Markets live updates: Wall Street continues to regain tariff loses, Amazon disappoints
Amazon's shares fell in extended trade as its cloud revenue growth missed Wall Street's expectations and tariff uncertainty weighed.
Follow the day's financial news and insights from our specialist business reporters on our live blog.
Disclaimer: this blog is not intended as investment advice.
Key Events
34m ago
34 minutes ago
Thu 1 May 2025 at 9:37pm
Submit a comment or question
Log in to comment
Live updates
Latest
Oldest
Pinned
47m ago
Thu 1 May 2025 at 9:24pm
Market snapshot
S
By Stephanie Chalmers
ASX futures: -0.4% to 8,130 points
Australian dollar: -0.1% to 63.79 US cents
S
&
P 500: +0.6% to 5,604 points
Nasdaq: +1.5% to 17,710 points
FTSE: flat at 8,496 points
EuroStoxx: flat at 527 points
Spot gold: -1.4% to $US3,240/ounce
Brent crude: +1.3% to $US61.88/barrel
Iron ore: +0.1% to $US96.25/tonne
Bitcoin: +0.2% to $US96,640
Prices current around 7:15am AEST.
Live updates on major ASX indices:
Key Event
34m ago
Thu 1 May 2025 at 9:37pm
US stocks continue streak of gains
S
By Stephanie Chalmers
Good morning!
Steph Chalmers joining you for the first few hours of our markets blog this Friday.
And it was another positive day for US stocks, with
the S
&
P 500 rising for an eighth consecutive session
.
It was the
highest close of the index since April 2
.
Results from
Meta
and
Microsoft
released after the Wall Street close yesterday boosted market sentiment, as they did during the Australian session on Thursday, when tech and data centre-related stocks led the gains.
However,
Apple
and
Amazon
have now released their results and shares are down in after-hours trade so the mood may sour. We'll bring you across the detail shortly.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

AU Financial Review
3 hours ago
- AU Financial Review
The week Chalmers can start to craft an economic legacy
The three-day Economic Reform Roundtable starting on Tuesday is Jim Chalmers' opportunity to make a fresh start on crafting an economic legacy to match the nation's great reforming treasurers. Before the 2022 election, Anthony Albanese promised Labor would seek to govern in the best reform traditions of the Hawke-Keating governments of the 1980s and 1990s. As treasurer, Paul Keating floated the Australian dollar, began winding down tariff protection, and reduced personal and company tax. As prime minister, he introduced the principle of enterprise bargaining into the industrial relations system.


Perth Now
4 hours ago
- Perth Now
Agency chief's solution to economy woes
Decision makers must adopt a 'growth mindset' to fix the productivity problem plaguing the economy, according to Australia's productivity tsar. Labor's highly anticipated Economic Reform Roundtable will kick off on Tuesday, bringing together 'a range of people with a range of views', as described by Anthony Albanese. The point of getting unions, business leaders, and policy experts in the same room as politicians is building consensus on how to boost productivity, or how efficiently an economy produces goods and services. Productivity Commission (PC) chair Danielle Wood will use a major speech on Monday to call on fellow roundtable attendees to be bold as they 'thrash out potential reforms to kickstart Australia's flagging productivity growth', warning that failure could bust the 'generational bargain' of handing over a better country to the future. 'I'm thrilled by the new appetite for economic reform that the roundtable has created over the past two months,' Ms Wood will tell the National Press Club, according to a copy of her speech seen by NewsWire. 'Ultimately the government will be judged on its actions and the outcomes they achieve. 'But it has taken an important step by recognising and pursuing economic growth, and the productivity that drives it, as a prime goal of policy. 'This 'growth mindset' – an elevation of growth and the benefits it brings – has been missing from Australian policy for far too long.' Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood is calling for a 'growth mindset'. Aaron Francis / The Australian Credit: News Corp Australia Faced with challenges posed by geopolitical turmoil, climate change and an ageing population, she will point out that young Australians do not believe they will have 'better lives than their parents'. 'The expectation that life will get better for each successive generation is Australia's generational bargain,' Ms Wood said. 'For many generations we have fulfilled its promise. Until, perhaps, this one. 'Overwhelmingly, young people today believe they won't live better lives than their parents did. 'As chair of the Productivity Commission, I'm worried too.' She will note that the PC has already given the Albanese government some options. Her agency released five reports over the past month zooming in on key areas, ranging from increasing economic agility and workforce training to harnessing artificial intelligence and the net zero transition. On economic dynamism, the PC proposed reforming Australia's corporate tax system to encourage business investment, which has declined since the Global Financial Crisis. It would cut the corporate tax rate for most businesses to 20 per cent and introduce a 5 per cent cashflow tax on all businesses, with a view to creating friendlier conditions for investors. The result, according to Ms Wood, 'would increase investment by $7.4bn and GDP by $14.6bn'. 'Big enough to get out of bed for, I would think,' she will say. Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell has commented on the Albanese government's upcoming economic roundtable. 'We know in terms of tax reform, GST and capital gains tax and negative gearing have already been ruled out by the PM,' Mr Clennell said. 'But there does seem to be consideration of a road user charge.' On AI, the PC warned against a new overarching regulatory framework for AI and instead update existing regulations to address risks like fraud and discrimination. 'This would translate to an additional $116bn in economic activity – equivalent to boosting incomes for each Australian by $4300 a year over that period,' Ms Wood will say. 'A growth mindset means that we must not regulate our way out of this opportunity.' Less regulation was an overarching theme in all the PC's reports. Using those the reports as guides, Ms Wood will put forward three 'lessons about what a growth mindset looks like'. 'Regulate with growth in mind,' she will say, calling for 'leadership from the top when the policy sausage is being made'. The Albanese government's Economic Reform Roundtable will kick off on Tuesday. Martin Ollman / NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia In a nod to AI, she will say, 'Real growth comes from new ideas and technology,' arguing that productivity growth comes from new ideas, products, processes, and ways of managing people. While physical inputs have limits, human ingenuity does not, Ms Wood will say. Therefore, a growth mindset should focus on fostering innovation and enabling Australia to benefit from its own inventions and those of others. Her final lesson is that productivity 'is a game of inches'. 'There is simply no single policy reform that can bring productivity growth back to its long-term average of 1.6 per cent,' Ms Wood will say. 'To shift the dial, governments will have to make a lot of pro-productivity decisions.' Though, acknowledging the mammoth task, she will say she is 'optimistic that there is a package here that can make a difference to Australia's prosperity'. 'Governments must embed the importance of growth in every decision they make,' Ms Wood will say. 'This means engaging with trade-offs, better program delivery and design, and the 'boring but important work' of reducing administrative burden. 'We must ensure that governments pursue a growth agenda, for the benefit of businesses and workers today and, more importantly, for the generations to come. 'And that's worth a few days locked in a room.'


