Latest equities, bonds, and regulatory news from Australia, updated daily.
The Australian Securities Exchange, ASX, is the country’s main listing and trading venue for equities and listed debt, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC, is the statutory body above it. ASIC describes itself as Australia’s integrated corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator, an independent government body set up under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 that does most of its work under the Corporations Act. Its stated role is to improve the performance of the financial system, promote confident and informed participation by investors and consumers, and enforce the law. The Reserve Bank of Australia sets monetary policy and publishes the statistical tables on its balance sheet, policy operations and administered rates. Prices are quoted in Australian dollars. The Listing Rules point at the index family themselves: an entity that will join the S&P/ASX 300 Index on admission must have a remuneration committee made up solely of non-executive directors.
Admission runs through Listing Rule 1.1. An applicant needs a free float of at least 20% and at least 300 non-affiliated security holders, each holding an unrestricted parcel of the main class worth at least $2,000, and spread obtained by artificial means does not count. It must then pass one of two financial tests. The profit test requires aggregated profit from continuing operations of at least $1 million over the last three full financial years and consolidated profit above $500,000 for the 12 months to a date no more than two months before the application. The assets test requires net tangible assets of at least $4 million after fundraising costs, or a market capitalisation of at least $15 million, with working capital of at least $1.5 million. Quotation carries its own conditions: securities must be issued or sold at no less than 20 cents in cash, and listed debt securities must have an aggregate face value of at least $10 million.
Foreign companies reach the board by two routes. A standard ASX Listing requires registration as a foreign company carrying on business in Australia; where local law prevents the shares themselves being registered or transferred, CHESS Depositary Interests are quoted over them through ASX Settlement, the approved clearing and settlement facility. An ASX Foreign Exempt Listing instead defers to the applicant’s overseas home exchange, whose rules the entity must be subject to and complying with, and afterwards follows only a short list of ASX rules. Those thresholds are far higher: an applicant that is not a qualifying New Zealand entity needs operating profit before income tax of at least $200 million in each of the last three full financial years, or net tangible assets or market capitalisation of at least $2,000 million. Qualifying New Zealand entities are held to the ordinary profit and assets tests, which is why trans-Tasman listings are routine.
Sovereign debt is issued by the Australian Office of Financial Management, which has operational independence in executing the Government’s financing. Budget Paper No. 1 put the total face value of Australian Government Securities on issue at $951,939 million as at 11 March 2025: $869,349 million of Treasury Bonds, $41,085 million of Treasury Indexed Bonds and $41,500 million of Treasury Notes. There were 30 Treasury Bond lines, weighted average term to maturity 6.4 years, longest maturity June 2054, including a Green Treasury Bond maturing in June 2034 and first issued in June 2024.
Resources are written into the rulebook itself: mining entities and oil and gas entities have their own call programs, payable in full within two years of issue and not extendable. GSN covers Australian company results and continuous disclosure released through ASX, ASIC guidance and enforcement, government issuance, and Reserve Bank decisions.
Sources
This overview is based on the official documents listed below, last checked 2026-09-03. Figures are as stated in those documents.
FirstWave Cloud Technology (ASX: FCT) has filed a provisional patent for an AI-driven network monitoring system developed with academic partners.
Felix Gold says a pilot plant built to replicate the Frontier Antimony Refinery flowsheet converted Treasure Creek ore to cast antimony ingot, with laboratory assays and final refining still outstanding.
ASX-listed Felix Gold creates Frontier Antimony Refinery to process Treasure Creek ore, targeting US Department of Energy funding and an end-2027 smelter start.
Australian investigative analytics group Nuix reported FY26 revenue of $263.2 million, up 18.8%, and a statutory net profit after tax of $16.4 million.
PlaySide Studios (ASX: PLY) reported a return to profitability for FY26, driven by strong sales of its original intellectual property and cost-cutting measures.
Janison Education Group will act as principal technology subcontractor to NFER on Scotland's national standardised assessments, a deal worth about A$14.2 million.
TG Metals, an exploration company, has released its maiden mineral resource estimate at the Burmeister spodumene lithium deposit in Western Australia.
Tungsten Mining has begun a 175-hole reverse circulation and 75-hole diamond drilling campaign at its Watershed project in Queensland to update the resource model.
Alma Metals, an Australian copper explorer, has reported consistent copper mineralisation across the first three infill drill holes of a pre-feasibility study campaign at its Briggs project in Queensland.
Iltani Resources reports first-pass ore-sorting results at its Orient Silver-Indium Project in Queensland, citing mass rejection rates and grade upgrades from XRT testing.
How the ASX's calendar-based Appendix 4D and Appendix 4E reports differ structurally from the continuous disclosure rule requiring immediate release of material news.
A look at how the ASX's CHESS system settles on-market trades within two business days, using Holder Identification Numbers to move legal title from seller to buyer.
How investment banks use institutional bookbuilds to discover an ASX IPO's final issue price, and why retail applicants are offered a single fixed price instead.
Australia's substantial holding rules force investors to disclose a 5% stake and update it after every 1% move. Here is how the mechanism actually works.
BBSW once came from executable bids and offers in a thin window of the bank bill market. A court case, a new calculation method and a licensing regime changed what the number is made of.
A shareholder enrolled in an ASX dividend reinvestment plan never sees the cash, and the price used to convert that dividend into new shares is set by the company from an averaging window, not by the ticker.
The Budget's Debt Statement sets out how much Australian Government debt is on issue, in which bond lines, who holds it, and what the government assumes its future borrowing will cost.
An ASX company does not choose its sector. A hierarchy run by MSCI and S&P Dow Jones Indices assigns it from revenue and earnings, using the company's own annual report, and changes it only reluctantly.
A single sentence buried in the ASX Listing Rules can force a company to announce bad news within minutes of finding out. Here is how Australia's continuous disclosure regime actually works.
A company listing shares and a fund manager offering units both hand investors a disclosure document, but the paperwork, the risks disclosed and the rules behind each are worlds apart.
A franked dividend arrives with a credit attached, but the Income Tax Assessment Act decides how large that credit can be, who is allowed to claim it, and why a company cannot frank one payment more generously than the next.