2024-11-20 11:53

JAKARTA, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Tech giant Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab has made a $100 million investment proposal to Indonesia to build a plant to manufacture accessories and components, the industry ministry said on Wednesday. The proposal comes after Indonesia banned sales of Apple's iPhone 16 over the firm's failure to meet local rules on components. Indonesia requires certain smartphones sold domestically to comprise at least 40% locally-made parts. The trade ministry will meet on Thursday to discuss Apple's proposed West Java plant, its spokesperson Febri Hendri Antoni Arif said in a statement. "By holding a meeting on Thursday, this means that the industry minister welcomes Apple's investment commitment," he said. Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, but has since 2018 set up application developer academies with a combined cost of 1.6 trillion rupiah ($99 million). Apple did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation. Indonesia has also banned sales of smartphones made by Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab for a similar reason. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-sends-100-mln-investment-proposal-build-plant-indonesia-2024-11-20/

2024-11-20 11:44

ZURICH, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Swiss industry is struggling with falling orders and sales as weaker European demand and a strong franc hit exporters, with two surveys showing companies gloomy about their prospects. Escalating trade tensions, with the possibility of higher export tariffs when U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year is also raising concerns in Switzerland. Swissmem, whose members include ABB (ABBN.S) , opens new tab and Siemens (SIEGn.DE) , opens new tab, said sales of Swiss industrial products fell by 4.2% in the first nine months of 2024, while exports were 3.6% lower. The mood was grim at smaller Swiss manufacturing companies, with a business climate index by another industry association, Swissmechanic, falling to its lowest level since January 2021. Nearly three quarters of companies see the current business environment as unfavourable, with only 1% positive, a third quarter survey by Swissmechanic found. It said capacity use at small Swiss manufacturing companies is now 81%, the lowest level since January 2021. Manufacturing is a cornerstone of the Swiss economy, contributing nearly 18% of the country's economic output. "Companies are quite pessimistic at the moment," said Swissmechanic director Juerg Marti, adding that around a third of small Swiss industrial companies have cut jobs and others could follow. "The strong franc is causing them problems, and then there is the downturn in Germany which is also hurting. There are also a lot of geopolitical uncertainties which is making the situation worse," Marti added. Swissmem said that although there was a slight improvement in its figures during the third quarter, this did not point to a recovery as they were compared with weak figures a year earlier. "In the best-case scenario, we can expect a stabilisation next year," said Swissmem director Stefan Brupbacher, adding that any trade war between the U.S., China and the EU would be another drag on the export-driven Swiss tech sector. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/swiss-industry-gloomy-over-prospects-sales-exports-slip-2024-11-20/

2024-11-20 11:38

Sees inflation rising 0.15 percentage points Central bank says aid to zone should be temporary Banks will able to absorb impact MADRID, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Catastrophic floods in eastern Spain last month are likely to have a negative impact of 0.2 percentage points on gross domestic product in the fourth quarter, the Bank of Spain said on Wednesday, also expecting a mild acceleration in inflation. More than 200 people died in the deadliest flooding in Spain's modern history on Oct. 29, most of them in the region of Valencia, where the flood-hit areas account for around 2% of Spain's economic activity. Flash floods after torrential rains swept away cars, bridges and homes, paralysed businesses and heavily damaged crops and industrial plants. "Estimates are subject to significant uncertainty, but, based on previous weather-related events, the estimated impact on GDP is -0.2 pp in the current quarter, remaining negative one year later," the central bank said in a presentation. It also said the floods would trigger a rise in consumer prices of 0.15 percentage points. Before the floods, the government had expected the Spanish economy to grow 2.7% this year, by far outperforming its European peers. Spanish consumer prices rose 1.8% in the 12 months through October. The government has announced a 14.36 billion euros ($15.15 billion) aid package to help households and businesses cope with the economic impact from the floods. Bank of Spain Governor Jose Luis Escriva said it would be desirable for such aid to be "temporary and specifically targeted" to affected industries to reduce long-term costs. Damages to businesses in towns hit by floods could amount to over 10 billion euros, with banks' loan exposure to the affected area worth around 20.6 billion euros, representatives for local firms and a Bank of Spain official said earlier this month. On Wednesday, Escriva said the Spanish banking sector would be able to absorb the shock, including the smaller lenders most exposed to the worst-hit parts. In total, the central bank identified almost 27,000 companies with outstanding loans and half a million loan holders in those regions. ($1 = 0.9478 euros) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bank-spain-estimates-floods-cost-02-gdp-fourth-quarter-2024-11-20/

