Good morning. Hope you had a restful weekend. Let’s go.

1. Amid the Boeing 737 Max debacle, there’s at least one airline interested in the troubled plane once its cleared to fly again: Qantas. Chief executive Alan Joyce believes the airline’s excellent safety record positions it to nab a bunch of 737 Max planes at a great price in order to replace the 75 ageing 737s it currently possesses. “Qantas itself will put the [Max] aircraft through its own lens to make sure we’re comfortable with it,” Joyce told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

2. New government data shows a very small drop in Australia’s carbon emissions – about 0.3% in the 12 months to September last year. Emissions from domestic energy production continues to fall – but we’ve seen a sharp increase in the emissions from natural gas production (16.9% in the same period).

3. Uber may be the favourite in Australia’s rideshare market, but some of its competitors are beginning to catch up. Research from Roy Morgan found that while Uber had previously mainly competed with taxis, it’s now facing real competition from companies like Ola and Didi. As you can see from this graph, it’s not overwhelming – and a lot of riders use multiple services – but 20% is no slouch for Ola, especially considering it is competing with the platform which defined the market.

4. David Jones hopes to arrest its falling profits through a reduction of 31,000 square metres of floor space by 2022. “We’re reaching good agreements with our key landlords. I think there’s a realisation that retail is changing, and we’ve all got to face into that change,” boss Ian Moir said. The floor space reduction is part of a longer plan to cut its 486,000 square metres of floor space by 20 per cent to 390,000 by 2025.

5. If you’re interested in the government’s first home buyers scheme to enter the housing market, you’ll have to strategise to find good buys below the cap. Property group Domain has analysed the regions that have the most options for homebuyers in each capital city… and your options are pretty slim in some, like Sydney. If Domain’s forecast of 8% national growth comes to fruition, and the price caps aren’t raised, less than a third of properties will be eligible on average in Australian cities.

6. As buy now, pay later companies continue to argue with Australia’s various regulatory bodies about whether they should be subject to tighter legal controls, at least one of them is swimming against the tide. Speaking to Business Insider Australia, Splitit CEO Brad Paterson argues that the sector is essentially offering unregulated credit, and that further transparency would help both consumers and existing companies. “Anyone who is providing credit to consumers today that they didn’t have yesterday, is really providing a short term loan, and that new credit line should be governed by the same regulations that govern credit cards and other forms of credit,” Paterson said. “The buy now, pay later space is not there yet.”

7. Bernie Sanders is pretty clearly the frontrunner to be the candidate to take on Donald Trump in November, after sweeping the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. Counting is still underway, but he has an insurmountable lead. The polling maestros over at FiveThirtyEight currently peg Sanders’ chances at getting over half of pledged delegates – thus clearly being the Democratic nominee – at just shy of 50%. And there are a lot of contests to go.

8. In the US, as in Australia, a series of uncertainties and shocks seem to have little effect on the stock market, which continues to climb. A new phrase is gaining cachet on Wall Street: ‘Nothing Matters’. It seems no matter how huge the event – the coronavirus continuing its rampage, the rise of a socialist firebrand like Bernie – none of it seems matter. Stocks just go up, and in credit markets good debt trades close to junk.

9. The world’s new largest electric vehicle is a 290-ton dump truck which will soon begin testing in Africa. Anglo American, ENGIE, and Williams Advanced Engineering are working together on the vehicle, which its designers say should perform as well as its diesel competitors. The truck will begin testing in a platinum group metals mine in Mogalakwena, South Africa before being used in other locations. Have a look at that.

10. The coronavirus has been disastrous for companies relying on China for supply chain and customers, but no one will likely be as impacted as Huawei. Despite the fact one executive said there would be no impact on its global supply chain over the next three to six months, experts are skeptical. By their account, Huawei will be worse affected than Apple, since it is hugely reliant on Chinese consumers for its smartphone business.

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Here’s this, in case you were inclined to do so.

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