17m agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 11:33pm
Market snapshot
- ASX 200: +0.3% to 8,630 points
- Australian dollar: +0.1% to 65.2 US cents
- S&P 500: +0.7% to 6,812 points
- Nasdaq: +0.8% to 23,215 points
- FTSE: +0.9% to 9,692 points
- EuroStoxx: +1.2% to 596 points
- Spot gold: Flat at $US4,143/ounce
- Brent crude: +0.9% to $US63.07/barrel
- Iron ore: +1% to $US103.50/tonne
- Bitcoin: +0.2% to $US90,371
Price current around 10:30am AEDT
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
29m agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 11:21pm
APRA threatens more interventions if needed
Australia’s banks are about to get new rules, that will limit how many risky loans they can dole out.
That’s after APRA just announced new caps on high debt-to-income (DTI) home lending, which is considered to be where someone is borrowing more than six times their annual household income.
The rules come into effect in February. The cap of 20% will apply separately to owner-occupier and investor lending, but is expected to bite harder for investors, who tend to borrow more relative to their incomes.
APRA’s chair John Lonsdale is telling journalists right now that some banks are touching on these limits. He won’t disclose who.
“There are some that are close to the limit. And I can also tell you we’ve been in discussion with all the major banks on what our expectations are here,” he says.
“We will be back with more interventions if we need to.”
30m agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 11:20pm
ASX opens up
The Australian share market has opened higher following a positive lead from Wall Street.
The ASX 200 index was up 0.2% or 16 points to 8,622, by 10:15am AEDT.
At the same time, the Aussie dollar was flat at 65.2 US cents.
38m agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 11:12pm
Some lenders are ‘close’ to APRA’s looming rules
APRA is currently speaking to journalists about the new and unprecedented lending rules for home loans that it has just announced this morning.
The new restrictions it will bring in from February are caps on high debt-to-income (DTI) home lending, which is considered to be where someone is borrowing more than six times their annual household income.
The cap of 20% will apply separately to owner-occupier and investor lending, but is expected to bite harder for investors, who tend to borrow more relative to their incomes.
The financial regulator’s chair John Lonsdale just told reporters on a briefing call that there are “some entities that are reasonably close to that limit we are bringing in”.
“I don’t want to talk about particular entities,” he added.
“We are currently not seeing signs of a broad based deterioration in lending standards.”
APRA says it is bringing in these rules to get ahead of a worse situation. They noted it is more lending to property investors than owner occupier buyers that is getting more exposed.
1h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 10:45pm
ICYMI: Alan Kohler’s Finance Report
1h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 10:09pm
Financial abuse estimated to cost the economy nearly $11 billion a year
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The Albanese government wants to make it harder for perpetrators of financial abuse to appoint directors without consent and to saddle victims with tax debts.
Economic abuse is estimated to cost the economy nearly $11 billion a year, and affect more than 2.4 million Australians.
Submissions to the consultation will close on December 24.
This story from business reporter Nassim Khadem.
1h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 10:04pm
Why are new dwellings excluded
Morning Michael. Why would “new dwellings “ be excluded from the DTI cap ?
– Phillip
Good question Phillip. Here is APRA’s answer from its statement:
“APRA’s DTI limit excludes bridging loans for owner-occupiers and loans for the purchase or construction of new dwellings.
“This will enable the smooth functioning of property transactions and avoid constraining incentives for the supply of new housing.
“While the lending limit will apply to all ADIs, there will be some proportionate treatment for smaller ADIs.”
In short, sounds like it’s mainly to assist the federal and state government home building push.
1h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 10:01pm
APRA taking pre-emptive action to head off housing boom risks, may take further action
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s chair John Lonsdale says the banking regulator is acting pre-emptively to head off risks generated by a booming housing market.
“One of the key structural risks to system stability that APRA has long been concerned about is high household indebtedness,” he notes in a statement accompanying the announcement of new macroprudential restrictions on home loans.
“Rising indebtedness has in the past often been associated with an increase in riskier lending and rapid growth in property prices.”
The new restrictions are caps on high debt-to-income (DTI) home lending, which is considered to be where someone is borrowing more than six times their annual household income.
The cap of 20% will apply separately to owner-occupier and investor lending, but is expected to bite harder for investors, who tend to borrow more relative to their incomes.
APRA says relatively few of the banks and credit unions it regulates are at the cap currently, but the limit is intending to stop the market running away into a dangerous position.
“Although broader risks are contained, we have seen in the past that they can build rapidly when interest rates are low or declining, borrowers extend themselves and competition among banks for new mortgage lending intensifies, which can lead to easing lending standards,” Lonsdale warns.
“We will consider additional limits, including investor-specific limits, if we see macro-financial risks significantly rising or a deterioration in lending standards.”
2h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 9:49pm
Bank regulator announces limits on high debt-to-income loans
As flagged earlier in the week by esteemed colleague Ian Verrender, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) will impose so-called macroprudential restrictions on home loans from early next year.
The banking regulator says that, from February 1, no more than 20% of a bank’s new loans can have a debt-to-income (DTI) ratio of more than six.
For example, if your annual household income is $100,000 a year, any loan greater than $600,000 would be counted towards that cap.
The regulator says the cap will apply separately to investor and owner-occupier loans.
APRA says only a small number of authorised deposit taking institutions (ADIs) are expected to be near the limit for high DTI investor lending at this stage.
