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Why Ross McEwan is the lowest-paid bank CEO

Four senior executives at NAB earned more than $2 million dollars but took pay cuts as the bank reported a 37 per cent fall in profit for the year.

CBA is sprinting just to stand still

Despite COVID-19, Commonwealth Bank is running much faster than the market in home loans, business loans and deposits. But low rates will weigh on it for years.

President-elect Joe Biden said Trump's refusal to acknowledge him would not help the President's legacy.

Whistleblower recants vote tampering claim

President-elect Joe Biden says Donald Trump's refusal to concede defeat in the election is an embarrassment. A Pennsylvania electoral worker Republicans were relying on for a court challenge to the results has withdrawn his claim. Follow live updates here.

ASX firms above 6400pts; RBNZ lifts stimulus citing vaccine "lag"

ASX momentum continues; roaring Xero shares drives All Tech index; RBNZ steps up policy support with warning of pandemic challenges.

Sydney COVID-19 cases likely triple official records

A new study found that 7450 Sydneysiders were probably infected with COVID-19 in the first wave back in March and April, which is up 3½ times the diagnosed number. Health Minister says Australia has secured crucial "cold chain" logistics for Pfizer vaccine. Victoria: no new cases, no new deaths. Follow live updates.

For how long can the greenback rule?

Exchange rates seem remarkably stable. But the pressures are building for an upheaval like the collapse of Bretton Woods.

Packer's lawyers seek to distance him from Crown failures

Their arguments appeared to run into an early obstacle when the commissioner pointed out the billionaire had accepted some responsibility during his evidence.

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US ELECTION AFTERMATH

President-elect Joe Biden is a decent man with an instinctive grasp of the values America has, at its best, stood for.

Biden offers just a glimmer of hope for liberal democracy

The right response to Biden’s election is hope without naivety. Trump has tested to destruction the idea that a solipsistic superpower determined to disrupt the global order will do much more than destroy its reputation.

Little Green Pharma's south west medical cannabis facility.

Biden win sparks Aussie rush into China, cannabis stocks

As outgoing President Donald Trump's grip on the White House began to slip, trade volume on the Stake platform spiked 18 per cent compared to the previous day.

Operation Warp Speed, the US search for a vaccine, has an overall budget to award of as much as $US18 billion ($26 billion).

Inside Operation Warp Speed’s $26b sprint for a vaccine

It’s expensive, secretive, and the US government's best hope of emerging from the pandemic. A vaccine breakthrough this week has breathed new life into the mission.

McConnell digs in on stimulus package

The Senate majority leader says last week’s fall in the jobless rate to 6.9 per cent shows the US economy is weathering the storm "a whole lot better" than thought.

How America's suburbs moved away from Trump

On average, Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton's performance in 373 suburban counties around the US by about 4.6 percentage points.

Companies

A big shift to cans has helped Coopers Brewery weather the storm of COVID-19.

Cans and DIY home brew save Coopers Brewery

The largest Australian-owned beer group has cut its dividend payout to family shareholders for the first time since 1994.

Grant Straker is still one of the largest shareholders of his language translation tech company.

Small cap tech stock Straker soars 49pc on major IBM deal

Faithful Straker investors were rewarded on Wednesday, when the language translation tech company scored a game-changing deal with tech giant IBM.

Andrew McConville says intervention will stymie the post-pandemic recovery of gas.

Gas lobby says intervention will stymie recovery

The head of Australia's peak oil and gas lobby has raised concerns with the level of government interference proposed in Scott Morrison's gas-led recovery.

Woodside intends to develop gas from its Scarborough field through an expansion of Pluto LNG  near Karratha.

Woodside sticks with Pluto-2 plan to save costs, time

Woodside says that building a second LNG train at its Pluto plant near Karratha will save costs and time as it targets a go-ahead in the second half of 2021 to develop its large Scarborough field off Western Australia.

Calabria Family Wines wants certainty on China

The 14th largest wine group in Australia buys three brands, including Deakin Estate, as part of its premiumisation strategy.

Harvey Norman's high-interest credit card gets a Shonky Award

White Lady Funerals also made it onto this year's list by consumer advocacy group Choice, in which companies are called out for taking advantage of customers.

