2025-08-06 20:36
50% US tariff on Brazilian goods taking effect on Wednesday Lula tells Reuters no reciprocal tariffs pending from Brazil Calls with BRICS leaders may lead to joint action on US tariffs Bolsonaro should face new trial for courting tariffs, Lula says Lula opens door to Trump meeting at U.N. General Assembly BRASILIA, Aug 6 (Reuters) - As U.S. tariffs on Brazilian goods jumped to 50% on Wednesday, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Reuters in an interview that he saw no room for direct talks now with U.S. President Donald Trump that would likely be a "humiliation." Brazil is not about to announce reciprocal tariffs, he said. Nor will his government give up on cabinet-level talks. But Lula himself is in no rush to ring the White House. Sign up here. "The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won't hesitate to call him," Lula said in an interview from his presidential residence in Brasilia. "But today my intuition says he doesn't want to talk. And I won't humiliate myself." Despite Brazil's exports facing one of the highest tariffs imposed by Trump, the new U.S. trade barriers look unlikely to derail Latin America's largest economy, giving Lula more room to stand his ground against Trump than most Western leaders. Lula described U.S.-Brazil relations at a 200-year nadir after Trump tied the new tariff to his demands for an end to the prosecution of right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is standing trial for plotting to overturn the 2022 election. The president said Brazil's Supreme Court, which is hearing the case against Bolsonaro, "does not care what Trump says and it should not," adding that Bolsonaro should face another trial for provoking Trump's intervention, calling the right-wing former president a "traitor to the homeland." "We had already pardoned the U.S. intervention in the 1964 coup," said Lula, who got his political start as a union leader protesting against the military government that followed a U.S.-backed ouster of a democratically elected president. "But this now is not a small intervention. It's the president of the United States thinking he can dictate rules for a sovereign country like Brazil. It's unacceptable." The Brazilian president said he had no personal issues with Trump, adding that they could meet at the United Nations next month or U.N. climate talks in November. But he noted Trump's track record of dressing down White House guests such as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "What Trump did with Zelenskiy was humiliation. That's not normal. What Trump did with Ramaphosa was humiliation," Lula said. "One president can't be humiliating another. I respect everyone and I demand respect." Lula said his ministers were struggling to open talks with U.S. peers, so his government was focused on domestic policies to cushion the economic blow of U.S. tariffs, while maintaining "fiscal responsibility." The president declined to elaborate on pending measures to support Brazilian companies, which are expected to include credit lines and other export assistance. He also said he was planning to call leaders from the BRICS group of developing nations, starting with India and China, to discuss the possibility of a joint response to U.S. tariffs. "There is no coordination among the BRICS yet, but there will be," Lula said, comparing multilateral action to the strength of collective bargaining in his union days. "What is the negotiating power of one little country with the United States? None." Separately, he said Brazil was looking at lodging a collective complaint with other countries at the World Trade Organization. "I was born negotiating," said Lula, who was raised in poverty and rose through union ranks to serve two terms as president from 2003 to 2010, then re-entered politics in the 2022 election to defeat the incumbent Bolsonaro. But he said he was in no rush to strike a deal or retaliate against U.S. tariffs: "We need to be very cautious," he said. Asked about countermeasures targeting U.S. companies, such as greater taxation of big technology companies, Lula said his government was studying ways to tax U.S. firms on equal standing with Brazilian companies. Lula also described plans to create a new national policy for Brazil's strategic mineral resources, treating them as a matter of "national sovereignty" to break with a history of mining exports that added little value in Brazil. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/i-wont-humiliate-myself-brazils-president-sees-no-point-tariff-talks-with-trump-2025-08-06/
2025-08-06 20:27
Aug 6 (Reuters) - APA Corp (APA.O) , opens new tab beat Wall Street profit estimates on Wednesday, as higher natural gas output helped the U.S. producer cushion the hit from a decline in crude prices. Brent crude averaged about 20% lower in the second quarter compared to a year earlier, weighed down by U.S. import tariffs, concerns over global economic growth, rising OPEC+ supply and persistent geopolitical tensions. Sign up here. Prices briefly rose above $80 a barrel in June after Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites, but later retreated to around $67 by quarter-end. The company's total oil output declined in the quarter to 235,244 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from last year's 253,649 bopd, offset by a 7% rise in natural gas output. The Houston, Texas-based company posted adjusted profit of 87 cents per share for the three months ended June 30, compared with the average analysts' estimate of 48 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-producer-apas-quarterly-profit-beats-estimates-natgas-higher-output-2025-08-06/