7NEWS
6 hours ago
- 7NEWS
Banked $10,000 30 years ago instead of buying shares? You've cost yourself $180,000
When investor Adrian Blazic first put his money into the share market, it was a leap of faith. 'No one knows what's going to happen,' he says. 'It's not about predicting the future, it's about sticking to a strategy.' That strategy — staying invested through the ups and downs — has delivered for him. 'I'd be expecting to average 9.5 to 10 per cent per annum,' Blazic says. His story echoes the findings of Vanguard's 2025 Index Chart, released on Friday, which lays bare the extraordinary gap in returns between long-term investing and parking money in cash. According to Vanguard, a $10,000 investment in Australian shares made on July 1, 1995 would have grown to $143,786 by June 30 this year. The same amount invested in US shares would now be worth $214,332, more than $180,000 ahead of the cash equivalent and about $72,000 more than Australian shares. By contrast, a $10,000 deposit left in a savings account over the same 30-year period would have grown to just $33,677. The average annual returns since mid-1995 were: US shares: 10.8 per cent Australian shares: 9.3 per cent International shares (ex-Australia): 8.3 per cent Australian listed property: 8 per cent Australian bonds: 5.5 per cent Cash: 4.1 per cent All figures assume income was reinvested and exclude investment acquisition costs, fees and taxes. 'Share market investors on average achieved at least triple the dollar returns of individuals who chose to keep their cash tied up in savings accounts over the last 30 years,' says Daniel Shrimksi, managing director of Vanguard Australia. The three-decade period tracked by the Index Chart includes some of the most severe market events in modern history, including the dot com crash in 2000, the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Global Financial Crisis in 2008–09, the COVID-19 plunge in 2020, and more recent volatility driven by high US tariffs on some countries. Each event triggered steep declines. September 11 sent global stocks tumbling. The GFC wiped trillions from markets. COVID sparked a 34 per cent crash. Yet every time, markets recovered. 'The index chart demonstrates how investment markets have kept rising strongly over time despite several significant share market corrections, economic downturns, changes in governments and world leaders, wars, natural disasters, and the impacts stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic,' added Shrimksi. He argues investing should be approached like a long-distance race. 'Just like superannuation, investors should be focused on achieving longer-term outcomes rather than on shorter-term wins and losses,' he said. 'The most successful investors have a disciplined approach and understand that volatility is typically transient. The best investment results are generally achieved through compound growth over time, not by trying to time when to buy and sell, that's a futile exercise.' Scott Phillips from The Motley Fool says volatility can rattle even experienced investors. 'It can look really volatile, and sometimes it is,' he says. Vanguard's data shows why chasing last year's winners can be risky. Asset class rankings often change dramatically from one year to the next. 'The best and worst performing asset classes in any one financial year rarely mirrors the returns of the previous financial year for a whole range of reasons,' Shrimksi says. 'That's why it's so important to have a diversified mix of investments across asset classes and regions. While shares have delivered the strongest returns over the longer term, there have been years when more defensive assets such as bonds, and even cash, have achieved the best returns.' For Blazic, the takeaway from decades of data and lived experience is simple: 'With investing, it's certainly a long-term game.' The advice from the experts is just as straightforward: save consistently, invest regularly, build wealth slowly over time and avoid get rich quick schemes.