Adbri stock fell more than 16.54% on Monday. Net profit came in at A$48.1 million ($33.2 million), while first-half revenue rose 8% year-on-year to A$812.4 million. “It was mainly due to strong construction and mining sector demand and improved pricing across most products,” the company said in a report. Underlying net profit after tax was partly impacted by operational challenges related to extreme wet weather on Australia’s east coast and higher costs, the company said. — Abigail Off
Reserve Bank of New Zealand wants rates ‘comfortably above neutral’, Reuters reports
Policymakers in New Zealand want interest rates to be “comfortably above neutral” to combat rising prices, Reserve Bank of New Zealand Deputy Governor Christian Hawkesby said, according to Reuters. The RBNZ raised its cash rate by 50 basis points to 3% last week. Hawkesby told Reuters the central bank was considering hikes of 25 or 75 basis points. He said that keeping the official cash rate above neutral would reduce inflation and “allowed us to breathe to see how things go”. “As soon as we get it [official cash rate] At that 4%-4.25% level we see things being evenly balanced from there. So we would put the same weight on having to put OCR up as we would put it down,” he added. Hawkesby said policymakers expect the economy to cool and recognize there are uncertainties. — Abigail Off
IMF to head to Colombo for more financial solutions
The International Monetary Fund will visit Colombo this week to continue discussions with the Sri Lankan authorities on economic and financial reforms and policies. “The aim is to make progress towards a staff-level agreement on a future IMF Extended Facility (EFF) arrangement in the near term,” the IMF said in a statement over the weekend. “Because Sri Lanka’s public debt is assessed as unsustainable, IMF Executive Board approval of the EFF program would require adequate assurances from Sri Lanka’s creditors that debt sustainability will be restored.” The IMF had already completed a first-round discussion in late June, when it worked on a macroeconomic and structural policy package with Colombo “to correct macroeconomic imbalances, restore public debt sustainability and harness Sri Lanka’s growth potential.” ». Other challenges that need to be addressed include containing rising levels of inflation and addressing severe pressures on the balance of payments. The EEF is the IMF’s lending facility and helps countries deal with balance of payments or cash flow problems. — Su-Lin Tan
CNBC Pro: How to reduce risk in your portfolio right now, according to the pros
Stocks have been volatile this year as a mix of recession fears, inflationary pressures and other macroeconomic risks in liquidity markets. Here are three ways investors can adjust their portfolios to reduce their risks or mitigate their losses, according to Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and others. Professional subscribers can read more here. — Weizhen Tan
China’s central bank cuts benchmark lending rates
The People’s Bank of China cut its benchmark one-year interest rate by 5 basis points and its five-year interest rate by 15 basis points, according to an online statement. This brings the one-year prime rate to 3.65% and the five-year LPR to 4.3%. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 10 basis point drop in the one-year LPR, and half of those surveyed expected the five-year rate to drop 15 basis points. — Abigail Off
CNBC Pro: JPMorgan predicts when growth stocks’ rally will end
Investors have flocked to growth stocks of late, but as recession fears grow, market watchers are deciding whether to switch to safer bets. JPMorgan, however, believes the rally still has some way to go and named several indicators to watch for when considering the growth stock rotation. Professional subscribers can read the story here. — Zavier Ong
What to expect from Powell’s Jackson Hole speech
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is expected to speak at the central bank’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week and shed some light on the pace of future rate hikes. Powell may push for hawkish comments from Fed officials who recently underscored their commitment to fighting inflation, even as investors enjoyed a summer rally in part on expectations of a less hawkish Fed. However, the president of the Fed of St. Louis Fed James Bullard said in an interview last week with the Wall Street Journal that he was considering another rate hike of 0.75 percentage points at the September meeting. Check out CNBC Pro for more on what to expect from the Fed chair. — Sarah Minn
China is set to cut its key lending rates, a Reuters poll predicts
China is due to announce its ( LPR ) loans on Monday and analysts had widely expected cuts, according to a Reuters poll. Most analysts expected the benchmark one-year lending rate to fall by 10 basis points, while they expected the five-year LPR to fall by more than 10 basis points. About half of the 30 respondents to the poll had forecast a 15 basis point decline, Reuters reported. The one-year LPR is currently at 3.7% after a decrease in January, and the five-year rate is at 4.45%. China cut the five-year LPR by 15 basis points in May, in a move said to support housing demand. — Abigail Off
