “stable” but also “tepid” demand for flight tickets, as the U.S.’s trade wars and related negotiations keep people anxious over the broader economy. And as the peak summer travel season picks up, he said he isn’t expecting much from airline stocks.

“We believe U.S. airline shares will be biased downward over the near term due to persistent pricing weakness,” Fitzgerald said. “We do not expect them to catch a bid until there’s greater clarity on consumer demand and 2026 industry pricing. This year increasingly looks like a lost year.”

Among headwinds, New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport – a major hub serving the New York metro area – has suffered from dropped connections in its communications network, understaffing among air-traffic controllers and runway repairs that have snarled travel. Similar issues have emerged at other airports, while geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have threatened to push fuel prices higher.

The airline industry is expected to trim flight schedules to stay in line with weaker demand. Delta (DAL) Chief Executive Ed Bastian, during the company’s earnings call in April, said that “given broad economic uncertainty around global trade, growth has largely stalled.”

“The impact has been most pronounced in domestic, and specifically in the main cabin, with softness in both consumer and corporate travel,” he added.

As MarketWatch noted last week, analysts expect premium seating classes and other high-end offerings – which Delta has focused more on in recent years – to fare better than demand in the main cabin. They also expect international travel to outperform domestic travel. Those trends could help better shield the three major U.S. carriers – Delta, United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL) and American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) – from the worst of the industry’s current threats to sales and profits.

More extensive detail on the state of the economy and the consumer will come next week, when JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and some of the other big banks report results. Those banks have typically reported during the same week as Delta.

Still, even as the economy holds up, Delta’s shares are down around 16% so far this year.

“While the broader macro environment has been more resilient than feared, overall airline-industry demand has looked tepid,” Fitzgerald said.

The call to put on your calendar

Levi’s and the tariff deadline: Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI) reports quarterly results on Thursday. Those results, and the conference call that executives will hold with analysts afterward, could offer more context on the aftermath of July 9, when a 90-day break from the steepest U.S. tariffs on other nations is set to end.

Analysts have said Levi’s has enough levers to pull to offset most of the tariffs – including more leeway to keep prices higher – and noted that the company had gained popularity with younger shoppers as it tries to sell more clothing besides jeans. The U.S. last week announced a trade deal with Vietnam, where a lot of shoes and clothes get made. But some analysts say that deal likely sets the stage for more tariff hikes on other nations who also produce much of the apparel sold in the U.S.

During Levi’s earnings call in April, executives said China accounted for around 1% of the goods that the company brought into the U.S., with some 5% from Mexico and “mid-to-high single digits” from Vietnam. They added that nations like Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were also essential to its manufacturing.

The number to watch

Costco’s monthly sales growth: Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) is set to release sales figures for the month of June on Wednesday. The membership warehouse chain typically puts out those results with little fanfare. But analysts will be watching for signs of growth, or lack thereof, as shoppers stay budget-conscious amid higher prices and worries about the economy.

Elsewhere, results during the week from packaged-foods company Conagra Brands Inc. (CAG) will provide an indirect look at consumer behavior in the grocery store.

-Bill Peters

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