1. Richest Aussie women revealed

The AFR has revealed the nation’s richest women so who tops the list? Iron ore magnate Gina Rinehart is the country’s richest woman, with her wealth calculated to be $35.6 billion. This has been powered by the huge spike in the price of iron ore, since the Coronavirus crash of the stock market and the ensuing recession. Coming in second is the co-owner of paper company, Visy, Fiona Geminder, who was formerly Fiona Pratt, with her one-third share of the business worth $3.2 billion. She ties with her sister, Heloise Pratt, who also owns one-third of the Visy operation. The biggest celebrity on the list is Nicole Kidman who came in at number 26. Estimates of her wealth by wealthygorilla.com puts it as US$250 million.

2. Local stock market tipped to rebound today

The local stock market is tipped to have a big rebound today after a very negative end to last week’s trading and we can thank the US President Joe Biden. Stock market futures tell us what we can expect from trading ahead of the market opening and the news is very positive for this week, with President Joe Biden signing his $1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package passed by Congress last week. That converts to $2.5 trillion Aussie dollars. This huge spending package comes as we learnt that the Yanks created 379,000 jobs in February alone, when only  210,000 were expected. And if you factor in the success of the vaccination programme in the US, it explains why economists expect a big boom for the US economy this year. This is great for stock prices worldwide and our super funds!

3. JobKeeper ends and tourism sector prays for relief

At the end of March, the Morrison Government’s JobKeeper program ends and the tourism sector is waiting and hoping for a relief package. With three weeks to go before JobKeeper is due to expire, Australian Tourism Industry Council boss Simon Westaway said businesses are already planning mass redundancies ­because of the uncertainty of what  government help would be offered after the end of March. Stafford Strategy Research found 34% of the country experienced a 40% (or more) greater loss of visitors because of the travel bans, while a third of towns saw growth because of Australians holidaying within Australia, because they couldn’t go overseas. Labour market economist Jeff Borland thinks 250,000 jobs could be lost when JobKeeper ends, and Mr Westaway says tourism businesses required short-term assistance from the Government until the national vaccine rollout gets us all travelling again.

4. World's oldest bird hatches chick at 70

Wisdom the Laysan albatross, the oldest known wild bird in history aged at least 70 years old, hatched another chick on February 1 according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The bird is believed to have raised over 40 chicks during its lifetime, and was first identified as part of a research project in 1956.

5. Dow Jones and S&P 500 rise at the end of a volatile week

Both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 were in the green on a weekly basis at the close on Friday, with the Dow rising 1.82% throughout the week to 31,496.30 and the S&P gaining 0.81% to 3,841.94. The Nasdaq was down 2.06% for the week to 12,920.15, avoiding even further losses with a rise of 1.55% on Friday.