Gen Z Morning Brief · 3-minute read Wednesday, 26 AUGUST 2026. The daily business and fraud briefing that tells Gen Z how today's headlines affect tomorrow's pay.

Good morning. Woodside Energy just posted a 27% jump in half-year profit, and its shares climbed with it, part of a broad rally that gave the ASX its best day in almost three weeks.

Thailand's stock market didn't share the mood, sliding as global bond yields spooked regional investors. Malaysia's telecoms regulator says scammers have simply moved platforms after a crackdown on SMS phishing links, shifting to iMessage and RCS instead.

And Australia's Scams Awareness Week opened this week with numbers that put a real scale on the problem: more than 91,000 reports and $156.6 million lost in six months. Here's what actually happened, and what it means for your money.

Here's what matters today and what it means for you.- Miko Santos

Healthcare, IT and financial stocks did most of the work today, helped by June's cooler inflation print, while Woodside's results added extra fuel from the energy side. Bitcoin extended a rally now running past a week, with short-covering and renewed ETF demand doing the heavy lifting.

Woodside Energy's half-year profit jumped 27% to US$1.67 billion. Revenue rose 13% to US$7.45 billion, free cash flow more than doubled, and the board declared a 57 US cent interim dividend. Shares rose 2.5% on the news. Source: The Motley Fool Australia, 25 August 2026 →

Thailand's stock market slid 0.79% as bond yields rattled the region. The SET Index closed at 1,601.05, down 12.73 points, with semiconductor stocks under the heaviest pressure as soaring US Treasury yields and Middle East volatility weighed on global sentiment. Source: Kaohoon International, 24 August 2026 →

Malaysia's scammers have moved from SMS to iMessage and RCS after a hyperlink crackdown. MCMC's Selangor telecommunications fraud deputy director, Mohd Amirul Hakim Abdul Rahim, told a national anti-scam forum that once SMS links got blocked, phishing simply shifted to messaging apps that still allow them. The regulator now plans to raise similar restrictions with those platforms directly. Source: Malay Mail, 21 August 2026 →

Australia's Scams Awareness Week opened with the real numbers behind the campaign. Scamwatch says Australians made 91,767 scam reports in the first six months of 2026, losing $156.6 million, with investment scams the costliest category at $80.4 million. This year's theme, "No one's just a number," centres on real people's stories rather than statistics alone. Source: Scamwatch/ACCC, Scams Awareness Week 2026 →

A wobble in Thai or regional shares isn't a reason to sell. Bond-yield jitters like this tend to pass through Southeast Asian markets fast and reverse just as quickly; it's noise for a long-term holder, not a signal.

If a text with a link claims to be your bank or telco, the platform doesn't matter. Whether it lands as an SMS, an iMessage or a WhatsApp message, check through the official app yourself. Malaysia's regulator just confirmed scammers will use whichever channel still lets them through.

Romance scams alone cost Australians more than $139 million reported in this year's figures. If someone you've met online starts asking for money, that's worth a conversation with someone outside the relationship before you send anything, especially if you've never met them in person.

New Zealand's NZX 50 rose 0.6%, led by a2 Milk and SkyCity Entertainment. Both stocks climbed 4% on the day, with SkyCity now up 18% over the past five trading days. Source: interest.co.nz, 25 August 2026 →

Indonesia's cashless payments jumped 82.4% in July. Bank Indonesia's QRIS transaction data shows the surge coincided with the rupiah strengthening 0.73% against the US dollar over the past week, even as the local stock index eased slightly. Source: Vibiznews.com, 23 August 2026 →

Bursa Malaysia is closed today for Maulidur Rasul. Its last session eased 0.15 of a point to 1,736.33 as investors held off ahead of more corporate earnings. Source: Free Malaysia Today, 24 August 2026 →

A university student sees a message in a group chat: a "part-time job" paying well above minimum wage, no experience needed, just open a bank account and hand over the login details so a "company" can process payments through it. The pay for the first week comes through exactly as promised. Encouraged, the student opens a second account at another bank when asked, and a third. Weeks later, police contact the student. The accounts weren't paying wages. They were laundering money stolen from scam victims, and the student's name is now attached to every transaction that passed through them. The "employer" is unreachable.

Remember:

Stat: $139 million. That's what romance scams alone cost Australians in the first half of 2026, according to Scamwatch's Scams Awareness Week figures released this week. It's the single costliest category behind investment fraud, and the reason this year's campaign is built around real stories instead of just statistics. Subscribe to the daily brief. Source: Scamwatch/ACCC, Scams Awareness Week 2026 →

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