Latest updates on Key Economic Indicators

Australian Dollar: $0.7270 USD (up $0.0100 USD)

Iron Ore Dec Spot Price (SGX): $117.54 USD (up $4.45 USD)

Oil Price (WTI): $38.59 USD (down $0.44 USD)

Gold Price: $1,949.72 (up $51.83 USD)

Dow Jones: 28,392.70 (up 468.38 points)

All changes compared to 7am yesterday.

US media cuts away from Trump's White House speech, citing 'false statements' and 'unfounded conspiracies'

US television networks ABC, CBS and NBC all cut away from President Donald Trump during a White House speech in which he made unfounded accusations that the presidential election was being stolen from him.

Mr Trump had tried to commandeer the nation's airwaves at a time when the evening newscasts are shown on the East Coast, after a day when the slow drip of vote counting revealed his leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia dwindling.

MSNBC's Brian Williams also interrupted the President. Fox News Channel and CNN aired the president's full address, after which CNN's Anderson Cooper said Trump was "like an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun realising his time was over".

Network personalities had sharply criticised Mr Trump after his angry, middle-of-the-night speech following Election Day but aired that talk in full.

Mr Trump was more subdued on Friday (AEDT), yet offered a litany of complaints about "suppression" polls, mail-in voting and fraud that he never specified.

"We have to interrupt here, because the President has made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting," NBC's Lester Holt said.

"There has been no evidence of that."

Armed Trump supporters swarm Arizona election centre after his unproven claims of fraud

Dozens of protesters demanding 'All votes be counted' were arrested in parts of the country.

A crowd of Donald Trump supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside an election centre in Arizona on Wednesday night after unsubstantiated rumours that votes for the Republican president were deliberately not being counted.

Chanting “Stop the steal!”, and “Count my vote”, the mostly unmasked protesters stood in front of the Maricopa County Elections Department in Phoenix, as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden held a razor thin lead in the critical battleground state.

Some news outlets have called Arizona for Mr Biden, but Mr Trump’s campaign says it is still in play.

A victory for Mr Biden in Arizona would give the Democrat 11 electoral votes, a major boost in his bid to win the White House, while severely narrowing Mr Trump’s path to re-election, in a state the Republican won in 2016.

On Election night Fox News and the Associated Press called Arizona for Mr Biden, even though only just over 70 per cent of the vote had been counted, a move that infuriated Mr Trump and his aides.

Some of the roughly 200 protesters, who were faced by a line of armed county sheriffs, chanted “Shame on Fox!”.

Some said they came out after a tweet from Mike Cernovich, a right-wing activist.

Chris Michael, 40, from Gilbert, Arizona, said he came to make sure all votes are counted.

He said he wants assurances that the counting was done “ethically and legally.”

Rumors spread on Facebook Tuesday night that some Maricopa votes were not being counted because voters used Sharpie pens to mark their ballots.

Local election officials insisted that was not true.

With the count still underway in several key states, Mr Trump has accused the Democrats of trying to steal the election without evidence and filed lawsuits in several states related to vote-counting.

A similar scene played out on Wednesday afternoon in downtown Detroit, where city election officials blocked about 30 people, mostly Republicans, from entering a vote-counting hall amid unfounded claims that the vote count was fraudulent.

Meanwhile, Police in the city of Portland made arrests and seized fireworks, hammers and a rifle after late night demonstrations, as Oregon Governor Kate Brown activated the state’s National Guard in response to “widespread violence”.

Portland Police said it arrested ten people in the demonstrations after declaring riots in the city’s downtown area while the New York Police Department said it made about 50 arrests in protests that spread in the city late on Wednesday.

Biden time for divided US ?

The Australian - Page 1 & 2 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Cameron Stewart - PortMac.News Summary

Democrats candidate Joe Biden has signalled that signing the Paris Agreement on climate change will be a key priority if he wins the presidential election.

The US withdrew from the agreement under President Donald Trump, who has launched a legal challenge to the election results in several key swing states.

Biden has yet to declare victory, but he only needs to win one of the states of Nevada, Pennsylvania, Georgia or North Carolina to reach the threshold of 270 electoral college votes, while Trump must win all four states.

Unemployment virtually unchanged in October at 12.8%

Market Research Update - Page Online : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Roy Morgan - PortMac.News Summary

Latest Roy Morgan employment series data shows 1.81 million Australians unemployed (12.8% of the workforce), down 18,000 from September.