“Should levels of high DTI lending rise towards the 20 per cent limit over the coming period, this limit will act as a guardrail and is expected to have greater impact on investors, who typically borrow at higher DTI ratios than owner-occupiers,” the regulator noted in a release announcing the cap.
APRA says bridging loans and loans for the construction of new dwellings will be excluded from the cap.
2h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 9:32pm
Rate hikes possible in 2026, warns CBA chief economist
Commonwealth Bank’s chief economist Luke Yeaman is warning that Australia’s economy is running close to full speed, creating a headache for the Reserve Bank.
He says stronger growth, a resilient labour market, rising house prices and an inflation surprise in the September quarter and October monthly quarters have taken rate cuts off the table and raised the risk of hikes in 2026.
He thinks Australia is “getting close to our economic speed limit”, with potential growth now lower.
Speaking to host of The Business Kirsten Aiken, Mr Yeaman said “the question is where to from here into 2026? Do they (the RBA) need to take out a little bit more insurance to keep inflation under control?”
“Our view is that when you look through the inflation surprises that we’ve had some of those factors driving that are temporary, and some of them look a little more persistent, but there are definitely some temporary factors at play too.
“So we’re still hopeful that as we move into 2026, we’ll start to see the economy stabilise and inflation come back towards the target band. But there are certainly risks mounting on the upside.”
Even though energy prices have rose on an annual basis by 37 per cent to October, Mr Yeaman says while it impacts households, the Reserve Bank isn’t concerned about energy prices, they’re “looking through it”.
Loading…2h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 8:58pm
New monthly CPI shows inflation spiked in October
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Annual inflation in Australia jumped to 3.8 per cent in October, up from 3.6 per cent in September, pushing hopes of interest rate cuts further out of reach.
The largest contributors to annual inflation were housing (+5.9 per cent), food and non-alcoholic beverages (+3.2 per cent), and recreation and culture (+3.2 cent).
This is the first release of the complete Monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Michelle Marquardt, ABS head of prices statistics, says it marks the transition from the traditional quarterly CPI to the complete monthly CPI as Australia’s primary measure of headline inflation.
You can watch this story from me or read the article from business reporter Gareth Hutchens.
2h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 8:53pm
Black Friday sales shoppers binge their way into debt
With millions of Australians tipped to spend record amounts this Black Friday, the value of personal credit and charge-card balances accruing interest has hit its highest level since 2021.
Financial counsellors warn promotions and the festive season put social pressure on Australians to spend beyond their means during the sales period.
Black Friday falls tomorrow while Cyber Monday is Monday, December 1.
Read this story from business correspondent David Taylor.
3h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 8:50pm
Wall St to register fourth straight session of gains
All three major US stock indexes were on course to notch their fourth consecutive daily gains, as investors looked past the worries over inflated tech valuations that dragged all three indexes to losses last week.
Those fears ebbed in the aftermath of artificial intelligence doyen Nvidia’s upbeat quarterly results and forward guidance, and were eased further by AI server maker Dell Technologies’ consensus-beating fourth-quarter revenue forecast.
“Nvidia … put some of the short-term fears to rest,” said Matthew Keator, managing partner in the Keator Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts.
“Since then we’ve seen some dovish comments from the Fed, particularly the New York Fed governor, which I think are signaling a potential cut next month, and I think that that’s what’s been driving the markets lately.”
A poll conducted by Reuters showed that, on average, analysts expect the S&P 500 to rise by 12% between now and year-end 2026, powered by a robust economy, continued tech sector strength and an accommodative Fed.
The Fed’s Beige Book, which summarises economic activity conditions by district, appeared to have little to no effect on rate cut expectations.
Financial markets are currently pricing in a likelihood of 84.9% that the central bank will implement a 25-basis-point reduction to its key Fed funds target rate at the conclusion of its December policy meeting, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.
On the other hand, while initial claims for unemployment insurance landed below consensus, ongoing claims remain on an upward trend, supporting recent survey data showing consumers’ assessment of the labor market is deteriorating.
With Reuters
3h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 8:44pm
Market snapshot
- ASX 200 futures: +0.2% to 8,646 points
- Australian dollar: +0.8% to 65.2 US cents
- S&P 500: +0.7% to 6,812 points
- Nasdaq: +0.8% to 23,215 points
- FTSE: +0.9% to 9,692 points
- EuroStoxx: +1.2% to 596 points
- Spot gold: Flat at $US4,162/ounce
- Brent crude: +0.9% to $US63.04/barrel
- Iron ore: +1% to $US103.50/tonne
- Bitcoin: +3.6% to $US90,146
Price current around 9:00am AEDT
Live updates on the major ASX indices:
3h agoWed 26 Nov 2025 at 8:30pm
ASX set to rise at open
Good morning and welcome to Thursday’s markets live blog, where we’ll bring you the latest price action and news on the ASX and beyond.
A rally on Wall Street overnight sets the tone for local market action today.
The Dow Jones index gained 0.9 per cent, the S&P 500 up 0.9 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1 per cent.
ASX futures were up 31 points or 0.4 per cent to 8,657 at 7:00am AEDT.
At the same time, the Australian dollar was up 0.8 per cent to 65.2 US cents.
Brent crude oil was up 1.1 per cent, trading at $US63.2 a barrel.
Spot gold gained 0.9 per cent to $US4,166.
Iron ore rose 1 per cent to $US103.50 a tonne.