2024-11-20 11:36

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan Tuesday's geopolitical angst faded fast in world markets as positioning ahead of today's results from AI-giant Nvidia (NVDA.O) , opens new tab saw Big Tech lead a Wall Street rebound - one that futures look to have sustained overnight. After months of basically ignoring the Ukraine conflict, world markets suddenly got the jitters yesterday after Ukraine made use of its new freedom to use U.S.-supplied missiles on Russian territory and Moscow responded with nuclear threats. But with so much of the conflict now in flux as Donald Trump's new administration prepares to take the helm in Washington in January, investors were wary of over-interpreting daily events there for now or chasing 'safety trades' too far. Reinforcing the point on Wednesday, the Kremlin seems keen to position itself for some sort of Trump-brokered settlement - even though it rules out making any territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO. The upshot in markets over the past 24 hours has been to return the focus to the two other obsessions of the week - the Nvidia earnings update after the bell today and speculation about who gets the nod to take over the Treasury next year. The rebound in U.S. stocks on Tuesday was aided by a 3% advance in WalMart (WMT.N) , opens new tab to a record closing high after the retailer raised its annual sales and profit forecasts for the third consecutive time - with some aggravating inflation signals also embedded in some of its pricing readouts. But earnings from the $3.6 trillion-valued Nvidia will likely steal the show later and its stock surged almost 5% on Tuesday ahead of the release. Options traders are primed for a nearly $300-billion swing in its market value following the chipmaker's results on Wednesday. Nvidia options implied an 8.5% swing in either direction - in line with previous percentage results-day moves but now amplified by sheer scale of market cap in what's now the world's most highly-valued company. Encouraging the renewed tech fizz, Super Micro Computer (SMCI.O) , opens new tab jumped more than 30% on Tuesday after the artificial intelligence server maker named BDO USA as its auditor and said it has submitted a plan to the Nasdaq to avoid delisting. All of which saw megacap tech outperform yesterday, even though the wider market was less enthused and the equal-weighted S&P500 (.EWGSPC) , opens new tab actually ended in the red. Combining the tech excitement and a post-election crypto surge on Trump-related de-regulation hopes, Bitcoin resumed its climb and topped $94,000 for the first time overnight. The latest spur was a report that Trump's social media company was in talks to buy crypto trading firm Bakkt (BKKT.N) , opens new tab. In fixed income, Treasuries also gave back their brief safety bid overnight too - with a 20-year bond auction due later in the day. Even though housing starts numbers showed some softness on Tuesday, benchmark 10-year yields reclaimed all of the day's losses and climbed back above 4.4%. Speculation about who gets the nod as Treasury Secretary remains intense, with one of those tipped - Cantor Fitzgerald boss Howard Lutnick - now out of the running as he was nominated for the Commerce Department role instead. Former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh remains the favorite in betting markets, but some reports said Apollo chief executive Marc Rowan is still being considered. Elsewhere, the rebound in stocks and Treasury yields pushed the dollar (.DXY) , opens new tab higher across the board - but stock markets in Asia and Europe also advanced on Wednesday, even China's tariff-wary equity indexes (.CSI300) , opens new tab. Sterling and gilt yields pushed higher after a slightly hotter-than-forecast British inflation reading for last month, with the headline consumer price inflation rate jumping as high as 2.3% and above the Bank of England's target again. Although skewed by shifts in regulated energy prices, the news is likely to reinforce the BoE's cautious stance on further interest rate cuts and money markets now don't see another quarter-point rate cut until March. Curiously, Fed futures also don't fully price another U.S. rate cut until March - although there's slightly more than a 50% chance it pulls the trigger again next month. The Japanese yen , meantime, also gave up its 'safety bid' from Tuesday - even after robust October export data. Japan's exports expanded faster than expected last month, led by a pick-up in chip equipment demand in China that may nod to some hurried trade activity before Trump takes office and potentially kicks off a fresh tariff war. Key developments that should provide more direction to U.S. markets later on Wednesday: * US corporate earnings: Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks, Target, TJX * Federal Reserve Board Governors Michelle Bowman and Lisa Cook and Boston Fed President Susan Collins all speak, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr testifies in the House; European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos and Irish central bank chief Gabriel Makhlouf all speak; Bank of England policymaker Dave Ramsden speaks * US Treasury sells $16 billion of 20-year bonds Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/global-markets-view-usa-2024-11-20/

2024-11-20 11:30

CAPE TOWN, Nov 20 (Reuters) - An reworked version of South Africa's long-term power plan will soon be presented to cabinet, designed to help draw a line under the electricity blackouts that have crippled the country for a decade, officials said on Wednesday. The last plan, which mapped out potential power supply scenarios up to 2050, was only released in January. It made provision for a broad range of power sources including natural gas, nuclear and renewables alongside coal, currently the dominant power source. Energy officials told a news conference the so-called Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) needed to reflect new data, in particular the sharp improvement in state utility Eskom's performance this year. After more than a decade of regular power cuts, Eskom has not implemented blackouts since March. "There are substantive changes from the previous IRP," said Titus Mathe, chief executive at the South African National Energy Development Institute. Previous modelling assumed Eskom's Energy Availability Factor - a measure of its plant performance - would be around 52% and not growing much, while the new assumption was for about 60%, with scope for improvement, Mathe said. Grid constraints on Eskom's transmission network will also be addressed in the revised plan, which will be based on one long-term projection until 2050. Targeted consultations will start next week, and the government aims to take the revamped plan to cabinet by the end of November, Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told the same briefing. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/south-africa-is-significantly-reworking-long-term-power-plan-officials-say-2024-11-20/

2024-11-20 11:24

JAKARTA, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Indonesia is optimistic it can reach net zero emissions before 2050, a decade earlier than previously targeted, President Prabowo Subianto told a G20 forum, Prabowo also said Indonesia planned to retire all coal and fossil-fuel-fired power plants within the next 15 years, versus an earlier target of 2056, according to a statement from his office released on Wednesday. Indonesia will build 75 gigawatts of renewable power plants within the next 15 years, he added, echoing a commitment his envoy told the COP29 climate summit last week. "We are also situated along the equator, therefore we have more than plenty of sunlight to fuel solar-based energy," Prabowo told the forum. "We have other sources of renewables and that's why we are very optimistic that we can achieve net zero before 2050." Indonesia is one the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters and its top exporter of thermal coal. But it is also home to the world's third biggest rainforests. Its current installed power capacity is more than 90 GW, with more than half of that powered by coal and less than 15% by renewables. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/indonesia-can-reach-net-zero-emissions-before-2050-president-says-2024-11-20/