Star Entertainment has confirmed it has entered into a refinancing deal with funds manager Salter Brothers Capital.

The deal would provide total debt capacity from the Group of up to $940 million.

The proposal was initially announced to the ASX on Friday but the lender was unnamed.

It comes after US gaming giant Bally’s made an unsolicited approach on Monday morning, offering at least $250 million in funding in exchange for a controlling stake in the firm.

Star has been seeking a financial rescue deal to avoid collapse.

The company’s shares have been suspended from trade on the ASX for a week, after the company failed to submit its half-year accounts.

You can read more about Star’s refinancing deals here:

 Australian shares have opened lower, following falls in Wall Street overnight.

The ASX 200 is down -1.16% to 7,869 points.

The broader All Ordinaries index is also down -1.12% to 8,092 points, as at 10.15 AEDT.

Here’s how the sectors are performing:

You can check live updates on the major ASX indices:

Local stocks are coming online and so far we have the ASX 200 down 1.1 per cent and the All Ordinaries off 1.2 per cent.

We’ll bring you more detail in the next few minutes.

The CEO of Australian medical devices firm PolyNovo, Swami Raote, has been asked to leave the top job.

A statement to the ASX says the Board had asked Mr Raote to voluntarily step down on Friday, however, they were unable to reach agreement.

“After careful consideration, the Board has come to the conclusion that a change in PNV’s Chief Executive Officer is in the best interests of PNV at this time and that new leadership is required to continue the Company’s growth,” the statement said.

It follows allegations of bullying by the company’s chairman, David Williams reported in the media.

An earlier statement to the ASX confirmed a rift between management and the company’s chair, David Williams.

It said the Board engaged barristers Philip Crutchfield and Katherin Brazenor in October last year to hold discussions with some management team members and the Chair regarding “the ongoing working arrangements and professional relations between the Chair and management.”

Non-executive director Robyn Elliott will serve as Acting CEO until a permanent replacement is found.

Just a few minutes out from the open now, so let’s check in on how the local share market has been tracking before we get underway.

• Yesterday, the ASX 200 rose 0.2 per cent, a modest gain but lifting off the six-month low posted at the end of last week
• So far this month, the benchmark index has lost 2.6 per cent — considering March is just 11 days old, that is not a great week and a half for the market
• Since January 1, the ASX 200 is down 2.4 per cent
• The worst sessions of the year so far were last Friday (March 7) with 1.8 per cent fall, and February 3, also with 1.8 per cent or around $50 billion wiped off the local market
• On the flipside, January 16 was the best session, with 1.4 per cent added
• The last three weeks have seen weekly losses

About 3 million Australians took money out of their super accounts in 2020, after COVID-19 emergency measures allowed them to access their super early.

If you took money out of your retirement fund, you may have wondered what sort of impact this will have had on your future.

So, should you be “paying back” your super?

You can read more here:

The personal and emotional toll of ex-cyclone Alfred is hard to quantify but economists are estimating that the economic damage will be significant, far reaching and long-lasting.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver told The Business’ Kirsten Aiken the disaster could cost up to $1 billion a day as it shuts down economic activity. 

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Across the ditch, trade is underway on the NZ 50 and it’s been a negative start, with the index down 0.8 per cent in early trade.

Locally, ASX SPI 200 futures are pointing down 0.9 per cent.

Of course, that’s far from the hefty falls on Wall Street overnight — so watch this space.

In local corporate news, Brickworks has warned of a hit to its North American operations.

In an ASX release this morning, the brick manufacturer said it would take an impairment charge of $55 million, post tax, on Brickworks North America.

Brickworks flagged at its annual general meeting in November that “market conditions in North America were declining faster than previously anticipated“.

“These challenging conditions have continued through the balance of [the first half of the financial year], driving a 13% reduction in revenue compared to the prior corresponding period.”

It noted strong competition in its retail store network, as well as reduced demand, which led to plant shutdowns and weighed on efficiency, leading to higher manufacturing costs.

“In addition, uncertainty around the timing of the market recovery, factors such as labour shortages, elevated material costs, interest rate uncertainty and geopolitical volatility, has resulted in a moderation of the short to medium term outlook for sales activity.”

It expects higher earnings from its property, and earnings from the Australian building products division to be in line with guidance, while North American building products earnings will be “significantly lower”.

Brickworks declined to provide guidance on its net profit. The first-half results will be released on March 20.

Dan Ives is, to say the least, an optimist when it comes to most of the big tech stocks.

His latest note is true to form, urging investors to resist panic selling.

“We have been on the phone with investors constantly over the last week walking through the scenarios for the Mag[nificent] 7 and AI Revolution and why we remain firmly bullish and believe tech stocks will ultimately make new all-time highs during the second half of 2025 despite a disaster panicked sell-off to start the year,” he wrote with his colleagues in a note.

“We believe this is Year 3 of what will be an 8-10 year build out of the AI Revolution. Will there be some near-term headwinds from Trump Policy … yes … but this is no way changes the $2 trillion of AI Cap Ex on the horizon,” the Wedbush Securities analysts continue.

“We are in the early stages of a 4th Industrial Revolution and it’s being driven by a handful of Big Tech players with enterprise AI, consumer AI apps/LLM models, autonomous, robotics, and many derivatives of this once in a 40-year spending wave ahead of us.”

The Wedbush team argues that the sell off is offering “golden opportunities” to get into the market.

“This will prove to be a generational time to own tech winners with patience and not the time to throw in the white towel on this bull market.”

