Crypto News: RBA set to hold key rate

Good morning and welcome back, it's Ainsley here with all the news you need to start your working week.

Today's must-reads:
• RBA seen holding key rate
• Westpac's profit beats
• Student loans to be cut

Australia's central bank is poised to keep interest rates at a 13-year high, marking a year of unchanged policy as it grapples with a slow pace of disinflation and mounting global risks capped by a tight US election. Economists see the Reserve Bank holding the cash rate at 4.35% tomorrow — and leaving it there until at least February.

Westpac's profit beat estimates as higher interest rates buoyed the bank's margins. It handed investors an additional buyback worth A$1 billion.

The government will cut A$16 billion in student loans for university and other higher education to help ease the rising cost of living. It plans to reduce all student loans by 20% from June 1 next year, affecting more than three million Australians. The measure will cut A$5,520 off an average loan of A$27,600.

Macquarie's recent megadeal to sell AirTrunk was just a warm up act when it comes to data centers, CEO Shemara Wikramanayake said. It owns 4.3 gigawatts of data center capacity worldwide, and almost a third of the investments by its asset management arm are in digital infrastructure. The firm is betting on higher income in that unit from the sale of more investments, with a swathe of data center businesses part of that.

To test a theory that satellites could help detect plastic waste on beaches, data scientist Jenna Guffogg laid out discarded plastic scraps on a beach in Australia and waited for a satellite image to be taken. Guffogg's findings, published in a study in Marine Pollution Bulletin, show how the use of satellites to locate plastic waste on beaches could aid efforts to curb the estimated 19 to 23 million metric tons of the material that enters marine and coastal ecosystems each year.

Scraps of plastic placed on a beach near Shallow Inlet, in Victoria, Australia during a test of satellite observations.

The Sydney Marathon has been elevated to join the Abbott World Marathon Majors running series, placing it alongside landmark international events including the London and New York marathons. The event in September this year had a record of more than 20,000 finishers, up from around 5,000 just a few years ago, making it the biggest marathon ever held in Australia.

A flurry of polls released Sunday show Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remain poised for a photo finish in this week's presidential election. The final poll from ABC News and Ipsos gave Harris a 49%-46% edge nationally, while the New York Times/Siena survey showed Harris ahead in five of seven swing states. Still, Harris' advantage across all of the surveys was within the margin of error, and a NBC News poll showed the race deadlocked 49%-49%.

Harris campaigning in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Nov. 2. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

In the closing days of the presidential campaign, Trump's allies suddenly have a new message: The US needs sharp, immediate and ill-defined spending cuts, writes Matthew Yglesias for Bloomberg Opinion.

OPEC+ agreed to push back its December production increase by one month, the second delay to its plans to revive supply as prices continue to struggle amid a fragile economic outlook.

Berkshire Hathaway's continued sales of Apple shares in the third quarter left the conglomerate's stake at a fraction of its size at the start of the year. Berkshire cut its holdings in the iPhone maker by roughly 25% in the period, after slashing it by almost half in the second quarter. Apple's shares gained 10.6% in the period ended Sept. 30.

All times Sydney
• 11:00 a.m.: Oct. Melbourne Institute Inflation
• 11:30 a.m.: Oct. ANZ-Indeed Job Advertisements

For the big money on Wall Street, there's the prep that's bound to come with a coin-toss election that could dramatically swing policy. Trading desks staffed through the night, with teams in Hong Kong and Singapore enlisted to help. Tracking popular "Trump trades" — long the dollar, short bonds — ready to pile in or quickly unwind. And then there are the steps taken for an election season like no other. One London-based hedge fund primed its "shock" computer model especially for this moment. Banks are preparing for the risks, however remote, of civic violence — a prospect that would shake the US, the world and global financial markets. Read more in our Big Take.