KPMG, Minters and the hush-hush casino proposal

You charge how much for governance advice? Ka-ching.

Markets

Travel stocks have soared in early trade.

Vaccine breakthrough jolts market victims back to life

Pfizer unleashed a global rally in beaten-down stocks with news its vaccine candidate is more than 90 per cent successful, while investors trashed shares of COVID-19 winners.

China, the first large economy to curb the spread of the virus, represents over half of world consumption for copper and nickel.

Steeper yield curve no augury of reflation

In the short term, new vaccines are unlikely to beat coronavirus and revitalise world economies. Inflation will not soar soon, even as yields edge up modestly.

Mayfair 101's James Mawhinney is fighting battles on multiple fronts in Australia and abroad.

Another lash for Mayfair's whipping boy Mawhinney

A written judgment about the IPO Wealth fund was not kind.

How the economic outlook changes with vaccine timing

Getting an early vaccine is not a prerequisite for the Reserve Bank to upgrade economic growth. But a late vaccine could hurt growth, according to Goldman Sachs.

What happened in markets overnight

Australian shares are poised to extend their advance. Wall Street is mixed. Oil, gold higher. $A flat.

Opinion

Why an AMP board role is one of the trickiest jobs right now

The AMP board is under enormous pressure to wrap up the sale of the embattled group before it haemorrhages too many more staff or clients and the country heads off on summer holiday.

Karen Maley

Columnist

Karen Maley

Rules shift on the climate battlefield

Joel Fitzgibbon's resignation from Labor's frontbench is another example of Australia's continuing political brawls over climate changing policy. But the business community and the states are taking a different path.

Way to throw your CEO under a bus

Corporate leaders believe the Cartier watch scandal reveals that Canberra holds unrealistic expectations of the talented executives hired from the private sector.

Karen Maley

Columnist

Karen Maley

Australia's special interest in Biden's success

Failure to contain the pandemic will damage Joe Biden's authority – and make it more difficult to deal with the key China, climate, and trade policy challenges that matter for Australia. writes Alan Mitchell.

Alan Mitchell

Contributor

Alan Mitchell

I took the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It's a miracle for genetic medicine

The great news about RNA vaccines is that they can easily be reprogrammed. Even after we defeat COVID-19, new viruses will come along.

Walter Isaacson

Contributor

Walter Isaacson

Trump lost politicising COVID; let's not repeat the mistake

Pfizer's vaccine breakthrough is a classic public-private partnership between big government and big pharma. Turning the drug into a red versus blue state controversy will only discourage people from taking it.

Max Boot

Contributor

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Politics

A member of a COVID-19 testing team prepares to administer a test at a site in Lawrence, New York.

Sydney COVID-19 infections triple the number diagnosed

An estimated 7450 Sydneysiders were infected with COVID-19 in the first wave, or three times the diagnosed number.

Universities lobby for changes to foreign interference bill

The bill looks likely to pass but higher education providers say it affects them adversely.

Simon Atkinson, Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications.

Culture review for unit at heart of $29.8m airport land deal

The NSW government unit - which is at the centre of the $27 million overpayment for land for the new Western Sydney Airport - will face a review after "very substantial" problems.

'Worst I've seen': Albanese, Fitzgibbon go at it hammer and tongs

Monday night's shadow cabinet meeting was the most explosive many had witnessed as Joel Fitzgibbon and Anthony Albanese traded blows over the US election and climate change.

Albanese faces leadership test as climate tensions rise

Anthony Albanese's leadership is facing scrutiny after Joel Fitzgibbon's departure exposed the extent of the party's split over climate policy.

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World

Winners are grinners: NLD supporters in front of the party's HQ in Yangon on election day.

NLD's Myanmar election win good for business

Voters have given Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy another five years to transform the crony economy left behind by decades of military rule.

Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama on fame, grand postulations and woodwork

The political philosopher, who has published ten books and teaches at Stanford University, spends his free time making furniture.

Singles' Day frenzy last year. Alibaba is hoping for even more online shopping action this year.

Alibaba insists recession, political spat will not hurt Singles' Day sales

The world's biggest online shopping extravaganza kicks off in China on Wednesday, and Australian products traditionally rank high in the list of volume of sales to the planet's largest consumer market.