2025-08-06 20:26
Aug 6 (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) , opens new tab beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit on Wednesday, as higher production countered lower crude oil prices. The company's quarterly average global production was at 1.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboepd), up about 11% from a year earlier. Sign up here. Last week, oil majors Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) , opens new tab and Chevron (CVX.N) , opens new tab reported a quarterly profit beat as higher production helped them offset lower crude prices. Occidental also disclosed $950 million of additional divestitures since the start of the second quarter, of which $370 million already closed. The company said it had agreed in July to sell an entity that owns certain gas gathering assets in the Midland Basin to a unit of Enterprise Products Partners (EPD.N) , opens new tab for $580 million, as a part of the overall divestments. The oil and gas firm said it had repaid $3 billion of debt year-to-date. The company's shares were up 1.1% in extended trading on Wednesday. Occidental's earnings were also helped by a rise in natural gas prices, which more than doubled to $1.33 per thousand cubic foot (Mcf) from a year earlier. However, the company said quarterly average realized price for oil was at $63.76 per barrel, down about 20% from a year earlier. Average Brent crude futures fell about 20% to about $70 per barrel in the second quarter from a year earlier, as U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs created global uncertainty and weighed on oil demand. The Houston, Texas-based company also reduced the mid-point of current year capex forecast by $100 million and international operating costs by $50 million. The company reported an adjusted profit of 39 cents per share for the quarter ended June 30, compared with analysts' average estimate of 29 cents, according to data compiled by LSEG. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/occidental-petroleum-beats-quarterly-profit-discloses-additional-divestments-2025-08-06/
2025-08-06 20:23
TSX ends up 1.3%, at 27,920.87 Exceeds Tuesday's record closing high Shopify shares jump 21.5% after results beat estimates Shares of Thomson Reuters end 10.1% lower TORONTO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The Toronto stock market climbed on Wednesday to a new record high, as Shopify took over as Canada's most valuable publicly traded company after the e-commerce firm reported quarterly results that impressed investors, sending its shares soaring. The S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) , opens new tab ended up 350.79 points, or 1.3%, at 27,920.87, exceeding the record closing high it posted on Tuesday. Sign up here. "All the heavy lifting is being done by one stock today, and that's Shopify," said Mike Archibald, a portfolio manager at AGF Investments. "The numbers were astonishing - an absolute blowout quarter." Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) , opens new tab reported second-quarter results that beat estimates and forecast upbeat revenue for the third quarter, saying there was no slowdown in consumer demand yet and sellers on its platform are holding up well under tariff pressures. Its shares ended 21.5% higher in a move that lifted the company's market capitalization to roughly C$277 billion ($201.63 billion), surpassing that of Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) , opens new tab. The technology sector climbed 5.1%, while financials added 0.4% and the materials group, which includes metal mining shares, ended 0.6% higher. Shares of SSR Mining (SSRM.TO) , opens new tab jumped 17.1% after the company beat second-quarter profit expectations. Industrials were a drag, losing 0.6%. Thomson ReutersTRI.TO , opens new tab reported higher revenue for the second quarter, during which it launched new AI features in its tax and accounting and legal divisions. The shares ended down 10.1%, however, with some analysts disappointed the company did not raise its financial guidance. Energy also lost ground, falling 0.5%, as the price of oil settled 1.2% lower at $64.35 a barrel. ($1 = 1.3738 Canadian dollars) https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/tsx-hits-record-high-shopify-becomes-indexs-most-valuable-stock-2025-08-06/
2025-08-06 20:08
