Tim Treadgold

ANALYSIS: New retail arrivals continue to pile pressure on established operators, with Wesfarmers feeling the pain on several fronts.

OPINION: With a touch of irony, the central bank governor fires a warning shot in mortgage-stressed WA that rates will rise.

ANALYSIS: A forecast global surge into electric cars and buyers’ growing preference for the state’s hard rock lithium ore is putting a rocket into the sector.

OPINION: The government’s budgetary outlook is in stark contrast to the prevailing trend on the Business News BN30 stock market index.

ANALYSIS: If a full-blown mortgage crisis were to hit Australia, it will have been brought about by mismanagement at all stages of the home-loan process.

OPINION: As technology increasingly cuts out the middleman, the WA government’s investment in facilities at Perth Airport may have short-lived benefits.

ANALYSIS: Recent numbers from iron ore miner Atlas Iron suggest it may be moving from survival mode to revival.

OPINION: The failure of Australia’s energy policy has led to the ludicrous situation where Victoria is considering importing gas from the nation’s overseas competitors.

ANALYSIS: Positive news on employment and among some key commodities appears to mark a positive trend for the state’s economy, and Business News' BN30 stock index backs that up.

OPINION: A bit of bagging from Donald Trump has coincided with the digital rise of a traditional US publishing business.

ANALYSIS: Two local lithium players will be hoping their early move into the sector justifies the hefty interest rates on their loans.

OPINION: The boom in lithium demand is driving growth at one of the state’s quiet achievers, Mineral Resources.

ANALYSIS: WA could find itself in a tough spot if the Reserve Bank raises interest rates in response to economic conditions in the eastern states.

OPINION: The resources world is watching to see how the technology on Shell’s Prelude platform performs against Inpex’s more traditional Ichthys operation.

WA’s world-leading lithium sector could ride a wave of demand led by the charge in battery storage technology.

OPINION: Bunnings is running two contrary strategies in Australia and the UK as it takes an offensive defensive posture against Amazon.

ANALYSIS: The business sector’s view of the future and that of consumers are heading in different directions.

OPINION: Those among us who are unfamiliar with the term ‘collateral damage’ are about to learn its meaning first hand, because it is what we have become – innocent victims of bad governance across Australia.

OPINION: A slide in the value of the $A against the greenback could be a positive for gold. 

ANALYSIS: Despite the best of intentions, WA’s economic performance has stuttered and stagnated as the end of the financial year approaches.

OPINION: Western Australia has always been different to the rest of the nation, and not often to its advantage, as the ongoing dispute over the GST demonstrates.

OPINION: Rural exports are on an upward curve, which is good news for the bush and investors in the agribusiness sector.

ANALYSIS: The point of no return may have already been reached for bricks-and-mortar retailers struggling to compete with the online experience. 

OPINION: More does not always mean better. This fact of life, told by generations of mothers to their children, is something Australia’s banks are discovering as they fight to defend their handsome profits from the latest tax raid.

OPINION: A failure to stick to their core competencies has led to significant disruption for businesses and organisations economy-wide.

ANALYSIS: The fortunes of an iconic residential property developer are a pointer to the health of WA’s economy.

OPINION: Iron ore miners Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart, Western Australia’s two richest people, are taking a different approach to growing their other major business interest – beef production.

ANALYSIS: With abundant supplies of energy and the raw materials growing Asian economies need, WA is set to ride out the economic headwinds facing the eastern states.

OPINION: Bank bashing is one of Australia’s favourite sports, and while it is generally played when banks are behaving badly, there is a time when the banks become political footballs for playing well, which is what will probably happen next week – for 16 billion reasons.

OPINION: A worldwide shake-up of the fertiliser industry may play out in WA, according to the investment bank, which has been watching Wesfarmers’ CSBP division.

OPINION: Corporate events such as takeovers and break-up proposals do not always have a political edge to them, but when they involve BHP Billiton, once Australia’s biggest company, politics are not far away (and neither is Western Australia).

ANALYSIS: Several factors are combining to reshape the future options for titanium minerals and zircon miner Iluka Resources.