Britain bids to maintain post-Brexit London's financial pre-eminence

Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveils climate measures and digital plans for financial services, as the EU dithers over keeping the door open.

South Korea financial groups look to raise billions via IPOs

As many as six large financial companies are lining up listings on the Seoul bourse, starting in 2021 with the planned debuts of KakaoPay and Hyundai Card.

Property

Going Dutch: Charter Hall wins mandate for $800m logistics portfolio

The new partnership comes amid a relative boom in the industrial sector, accelerated by increased demand for space from e-commerce operators. 

Charter Hall Social Infrastructure REIT has bought this development in Adelaide.

Charter Hall buys emergency services command centre

Charter Hall's ASX-listed Social Infrastructure REIT has bought a government emergency services command centre and car park under construction in Adelaide.

Coming down: Mortgages subject to COVID hardship measures decreased in October.

The pandemic hit to mortgages is easing

Numbers from non-bank lender Firstmac are an early indicator of fewer borrowers needing hardship assistance as the virus is brought under control and the economy reopens.

San Francisco curbs virus but downtown is empty

Legions of tech workers have left. Families have fled for roomy suburban homes with backyards. The exodus has pushed rents in the prohibitively expensive city to their lowest in years.

US bankruptcy court approves sale of JC Penney

The retailer faces an uphill battle to attract shoppers this holiday season as they stay away from the malls and stores for safety reasons and shop online more.

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Wealth

Domestically the prospects for a vaccine-accelerated recovery add to other indicators of a firming outlook.

Sharemarket poised to rally into year end

Positive news of a vaccine on top of the US presidential election result has analysts hopeful of a much firmer outlook.

Property lessons from 1990s recession

While history offers hope for a strong market recovery, several concerning issues could stymie a rebound.

Funder overturns 'chilling' decision on underpayment class actions

A court ruling that scraps a precedent requiring litigation funders to pay millions of dollars in costs upfront will prompt an increase in industrial relations class actions, lawyers say.

Technology

Brussels says it is worried about Amazon's conduct, not its size.

Brussels adds Amazon to its list of Big Tech targets

The EU says Amazon is leveraging its marketplace for its own advantage, as Brussels picks yet another trans-Atlantic fight.

State firefighting agencies will partner with Facebook to alert users in their news feeds about nearby fires.

Facebook rolls out local alerts as news boycott looms

Facebook is promising to crack down on disinformation as it rolls out a new emergency alert system ahead of this summer's bushfire season.

The PS5 is an enormous, but not unattractive, machine.

The new PlayStation 5's controller is a game-changer

The DualSense unit's so-called haptic feedback takes gaming technology to the next level in a big step forward.

Work & Careers

Lionel Kho is a data scientist at dentsu

Did you know you could be a data scientist?

Lionel Kho has worked for Medibank, ANZ and even the Australian Ballet. He reveals how he ended up in a job that didn't even exist when he started his career.

Junior workers most nervous about return to the office

Workers in entry-level positions remain the most concerned about exposure to COVID-19, as most industries have begun to return to the office.

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Life & Luxury

The north-facing terrace and pool.

Pop star lists Toorak home for $7m

Singer-songwriter Tina Arena bought the grand residence in the exclusive Melbourne suburb for $5,733,000 in 2017, records show.

Mercedes Benz A-Klasse Plug-in Hybrid

Plug-in hybrids now some of the fastest cars you can get

Some new models with a combination of petrol and wall socket electric power, such as Ferrari’s SF90 Stradale and McLaren's Speedtail, leave other cars behind.

The new Apple MacBook.

Apple launches new Macs with a big difference

The tech titan says its own M1 chip in the fresh MacBook Air, Pro and Mac mini offers a battery life of up to 18 hours, faster graphics and speedier processing.

Greater Sydney was officially declared a hot spot on Saturday.

'The best news the travel industry has had all year'

Plummeting COVID-19 cases are encouraging Australians to book domestic holidays and news of a potential vaccine means overseas holidays may also be on the horizon.

Kristian Connelly, CEO of Cinema Nova in Carlton, is happy to welcome patrons back to the movies.

Melbourne cinemas want help to keep the lights off

The projectors are rolling in Melbourne cinemas again, but operators say the industry needs a tailored support package to help it recover from lockdown. 

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