Kashkari, citing growth slowdown, sees two rate cuts this year Dissenters also cited worries about job market slowdown Latest job-market data "concerning," Cook says WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Less than a week after deciding against an interest-rate cut, some Federal Reserve policymakers are signaling rising angst about a cooling U.S. labor market and a slowing economy, even as they continue to express uncertainty about the outlook for inflation, which remains stuck above the Fed's 2% goal. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Wednesday said that for him, it all adds up to a case for interest rate cuts in coming months. Sign up here. "The economy is slowing, and that means in the near term it may become appropriate to start adjusting," Kashkari said on CNBC's Squawk Box, adding that two quarter-percentage-point rate cuts by the end of the year "seems reasonable to me." Recent data "suggests the real underlying economy is slowing. I've got confidence that that is happening," Kashkari said. "How long can we wait until the tariff effects become clear? That's just weighing on me right now." Speaking early this week to Reuters, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said it could take six months or more to learn whether the Trump administration's tariffs will push up inflation persistently. Meanwhile, while she was "willing" to leave rates on hold last week, the slowing labor market makes her increasingly uncomfortable about making that same decision in upcoming meetings, she said. Like Kashkari, she views two rate cuts this year as probably appropriate, though given the state of the economy she said that doing more than two rate cuts is more likely than doing fewer. Neither Kashkari nor Daly has a vote on interest rate policy this year, but their arguments are similar to those made by two Fed governors who dissented at the Fed's decision last week to hold the policy rate steady while awaiting more clarity on how rising import tariffs will feed through to consumer prices. Two days after the meeting, the Labor Department released a monthly jobs report that showed weaker-than-expected job growth in July and big downward revisions to payroll estimates for May and June. "This is concerning," Fed Governor Lisa Cook said of the report, noting that revisions typically occur at inflection points in the economy. Cook did not say how the fresh labor market data has influenced her view on appropriate monetary policy. She, like Kashkari and Daly, said she is also focused on whether any increase in prices will be one time or more persistent. "It is critical that we try to understand better which one this could be, but it's limited and the information we have is limited and the way we can incorporate it into our models is limited," she said. President Donald Trump, who has pushed for sharply lower interest rates, has said he will nominate a new member to the Fed's Board shortly, following Fed Governor Adriana Kugler's surprise resignation last week. It's unclear if the new governor would function as a Fed chief-in-waiting until Jerome Powell completes his term as Fed chair on May 15, or would merely serve out the rest of Kugler's term, which runs to the end of January. https://www.reuters.com/business/fed-policymakers-signal-rising-angst-about-cooling-economy-2025-08-06/
2025-08-06 20:00
Apple to announce $100-billion pledge, says White House official Earnings reports continue to come in mostly better than expected NEW YORK Aug 6 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended higher on Wednesday, led by a more than 1% gain in the Nasdaq, as Apple shares climbed after news of its plans to announce a domestic manufacturing pledge, and as the latest batch of corporate reports was mostly upbeat. Shares of Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab jumped and provided the biggest boost to all three of the major indexes after a White House official said the company would announce a $100-billion domestic manufacturing pledge. Sign up here. In addition, shares of McDonald's (MCD.N) , opens new tab were up after the fast-food restaurant's affordable menu drove global sales past expectations, while Arista Networks (ANET.N) , opens new tab shares jumped after the cloud networking company projected current-quarter revenue above estimates. "Earnings continue to come in better than expected," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. He said while there is uncertainty surrounding tariffs, investors appear to be upbeat about the near term. Results are now in from about 400 of the S&P 500 companies for the second-quarter earnings season. About 80% of reports are beating analyst earnings expectations - above the 76% average of the last four quarters - and earnings growth for the quarter is estimated at 12.1%, up from 5.8% at the start of July, according to LSEG data. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods, citing New Delhi's continued imports of Russian oil. According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab gained 46.06 points, or 0.72%, to end at 6,344.67 points, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab gained 251.97 points, or 1.21%, to 21,168.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab rose 79.42 points, or 0.18%, to 44,191.16. Also positive for stocks were increasing bets for a September interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Last week's jobs report showed slowing employment growth and downward revisions for previous months. Odds for next month's rate cut stand at 93.2%, compared with just 46.7% last week, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool. Traders also bet on at least two cuts by the end of 2025. Among the day's decliners, shares of chip company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) , opens new tab and server maker Super Micro Computer (SMCI.O) , opens new tab fell sharply after the companies posted disappointing results in their data center segments. Walt Disney (DIS.N) , opens new tab delivered a strong quarter and lifted its full-year outlook, but its shares slipped. https://www.reuters.com/business/nasdaq-leads-gains-wall-street-helped-by-apple-2025-08-06/
