1. Please sir, can I have some more?

Pub and restaurant entrepreneur Justin Hemmes is fronting his banks looking for a cool half-a-billion dollars to refinance his hospitality business crippled by the Coronavirus.

2. Ignorance is bliss

The Dow Jones was down over 200 points on Friday but our stock market is tipped to ignore the negative vibes from Wall Street.

3. Dividend payouts drop

Australian dividends during the third quarter of 2020 were down 47.8% compared to the previous year according to figures from Janus Henderson published by The Australian which show that US$9.6 billion ($13.2 billion) in dividends were paid, the lowest total in at least 11 years.

4. Toilet paper shortages strike again

The United States may be entering another round of the widespread panic buying first seen in March this year. Ahead of the major Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, retailers such as Walmart and Costco are reporting shortages of toilet paper and cleaning supplies, and there has been a 60 to 70% increase in demand for nonperishable goods according to e-commerce tracking platform Centricity Inc.

5. US stocks down for the week

Following two solid weekly gains, the Dow was down 0.75% for the week to 29,263.48 and the S&P 500 fell by 0.68% to 3,557.54. The Nasdaq managed to post a weekly gain of 0.22% to 11,854.97.