There were fewer people looking for part-time work, down 76,000 to 1,020,000 but there was an increase of 58,000 people looking for full-time work to 790,000.

In Victoria unemployment was up 2.5% to 14.6% - the highest of any mainland State as the strict lockdown continued in Melbourne until the last few days of the month.

On raw numbers unemployment in Victoria was up 101,000 to 560,000 and under-employment increased 109,000 to 438,000 - almost 1 million unemployed or under-employed (26.1%).

City's cash splash to keep UN on side

The Australian - Page 7 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Remy Varga - PortMac.News Summary

Ratepayers Victoria president Dean Hurlston has criticised the Melbourne City Council for advertising six new positions that are linked to its United Nations sustainable development goals.

Most of these jobs will have six-figure salaries, including a manager for city resilience and sustainable futures and a manager for zero carbon city.

Hurlston says these "virtual signalling roles" will do nothing to assist struggling inner-city businesses.

Victorian aged care homes in clear

Herald Sun - Page 15 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Alex White - PortMac.News Summary

Victoria has recorded its sixth consecutive day with no new coronavirus cases, while the number of active cases across the state has fallen to 20.

The Department of Health & Human Services has also confirmed that there are no active cases in the state's aged-care sector for the first time since mid-June.

The state government is still preparing to further ease lockdown restrictions on 8 November, but it has reiterated the need to keep wearing face masks in public. Opposition Leader Michael O'Brien contends that face masks may not be necessary in open spaces, and he says Victoria should adopt New South Wales coronavirus restrictions.

There are 41 active COVID-19 cases in NSW.

Hotel handed $500k to quarantine no one

The Australian - Page 1 & 11 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Rachel Baxendale - PortMac.News Summary

The Victorian government's handling of its hotel quarantine program has come under renewed scrutiny. It has been revealed that the Sands Golf Resort in Torquay was paid $511,500 to house returned travellers under two state government contracts.

However, the resort was not used as a quarantine hotel, and the Chinese-linked company that owned it subsequently went into administration.

The company was also sanctioned for visa fraud less than a week before it was awarded the first government contract.

The inquiry into the quarantine program will release its interim report on 6 November.

Find another market other than China, exporters warned

The Australian - Page 6 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Will Glasgow, Nick Evans - PortMac.News Summary

Federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has asked the Chinese government to clarify whether it does intend to impose new bans on Australian imports, after media reports in China appeared to confirm this.

Meanwhile, federal government officials have discussed the potential ban during a telephone briefing with representatives from the agricultural industry, one of the sectors that would be amongst the hardest hit by such a ban.

Participants in the briefing say they were advised to find alternative export markets.

Spy charges for man tied to Communist Party

The Australian - Page 6 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Ben Packham, Tessa Akerman, Remy Varga - PortMac.News Summary

A 65-year-old Melbourne resident has become the first person to be charged under the federal government's foreign interference laws.

Di Sanh Duong, who is also known as Sunny Duong, faces up to 10 years' jail if he is convicted under laws that were introduced in 2018.

Duong is the president of Oceania Federation of Chinese Associations, and he is a member of several organisations that are believed to have links to the Chinese Communist Party.

Exempt well-paid from rules, says former Fair Work president

The Australian Financial Review - Page 5 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by David Marin-Guzman - PortMac.News Summary

The Fair Work Commission's former president Geoffrey Giudice says serious consideration should be given to allowing industry-level enterprise bargaining.

He has also proposed exempting employees on higher incomes such as managers from workplace rules with regard to hours and wages; he contends that some cases of wage underpayment have been due to confusion over applying minimum award requirements to such workers.

MUA queries foreign crews

The Australian - Page 11 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Ewin Hannan - PortMac.News Summary

The Maritime Union of Australia has criticised the federal government's decision to allow shipping company CSL to use 58 seafarers from the Philippines on its coastal trading ships.

Assistant national secretary Warren Smith says the government needs to explain why foreign seafarers from a known COVID-19 hotspot have been brought into the country when Australian maritime workers are available.

CSL says the seafarers will relieve crewmembers who have been on its ships for an extended period due to the pandemic.

WHSmith admits underpaying 1500 workers by $2.2 million

The Australian - Page Online : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Ewin Hannan - PortMac.News Summary

WHSmith Australia has agreed to an enforceable undertaking after admitting that its employees had been underpaid some $2.2m between October 2013 and April 2019.