But there are plenty of other analysts warning that it is a very dangerous time to catch a falling sword.

Pepperstone’s Chris Weston being one of them.

“We’re trading the collective flows in the market, and the aggregation of all beliefs — many of which are turning increasingly emotional and even irrational — and standing in the way of this flow of capital and attempting to time a turn without the price action giving you that confidence just increases the risk of ruin,” he wrote this morning.

And, please remember, we are just republishing the opinions of traders and analysts — nothing on this blog is financial advice.

Taking a closer look at where the pain was felt on US markets overnight, here’s how the S&P 500 sectors finished up:

The worst individual falls were for:

• Tesla -15.4%
• Microchip Technology -10.6%
• Palantir Technologies -10%
• Dexcom -9.1%
• ServiceNow -7.9%

It was another bad day for Tesla after a rough few months for the stock — and the company, with sales taking a hit globally.

You can read more here:

We’re still just under two hours off local trade, but there’s plenty of commentary flowing through on the overnight stock market rout.

Here’s what ANZ Research analysts Brian Martin and Daniel Hynes make of it all:

“The sell-off in stock markets extended as confidence in the US growth outlook continued to falter, President Trump refused to rule out a recession and Kevin Hassett, chair of the US National Economic Council, said that negative Q1 growth expectations are because of Biden and the timing of tariffs.

“No let-up in uncertainty seems likely in the near term given reciprocal and other tariffs will be announced in April with more to follow in May.

“The US administration is viewing current uncertainty-related weakness as an ‘adjustment’ as the economy transitions to fairer trade and a smaller role for the federal government.

“More immediately, attention is also focused on the US government’s funding bill this week that is needed to avert a partial government shutdown from Friday.

“The House is expected to vote on a package Tuesday, which if passed will then go to the Senate.”

Look, it’s probably not the worst day to have your shares suspended from trade, let’s be honest.

Despite Star Entertainment having found a fix for its immediate crunch with a refinancing deal and plans to sell off its Brisbane casino stake, plus US giant Bally’s lobbing an alternate offer at the eleventh hour, its issues continue.

Its shares remain suspended from the ASX as it is yet to sign off on its half-year financial accounts.

And as chief business correspondent Ian Verrender writes, while Australians remain big gamblers, the technology has changed — and that’s not good for the casino business.

Read more here:

The price of cryptocurrency Bitcoin fell to a four-month low, down by more than 5 per cent against the US dollar.

That’s despite the US president signing an executive order to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve at the end of last week, with crypto executives joining Donald Trump at the White House.

Here’s how it’s fared over the past 6 months:

If you want to find out more about what exactly a Bitcoin strategic reserve entails, read this piece from business reporter David Chau:

• ASX 200 futures: -0.9% to 7,895 points 
• Australian dollar: -0.5% to 62.75US cents 
• S&P 500: -2.7% to 5,614 points 
• Nasdaq: -4% to 17,468 points 
• FTSE: -0.9% to 8,600 points 
• EuroStoxx: -1.3% to 546 points 
• Spot gold: -0.8% to $US2,888/ounce 
• Brent crude: -1.6% to $US69.22/barrel 
• Iron ore: -0.3% to $US100.75/tonne 
• Bitcoin: -5.5% to $US78,493

Prices current around 7:45am AEDT.

Live updates on the major ASX indices:

US markets are no stranger to the Trump rollercoaster but comments he made in an interview with Fox News on Sunday (US time) seem to have left investors particularly spooked.

In response to a question about the chances of a recession, the president didn’t rule it out:

“I hate to predict things like that…

“There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.”

That was enough to spark the sell-off and send the Nasdaq to its worst session since September 2022, despite efforts from senior Trump officials to walk back from the negativity.

“Headlines of recession risk rising (from low levels) abound,” NAB’s head of market economics Tapas Strickland wrote.

“Several US banks updated their subjective recession probabilities: Goldman’s on Friday lifted theirs to 20% from 15%, while JP Morgan lifted to 40% from 30%.”

Tariff uncertainty and concerns about the US economy weighed on stocks overnight.

In the wash up of the sell-off, Reuters has gathered some commentary from US investors.

Here’s what they’re putting the negativity down to:

“Has the economy really fallen off a cliff in the last six weeks? No. And yet the perception is dramatically different today than it was at the end of last year.” Edward Al-Hussainy, Columbia Threadneedle Investments

“They said there’s going to be a period of volatility, there’s going to be a rough patch here … the stock market is trying to digest that, and they’re discounting that out into the future with lower valuations.” — George Cipolloni, Penn Mutual Asset Mgmt

“The market is already starting to price in the slowdown at this point, but it’s too soon to tell. At this point the problem is the uncertainty, so we’ll see what happens.” — Joe Saluzzi, Themis Trading

“International investors are coming out of the US markets and they’re going elsewhere. Today, it’s flying out of everything. You have people unwinding that carry trade. This isn’t something that just unwinds in a day or two, you could see this get ugly.” — Dennis Dick, Triple D Trading

Morning! I decided to drop the good because it certainly wasn’t for the overnight session on global markets.

Due to daylight savings ending in the US, we’ve had Wall Street close a short time ago.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq index tumbled 4 per cent for its worst one-day drop since September 2022.

The broader S&P 500 lost 2.7 per cent, while the Dow shed 2.1 per cent.

ASX futures are pointing down, but not by anywhere near the same magnitude so far — but hey, it’s early days.

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