MARKET AT 7
Good evening. Tonight's big story is really one story wearing two hats: Donald Trump's blunt ultimatum to Iran at the UN, and Tehran's own offer, hours later, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Markets spent the day reacting to both halves at once, pushing oil lower while tech stocks in New York kept setting records regardless.
In tonight's newsletter:
Trump threatens Iran as Tehran offers to reopen Hormuz
Nasdaq sets second straight record as Meta's AI app soars
Myer posts $276m loss as ASX drifts through a choppy session
Fonterra lifts milk price forecast to $9.50 per kilo
Bitcoin slips to $86,000 as ETF inflows near $1 billion
Trump threatens Iran as Tehran offers to reopen Hormuz
President Trump told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that Iran faces a stark choice: a deal that lets the country "rebuild," or the US will "annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly," the Washington Times reports. Hours later, US and Iranian officials held their first direct talks since June in New York, where a senior Iranian official told Kyodo News that Tehran had offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington eases its naval blockade. Trump called the meeting promising but doesn't expect a signed deal before November's US midterms, Axios reports, and Brent crude fell 0.9% to around US$98.40 a barrel in Wednesday trade on hopes the war might be winding down. Source: Washington Times, 22 Sep 2026 → · Source: Axios, 22 Sep 2026 → · Source: AP via WSLS, 23 Sep 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
An offer to reopen a strait isn't the same as reopening it. Iran has floated de-escalation before and walked it back within days, and nothing here is signed yet.
Nasdaq sets second straight record as Meta's AI app soars
Wall Street's Nasdaq Composite closed at 27,244.28 on Tuesday, up 0.45%, its second straight record close, as Meta shares surged after its new Muse AI agent app topped the US App Store, CNBC and Yahoo Finance report. The Dow slipped 185 points, or 0.36%, to 51,863.69, and the S&P 500 finished essentially flat at 7,764.64, as falling oil prices offset the tech-led gains elsewhere. Meta is on track for its best month in more than two years, with Muse offered as proof its huge AI spending is finally showing up in an actual product. New York hadn't opened for Wednesday's session at this run, so these figures are Tuesday's completed close, not today's trade. Source: CNBC, 22 Sep 2026 → · Source: Yahoo Finance, 22 Sep 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Nvidia and Broadcom carried the AI trade last week. This week it's an app people actually opened on their phones. That's a better sign for the story than another chip headline.
Myer posts $276m loss as ASX drifts through a choppy session
Department store chain Myer posted a $276.5 million annual loss on Wednesday, dragged down by $319 million in impairments, even as underlying profit held at $42.5 million, ABC News reports. Executive Chair Olivia Wirth pointed to "a material downturn in consumer sentiment" and cancelled the final dividend entirely. Shares still jumped 10% to 19.25 cents, with investors more focused on retail billionaire Solomon Lew joining the board than the headline loss. The ASX 200 itself ended little changed, up a fraction of a percent in choppy trade, as gold and lithium miners offset falls in energy and utilities tracking oil lower, marketindex.com.au and ABC News report. Source: ABC News, 23 Sep 2026 → · Source: Market Index, 23 Sep 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
A 10% share jump on a quarter-billion-dollar loss says the market wasn't grading Myer's year. It was grading who just joined the board.
Fonterra lifts milk price forecast to $9.50 per kilo
Fonterra lifted the midpoint of its 2026/27 farmgate milk price forecast to NZ$9.50 per kilogram of milk solids this week, up from $9.25, citing stronger Global Dairy Trade auction results for whole and skim milk powder since July, chief executive Richard Allen said in a statement to the NZX. The co-operative narrowed its forecast range to $8.50–$10.50 per kgMS, and Allen said "globally, we continue to see strength in demand," while flagging "geopolitical volatility" as a risk. The revised forecast sits well above DairyNZ's roughly $8.31 breakeven estimate for the season, handing farmers a healthier margin heading into summer. Source: NZX announcement, 21 Sep 2026 → · Source: Farmers Weekly, 21 Sep 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
New Zealand's economy leans on dairy more than most countries admit leaning on any one industry. A 25-cent lift in this forecast moves real money through farming towns, not just a spreadsheet in Auckland.
Bitcoin slips to $86,000 as ETF inflows near $1 billion
Bitcoin traded around US$86,235 on Tuesday evening US time, down 0.36% over 24 hours, as the wider crypto market cooled from last week's highs, CoinDesk pricing shows. Spot bitcoin ETFs still pulled in almost $1 billion of inflows on Monday, the ninth-largest single day since the funds launched in 2024, even as bitcoin lagged a rally in altcoins. Traders have also opened large options positions betting the price hits $95,000 by month's end, though bitcoin's own share of the crypto market has slipped below 60%. It's a Tuesday-evening snapshot of a market that trades around the clock, so today's number may already have moved. Source: CoinDesk, 22 Sep 2026 → · Source: KuCoin, 22 Sep 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Nobody agrees on where bitcoin goes next, not even the people betting real money on it. That's just how this market runs.
QUICK HITS
NAB outage knocks out banking app, mostly restored. National Australia Bank's internet banking, mobile app and phone banking all went down Wednesday afternoon with no scheduled maintenance to explain it, and the bank said it was "working to fix this as soon as possible." Most services were back online by evening, ABC News reports. Our take: an unscheduled outage at one of the big four still makes news, even one fixed within hours.
All four major banks now tip an RBA hike to 4.60%. Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB and ANZ are now unanimous in forecasting a quarter-point RBA rate rise to 4.60% at the board's 29 September meeting, up from 4.35%, citing oil near US$100 a barrel and stronger-than-expected inflation and GDP data, investinglive.com reports. That decision is still six days away; tonight's news is the banks agreeing, not the rate move itself. Our take: the debate isn't whether the RBA hikes anymore. It's how loudly the board says it.
Australian business growth slows to a five-month low. S&P Global's composite PMI fell to 50.8 in September from 52.7, with manufacturing slipping into outright contraction at 49.3 and services cooling to 51.4, signalling the economy is still growing but losing momentum heading into the RBA's meeting, ABC News reports. Our take: a slowing economy the week before a rate rise is an awkward combination, and the RBA already knows it.
Those are your 5 minutes for tonight; see you at the same time tomorrow. - Miko Santos