2024-10-29 15:14

Oct 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a $3 billion investment from his Inflation Reduction Act to improve the country's port infrastructure. The investment includes $147 million in awards for the Maryland Port Administration, which owns the Port of Baltimore, the White House said in a statement. The funding will be used to create union jobs and upgrade port infrastructure to cleaner equipment, the statement added. The announcement comes after the three day port strike on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast earlier this month, where work stoppage briefly halted the flow of about half the country's ocean shipping. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-announces-3-bln-investment-us-ports-2024-10-29/

2024-10-29 15:13

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Argentina's country risk index , a measure of the premium investors demand to hold local bonds versus equivalent U.S. debt, dropped under 900 basis points on Tuesday as investors grow more bullish on pro-market libertarian President Javier Milei. The risk index - near 2,500 a year ago - is at its lowest level since the middle of 2019, just before Argentina plunged into a major financial crisis that tanked markets. Local bonds, long mired deep in distressed territory, have surged this year. Milei, an outsider economist who won a shock election late last year, has turbocharged local markets with investor-friendly policies and a tough cost-cutting drive that has helped overturn an entrenched fiscal deficit and improve the state's finances. "Another great day for markets," said analyst Salvador Di Stefano. "With country risk below 900 points, it should be acknowledged Argentina is back on its feet, despite everything." Positive signals include the fiscal surpluses, slowing monthly inflation, backing from international lenders, rising central bank reserve accumulation and strong take-up of a scheme to bring dollar deposits back into the formal financial system. Milei's austerity has, however, pushed up poverty levels and deepened a recession, though his government argues that it's a necessary tonic to cure longer-term economic imbalances - an argument many voters seem willing to accept for now. A closely watched opinion poll on Monday showed that Milei's popularity jumped sharply in October after sliding the month before, an important boost to the government's ability to get things done given its small share of the seats in Congress. "This will be another boost for assets, generating increases of two to three dollars in our target prices for dollar bonds," said local consultancy Max Capital. "In the short term, spreads begin to look tighter, with practically no risk of default until 2027." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/emerging/argentina-debt-risk-index-drops-again-default-fears-recede-2024-10-29/

2024-10-29 12:24

BEIJING, Oct 29 (Reuters) - China's biggest listed steelmaker, Baoshan Iron & Steel (600019.SS) , opens new tab, reported on Tuesday a nearly 65% plunge in its third-quarter net profit, undermined by a fall in steel prices. The company, known as Baosteel, said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it made net profit of 1.34 billion yuan ($188 million), down from 3.8 billion yuan in the year-ago period. Baosteel is a subsidiary of state-owned China Baowu Steel Group, the world's largest steelmaker by output. Net profit over the first nine months of the year fell 29.56% from the same period a year before to 5.88 billion yuan, it said. Disappointing demand for steel amid a persistent property downturn and weaker-than-expected consumption from the infrastructure sector had hammered steel prices in the third quarter, squeezing steelmakers' profit margins, analysts said. In the first nine months of the year, the average price of imported iron ore dipped 0.8% while steel prices slid 7.67%, the state-backed China Iron and Steel Association said last week. Losses among Chinese steelmakers totalled 34.1 billion yuan from January to September, official data showed on Sunday. Demand, however, showed signs of stabilising after a raft of stimulus measures unveiled in late September boosted sentiment, Baosteel said. Baosteel produced 12.56 million metric tons of pig iron and 13.3 million tons of steel in the July-September quarter, bringing the total in the first nine months of the year to 36.68 million tons and 39.61 million tons, respectively. Export orders were 4.66 million tons in the first three quarters, it said. China made 768.48 million tons of crude steel in the first nine months of this year, down 3.6% year-on-year, official data showed. ($1 = 7.1363 Chinese yuan) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-baosteels-q3-net-profit-more-than-halves-faltering-steel-prices-2024-10-29/

2024-10-29 12:18

LONDON, Oct 29 - BP (BP.L) , opens new tab spun off part of the U.S. operations of its Lightsource BP solar joint venture shortly before completing the acquisition of the outstanding 50% stake in the business last week, the British company said on Tuesday. "Immediately prior to the business combination, 2.4GW (gigawatts) of Lightsource BP’s operational and construction assets in the United States were transferred from Lightsource BP into a new joint venture between BP and the Lightsource BP founders, and certain management and staff," BP said in its third-quarter results. The sides agreed on the move due to the recent drop in valuations for solar projects in the United States, a source close to the deal said. Chief Financial Officer Kate Thomson told Reuters on Tuesday that BP planned to sell a stake in Lightsource BP to investors to help reduce BP's investment burden and debt in the business. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bp-says-spun-off-part-us-operations-solar-joint-venture-lightsource-bp-2024-10-29/

2024-10-29 12:18

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Electrical equipment maker Hubbell (HUBB.N) , opens new tab on Thursday raised its 2024 adjusted profit forecast anticipating strong demand for its devices used in power grids. The Connecticut-based company now expects full-year adjusted profit to be between $16.35 and $16.55 per share, above its earlier expectations of between $16.20 and $16.50 per share. Hubbell has benefited from the ongoing U.S. power grid upgrades, which has boosted demand for its products such as insulators and arresters that help prevent outages and protect transmission lines from lightning strikes. The U.S. government has been working to overhaul the country's electric transmission system, which is under pressure from extreme weather conditions and a growing number of power-hungry data centers. In the third quarter, Hubbell's sales from the utility segment, which made up 61% of its total revenue in 2023, increased 11% from a year earlier. "Performance in the quarter was led by strength in data center and renewables verticals," Hubbell CEO Gerben Bakker said. However, sales in the electrical segment, which makes wiring and lighting fixtures, were down about 5%. Hubbell reported an adjusted profit of $4.49 per share for the quarter, compared with analysts' average estimates of $4.45 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. Its revenue rose about 5% to $1.44 billion, compared with estimates of $1.48 billion. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hubbell-raises-annual-profit-forecast-strong-demand-power-grid-equipment-2024-10-29/

2024-10-29 12:13

WARSAW, Oct 29 (Reuters) - European power grid network ENTSO-E said on Tuesday it plans to increase export capacity to Ukraine and Moldova to 2.1 gigawatts (GW) from Dec. 1. With most of its power capacity destroyed or occupied due to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure since 2022, Ukraine's power supply shortfall could reach 6 GW this winter, the International Energy Agency said last month. European grid operators have been looking to boost export capacity to Ukraine from the current limit of 1.7 GW, while at the same time minimising the risk of shockwaves from the shattered Ukrainian grid spreading into Europe. "The results of the calculations have enabled transmission system operators to secure an increase of the export capacity limit to Ukraine and Moldova to 2,100 (megawatts) during this winter," ENSTO-E said. From March 2025, grid operators will be able to reassess the commercial capacity limit between the European Union and Ukraine and Moldova on a monthly basis, the group said. The increased capacity will be fully available to Ukraine and Moldova, with no specific allocation as such for each country, ENSTO-E said. Christelle Verstraeten, the group's spokesperson, said the export increase is the total capacity available for cross border trade in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. "It will be split per each border according to the splitting rules agreed between the transmission system operators," she told Reuters in an email. Russia has knocked out about 9 GW of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month. "We aim to restore 2.5 GW of capacity, which is 15% of Ukraine's needs," Von der Leyen said, referring to propoed EU-assisted repairs. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europe-boost-power-export-capacity-ukraine-moldova-over-winter-2024-10-29/