MIXED OUTLOOK AS EARNINGS SEASON APPROACHES; WARNING TO ALL AS DISNEY’S SLACK GETS HACKED

MIXED OUTLOOK AS EARNINGS SEASON APPROACHES; WARNING TO ALL AS DISNEY’S SLACK GETS HACKED

MIXED OUTLOOK AS EARNINGS SEASON APPROACHES

The Australian share market may have been hitting new highs this week, but things aren’t looking quite as rosy for some sectors as the countdown to earnings season begins.

Compounding the string of disappointing trading updates from cyclical stocks for the March quarter, consumer sentiment remains weak, the labour market remains soft, and business conditions have deteriorated. As noted by James Thomson in his AFR column on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs strategist Matthew Ross has signaled that all this adds up to an unlikely significant improvement in earnings come August results time.

Meanwhile, analysts at Citi are holding out hope for retailers. According to The Australian, they’re keen to hear whether retailers such as JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman have benefited from shoppers spending their Stage 3 tax cuts that came into effect on July 1.

WARNING TO ALL AS DISNEY’S SLACK GETS HACKED

Disney is the latest corporation to suffer a major data breach, with hackers publishing content stolen from Disney’s nearly 10,000 internal messaging channels on Slack, according to Inc. Australia.

You might say, “Disney’s Slack got hacked”, as anonymous hacking group Nullbulge infiltrated the channels to publish confidential documents about its theme parks, computer code, and information on unreleased projects, The Wall Street Journal reveals.

We have seen Qantas, Microsoft, Ticketek, and more impacted by cyber data breaches this year alone in Australia. Companies should be warned and on high alert as the ongoing cybersecurity threat affects not only customer databases and websites, but internal communication channels such as the widely used business platform, Slack.

SHHH…I’M ON VACATION!

We’ve heard of ‘quiet quitting’ and here comes ‘quiet vacationing’, where employees are taking time off from work without officially using their paid annual leave.

The Wall Street Journal says rather than requesting annual leave, employees are increasingly working remotely from holiday destinations or taking mini holidays during work hours. A recent survey of around 1,200 Americans, conducted by market-research company Harris Poll, revealed more than a quarter of workers had taken time off without discussing it with their manager.

Is ‘quiet vacationing’ here to stay? According to the Harris Poll survey, the trend is gaining momentum, proving employees are reluctant to use the limited annual leave they are offered or feel the pressure to always be ‘on’ and available.


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