The Telstra board meets today and the slanging match between the
telco and its controlling shareholder, the Federal Government will
be on the agenda, says Malcolm Maiden in The Smage. This week’s legislative package is critical and there has to be some prospect
that Sol Trujillo’s team will calm down, or be told by the board to
calm down, if the new regulations are not as draconian as they
fear. But if it turns out to be “regulation-light” and Telstra continues to
aggressively attack the Government, early tickets back to the US
for Team Trujillo are a distinct possibility.

Investors fear the oil shock sparked by Hurricane Katrina could
wipe as much as 1 percentage point off US economic growth in the
second half of this year and force the Federal Reserve to hold off
raising interest rates, reports The SMH. At least five Wall Street banking firms have cut their forecasts
for US economic growth, including Goldman Sachs, which said it
“looks likely” US central bankers would “pause” in their fight
against inflation. And the head of the International Energy
Agency has warned that Hurricane
Katrina could spark a worldwide energy crisis if damage to US
refineries lead to a big increase in US purchases of European
petrol, reports The Age.

Multiplex is bracing
itself against reports that it has kept back sensitive market
information about the state of its troubled Wembley Stadium project in
London, reports The Australian. The ABC took Multiplex to the High Court in Britain, where
it succeeded in compelling the company to release fresh information on
its Wembley project.

And The Fin Review reports that major sharemarket-listed
companies have pulled back from providing specific profit forecasts to
investors because of uncertainty about the economic outlook and to
limit the potential share-price fall-out from missing precise earnings
estimates.