Finance news you need to know today

THE central bank is losing confidence that Australia’s hot property market is cooling enough, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney.

THE Australian market looks set to open fractionally in the red, after Wall Street closed little changed with stronger-than-expected US retail sales figures failing to counter disappointing results from retail stocks. At 0700 AEST on Wednesday, the share price futures index was down five points, or 0.09 per cent, at 5,699.

Meanwhile, the Australian dollar has fallen further against its US counterpart, after a lift in the greenback following the strong retail sales data and a 1.4 per cent fall in the price of iron ore. The local currency was trading at 78.23 US cents at 0700 AEST on Wednesday, from 78.47 on Tuesday.

WORLD FINANCE UPDATE:

WASHINGTON — US consumers went out shopping in a big way in July, pushing up retail sales by the largest amount in seven months.

LONDON — Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland will cut almost 900 technology jobs at its London office by 2020, in its latest plan to reduce costs, the Unite union says.

NEW YORK — Amazon says it is selling debt to pay for its $US13.7 billion ($A17.5 billion) deal to buy organic grocer Whole Foods.

BERLIN — Germany’s second-biggest airline Air Berlin has filed for insolvency after its main shareholder Etihad halts financial aid.

DETROIT — Ride-hailing service Uber has agreed to protect customer data and audit the use of rider information in order to settle a complaint filed by the US federal government.

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered LinkedIn to stop blocking a start-up company from scraping LinkedIn personal profiles for data.

LOS ANGELES — Andrew Liveris, the Australian chief executive of The Dow Chemical Company and a staunch ally of US President Donald Trump, is facing pressure to join the growing line of business leaders quitting the president’s American Manufacturing Council.

TUESDAY HIGHLIGHTS:

DOMINO’S — More than $850 million has been wiped from Domino’s market value after it missed its own full-year profit and global growth targets, and forecast an easing in sales and profit ahead.

DOMINO’S AUDIT — Domino’s Pizza says it has recovered $1.1 million in unpaid wages and superannuation from its probe into staff complaints and an audit of stores across Australia.

ANZ — ANZ has reported a third-quarter cash profit of $1.79 billion, helped by strong growth in owner-occupier mortgage lending.

NBN CO — NBN Co has more than doubled its revenue as connections to the network accelerate, but the company acknowledges it is months away from addressing growing frustrations among customers.

RBA MINUTES — The central bank is losing confidence that Australia’s hot property market is cooling enough, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney, an economist says.

HEARMEOUT — Shares in HearMeOut, which has developed an audio-based social media app, have jumped more than 30 per cent after carmaker Ford agreed to use the app in its cars in the US.

SANTOS — Oil and gas producer Santos will book an impairment charge of $US690 million ($A877 million) in its half-year results due next week after lowering its oil price forecasts.

CONSUMER ANZ — Consumer confidence has fallen below its long-run average amid worries over North Korea and concerns over subdued wage growth.

VEHICLE SALES — Australian sales of new motor vehicles fell two per cent in July, slowing down after four consecutive months of growth and a record number of sales in June.

WATTWATCHERS — The federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) will invest $2 million in start-up company Wattwatchers to help boost production of a device that can help keep energy bills under control.