The underpayment affected about 1,500 employees of the retailer, which has provided backpay totalling $2.257m to past and present staff.

The company, which reported the underpayment to the Fair Work Ombudsman, will also make a 'contrition payment' of $50,000.

Bourse surges as US poll fears ease

The Australian - Page 25 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Samantha Bailey - PortMac.News Summary

The Australian sharemarket posted solid gains on 5 November, with the S&P/ASX 200 rising 1.3 per cent to close at 6,139.6 points.

Fortescue Metals Group was up 0.9 per cent at $16.63, Westpac added two per cent to end the session at $17.70 and Flight Centre rose 6.9 per cent to $13.82. However, Treasury Wine Estates shed 8.2 per cent to finish at $7.96 and Estia Health was down 4.8 per cent at $1.30.

NAB chief tips fixed rate mortgage boom

The Australian - Page 22 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Joyce Moullakis - PortMac.News Summary

Fixed-rate loans dominate the UK mortgage market, while 70-90 per cent of borrowers in Australia opt for variable interest rates.

However, National Australia Bank CEO Ross McEwan believes that the trend toward fixed-rate loans will continue to gather pace and they may soon account for about 30 per cent of the local mortgage market.

Australia's major banks are under scrutiny after reducing interest rates for fixed home loans and leaving variable rates unchanged following the Reserve Bank's latest official interest rate cut.

Profits plunge to early 90s levels

The Australian - Page 22 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Richard Gluyas - PortMac.News Summary

Australia's major banks have posted a combined cash profit of $17.4bn for the 2019-20 financial year.

This is 35.5 per cent lower than previously, and it is the first time this metric has fallen below $20bn since the global financial crisis.

Meanwhile, the banking sector's return on equity has fallen to 6.7 per cent, the lowest level since 1993.

However, the average common-equity tier-one ratio has increased by 59 basis points to 11.4 per cent.

Ian Pollari of KPMG says balance sheet strength has been a key contributor to the major banks' resilience during the last year.

Genworth braces for a rise in lending losses

The Australian - Page 22 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Cliona O'Dowd - PortMac.News Summary

Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia has posted a statutory net profit of $24.6m for the September quarter, compared with a $25.1m profit for the same period in 2019.

The listed mortgage insurance provider has booked a loss of $65.4m for the first nine months of the calendar year, due to factors such as a 25 per cent increase in its reserves and coronavirus-related writedowns.

Genworth anticipates a rise in loan delinquencies and insurance claims as repayment deferral periods and government support measures wind down.

Turquoise Hill rebels against Rio's pressure

The Australian Financial Review - Page 20 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Peter Ker - PortMac.News Summary

Canada-based Turquoise Hill Resources has commenced arbitration proceedings against Rio Tinto over a disagreement regarding financing options for the expansion of the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia.

Rio Tinto has pushed for Turquoise Hill to finance a cost blowout at the project via a capital raising rather than by taking on additional debt.

Rio Tinto has a 50.79 per cent stake in Turquoise Hill.

Crooked not courageous: Adani renames Australian group Bravus mistaking it for 'brave'

The Guardian Australia - Page Online : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Naaman Zhou - PortMac.News Summary

Adani Mining CEO David Boshoff has rejected suggestions that the company has rebranded because its existing name was 'toxic'.

The developer of Queensland's Carmichael coal mine has changed its name to Bravus Mining & Resources.

Boshoff says Bravus was chosen because it is the medieval Latin word for 'courageous' or 'brave'.

A spokeswoman also says the fact that the new name has the letters AUS in it reflects the fact that Bravus is an Australian company.

However, Latin experts contend that 'bravus' can be translated as words with negative connotations in both classical or medieval Latin, such as 'crooked', 'deformed' or 'mercenary'.

Senex targets 'Five-fold' gas growth

The Australian Financial Review - Page 21 : 6 November 2020 - Original article by Elouise Fowler - PortMac.News Summary

Senex Energy MD Ian Davies says the junior explorer will aim to increase its annual output to 60 petajoules of gas by the end of the 2025 fiscal year.

Senex intends to focus on its gas assets in Queensland's Surat Basin following a deal to sell its Cooper Basin assets to Beach Energy for $87.5m.

Senex will use some of the proceeds of the sale to commence paying a dividend from fiscal 2022. Senex shares closed five per cent higher at $0.32 on 5 November.