The news desk
Plain-English analysis and education from the desk — how markets, companies and the economy actually work — beside a live wire of real headlines, attributed and linked to the source. Evergreen by design: nothing here pretends to be breaking.
The 10am scramble: how the ASX opening auction sets the day's first price
The ASX doesn't open with a bell — it opens with an algorithm, and understanding it changes how you think about every morning order.
Read the article →Markets
All Markets →How to read a market heatmap like a desk
Size, colour, clusters: a professional pulls the day's whole story out of a heatmap in about ten seconds — here is the method.
Read the article →What actually moves iron ore stocks
An iron ore miner is three bets stacked in a trench coat — the commodity, the currency and the cost curve — and the share price is what happens when all three settle.
Read the article →Banks and miners: why the ASX 200 is a two-engine index
Roughly half the Australian share market sits in financials and resources — which makes an 'index fund' here a bigger sector bet than most investors realise.
Read the article →Companies
All Companies →The margin is the bank: reading net interest margin
A bank is a spread on money. Net interest margin tells you how wide — and whether the width was earned or bought.
Read the article →What plasma economics teach about moats
You cannot buy plasma on a spot market — which is exactly why CSL's industry is the market's best classroom on what a moat actually is.
Read the article →Same-store sales: the retailer's truth serum
Headline revenue can grow for years while a retailer quietly rots. Comparable sales is the line that refuses to play along.
Read the article →Cost curves: where miners live and die
Miners don't set their prices, so the whole game is cost. The industry cost curve tells you who survives the trough — and who is a bet on it never arriving.
Read the article →Economy
All Economy →Franking credits, explained with one $70 dividend
Australia's dividend imputation system quietly attaches a second layer of value to every fully franked payout — here is the arithmetic, and why it shapes the whole market.
Read the article →How the RBA cash rate finds its way into bank margins
The path from a Reserve Bank decision to a bank's profit line runs through mortgages that reprice in weeks and deposits that don't — timing is the whole game.
Read the article →Why bond yields move share prices
The 10-year government bond is the ruler every share price is measured with — and when the ruler changes length, every measurement changes with it.
Read the article →The Australian dollar and the companies that prefer it weak
Every ASX company carries a currency position whether it wants one or not — the skill is knowing which side of the Aussie each of your holdings is on.
Read the article →Desk Notes
All Desk Notes →Why we publish our losses
A hit rate you cannot audit is marketing. The record only means something with the losers left in — so ours stay, permanently.
Read the article →How a Gladiator Score is built
One number, 0 to 100, locked before the outcome is known. What moves it, what never does, and why a number beats an adjective.
Read the article →Why every pick carries a bear case
Research without a bear case is advertising with charts. Every pick we publish argues against itself — on purpose, in print.
Read the article →Position sizing: the quiet discipline
You can pick the right stock and still lose money. Sizing decides more outcomes than selection does — here is the discipline.
Read the article →The Weekly Briefing
Five minutes a week. The whole arena.
Every week: what moved the ASX, what the desk made of it, and what we’re watching next. Free, and written by the same people who put their names on the research.
Free on the Spectator tier. General market commentary only — not personal financial advice. One email a week; unsubscribe anytime.
Desk articles are evergreen analysis and education — general information only, not personal financial advice. Wire headlines are external content: sources retain copyright, and every link opens the original publisher.