Today Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) delivered its first half calendar year 2024 results (1HCY24). The results were largely in line, with an underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) of US$5. 75 billion within one per cent of consensus estimates and driven predominantly by Rio Tinto’s copper and aluminium divisions.

In the June 2024 quarter, artificial intelligence (AI) remained the dominant narrative in markets. Companies perceived to be AI beneficiaries have seen their share prices markedly outperform those where the benefit appears less clear in the immediate term.

Patience is a virtue in the investment world. It can take two to three years, or even longer, for sentiment to shift the full 180 degrees from bearish to unbridled optimism. This is because scepticism, an uneven distribution of information, and inertia ensure the path to enthusiasm is not instant but takes time.

The Australian Eagle Asset Management investment team has had a long history with Treasury Wine Estates (ASX:TWE). The most recent holding was for several years prior to the pandemic with positive performance supported by growing profit and margins generated by the success of Penfolds in China.

The ScotPac SME Growth Index (1) has been a closely watched piece of annual research by the Aura Private Credit investment team, which tracks the adoption of non-bank lenders in the Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) market. The 2024 report has recently been released which marks the 10th anniversary of the annual research.

Australian governments at all levels are not known for thinking beyond the electoral cycle. Take the fact that Australia took on 540,000 immigrants last year, whilst births exceeded deaths by 110,000. Hence an additional 650,000 Australians, or 2. 5 per cent of our population, at a time when our country is going through an unprecedented housing crisis.

In recent years, very few developments have captured investors’ imagination and curiosity as much as the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Explore the transformative impact of AI and the investment opportunities it presents across various sectors globally in Polen Capital’s latest whitepaper.

The Magnificent Seven (Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Meta (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), which rose by an average 111 per cent over calendar 2023, continued their strong upward trajectory, increasing a further 37 per cent, on average, over the six months to June 2024. This helped drag up the Nasdaq, which jumped 18.