Hey Superheroes,
Two inflation prints gave markets exactly what they wanted. U.S. CPI for July eased to 3.4% year on year, down from a high of 4.2% back in May, with producer prices flat on the month. The S&P 500 closed at a fresh record above 7,798 and money market odds of a September Fed hike fell to under 40% from around 50% earlier in the week.
Back home, the RBA held the cash rate at 4.35% on 11 August, its fourth consecutive hold, as the board waited for more evidence that inflation is sustainably returning to target. The decision was widely expected but the accompanying statement was watched closely for any shift in tone ahead of the September meeting.
In case you missed it: Atlassian surged more than 35% in after-hours trading last Friday on a profitable quarter and a $250 million CEO buy-in. That move carried through into the local session this week, lifting ASX tech sentiment alongside software gains on Wall Street where Silver Lake’s reported takeover talks with Workday sent its shares up 17.8% and Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM), Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) all rose 4 to 6% in sympathy.
It was also the heaviest reporting week of the local season. CBA, Telstra and ANZ all crossed the tape, with CBA posting a record profit alongside a mortgage slowdown and Telstra flagging job cuts alongside a bigger buyback. Both below.
Here’s what else moved this week.
Big profit, smaller pipeline: Commonwealth Bank’s record year meets a mortgage slowdown
Commonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA) delivered a record headline number this week. The detail underneath it told a more complicated story.
The numbers
CBA reported FY26 cash net profit after tax up 7% to $10.98 billion for the year ended 30 June, with statutory net profit of $10.91 billion, pre-provision profit up 6% to $16.5 billion and return on equity up 50 basis points to 14.0%. The board declared a fully franked final dividend of $2.70 a share, taking the full year dividend to $5.05, with cash earnings per share of 657 cents.
The mortgage slowdown
The number that got more attention than the profit was a different one. CEO Matt Comyn said mortgage applications had fallen around 17% since the May federal budget changed tax settings on investor property purchases, with a sharper drop in investor lending than in owner-occupier demand. CBA trimmed its FY27 mortgage credit growth guidance to 4 to 5% from an earlier 4 to 6% range.
What the numbers don’t tell us
A record headline profit alongside a mid-teens fall in mortgage applications points to a lending market being reshaped by the May budget’s tax changes. The 17% application drop is management’s own figure and covers a specific post-budget window, not a full-year trend. Whether application volumes recover will depend on how the policy settings bed in over the coming months. The narrowed guidance range is the more durable signal.
Ringing up the buyback, dialling back headcount: Telstra’s steady FY26
Telstra (ASX:TLS) reported a result that was solid on the bottom line and soft on revenue, with management leaning on cost cuts and capital returns to make the numbers work.
The numbers
Telstra reported FY26 net profit after tax up 2.7% to $2.41 billion, with underlying EBITDA up around 4% to $8.3 billion. The final dividend was lifted to 10.5 cents a share, taking the full year dividend to 21 cents, up 10.5% on FY25.
The buyback and the cuts
The result was achieved partly through 1,200 job cuts across the year. Telstra completed a $1.25 billion buyback in FY26 and announced a further $1 billion buyback on top of it. FY27 underlying EBITDA was guided to $8.5 to $8.8 billion.
The market reaction
Shares fell around 4 to 5% on the result as revenue growth came in soft. The market’s read: the buyback and dividend are welcome but they don’t substitute for top-line momentum. Telstra’s story in FY27 is whether it can grow revenue without further headcount reductions to offset the cost base.
The outage context
The result also landed in the wake of a near five-hour nationwide Telstra outage in early July, which prompted a Bloomberg report linking an infrastructure contractor to the disruption. The contractor denied any involvement. The outage didn’t appear in the FY26 numbers in any material way but it added to the backdrop of investor scrutiny heading into this result.
Some other things we’re shining the Spotlight on:
Neocloud demand continues to build
Two AI cloud results this week confirmed that infrastructure demand is still outstripping supply. Nebius reported Q2 revenue up 454% year on year to $582.3 million, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive to $236.2 million from a $21 million loss a year earlier, and reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance of $3.0 to $3.4 billion. CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) reported Q2 revenue up 112% to $2.6 billion and raised full year revenue guidance to $12.4 to $13.2 billion. Near-term capacity is effectively sold out with a backlog of $104 billion.
Healthcare makes a comeback on the ASX
CSL (ASX:CSL), Pro Medicus (ASX:PME), ResMed (ASX:RMD) and Cochlear (ASX:COH) all rose in a single session this week as investors rotated out of resource stocks into large cap healthcare names. The sector had underperformed miners and energy through most of the year. The rotation reflects both relative value and a search for earnings stability as commodity price volatility picks up.
Cleanaway jumps 15% on $9.4B EQT bid
Cleanaway Waste Management (ASX:CWY) received a revised non-binding proposal from EQT Infrastructure at $3.13 a share, implying an enterprise value of approximately $9.4 billion and a 32% premium to its last close. Cleanaway’s board granted EQT nine weeks of exclusive due diligence and said it intends to recommend the scheme if a binding deal is reached at no less than $3.13 a sha
