2025-11-04 12:26
PARIS, Nov 4 (Reuters) - French authorities have detected for the first time a microscopic worm that can ravage pine trees, extending the presence of the pathogen in Europe after it spread in Portugal and Spain in recent decades, France's agriculture ministry said. Known as the pine wilt nematode, the organism originated in North America and causes trees to perish by stopping their resin from circulating. Sign up here. The first French case was confirmed in the district of Seignosse in the southwestern Landes region, about 60 km from Spain, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. The zone is considered vulnerable to the pathogen given its proximity to Spain and prevalence of pine trees in its forests. France's overall forest area has expanded steadily in recent decades, though the authorities are concerned that a hotter, drier climate is increasing tree losses in some regions. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/france-reports-first-case-parasite-that-destroys-pine-trees-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 12:23
BUCHAREST, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Romania will set up an infrastructure fund to address flood emergencies over at least five years, a requirement to unblock European Union recovery funds, Environment Minister Diana Buzoianu said. The country has seen some of its worst floods in at least two decades in 2024 and this year, causing 10 deaths, burst river banks, collapsed bridges and damage to thousands of homes. Sign up here. Under a reform plan agreed with the European Commission in exchange for recovery funds, Romania has until the first quarter of 2026 to set up a mechanism to fund infrastructure works against floods. Buzoianu said the fund will be based off a study conducted by the World Bank, which shows Romania needs between 10 billion and 40 billion euros ($11.66 billion-$46.65 billion) over at least five years to rehabilitate dams, build bridges, reinforce defences and other works. But the months-old coalition government, which is struggling to lower the largest budget deficit in the EU, could not accommodate the full cost at present. "At the moment we cannot cover absolutely all the ideal necessary works," Buzoianu told Reuters in an interview late last week. "But what I want is for this fund to cover works in areas where we already know we have high risk of flooding without which communities and lives are endangered." While the value of the fund will be decided at government level, Buzoianu said the funds will come from water management fees and taxes and will be allocated for priority works put forward in the study. The environment ministry has lost out on 2 billion euros ($2.33 billion) worth of EU recovery funds due to delays which made it impossible for projects due to be financed by the EU funds to be completed before an August 2026 deadline. Buzoianu, who took over the ministry in late June, is working to reform forestry and water management agencies and meet EU targets to access remaining funds. Some 40% of the lost funding will be covered from the state budget. (1 euro = 5.0840 lei) ($1 = 0.8575 euros) https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/romania-set-up-fund-critical-flood-infrastructure-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 11:51
Nov 4 (Reuters) - India's power ministry has asked the country's renewable energy implementation agencies (REIA) to explore signing power purchase agreements with clean energy developers for projects without a buyer, according to a ministry document reviewed by Reuters. About 50 gigawatts of clean energy projects have been unable to come online due to unfinished transmission lines and legal and regulatory delays, Reuters reported in August, resulting in state power utilities delaying signing purchase agreements. Sign up here. REIAs are intermediaries that act as traders, aggregating power from various generators and selling it to the buyer. Typically, power purchase agreements are signed between an REIA and a developer based on agreements signed between the REIA and the end-buyer. According to the document, the ministry has directed REIAs to sign agreements directly with the developer, bypassing the buyer-side agreement, or, alternatively, cancel the tenders as a last resort. The ministry issued the directive following a high-level meeting chaired by India's Power Secretary on October 17. The meeting included officials from power generating firms NTPC (NTPC.NS) , opens new tab, NHPC (NHPC.NS) , opens new tab, SJVN (SJVN.NS) , opens new tab as well as the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), all designated as REIAs. The power ministry and the REIAs did not immediately respond to Reuters' email seeking comment. The agencies have been asked to act by November 30. STRANDED PROJECTS The decisions come as India attempts to streamline its renewable energy procurement framework and address bottlenecks in project execution as part of the country's push to double its non-fossil fuel power capacity to 500 GW by 2030. Of the 93 GW of renewable capacity tendered since fiscal year 2024, about 42 GW are without buyers, according to data shared during the meeting, the document showed. NHPC had 15.8 GW of projects, the highest number of clean energy projects without a buyer, while NTPC had 12.4 GW worth stranded clean energy projects. SJVN had 10 GW, and SECI had 3.9 GW, as per the document. SECI, the largest REIA in the country, had already cancelled tenders for projects unlikely to secure buyers, according to the document. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/india-pushes-government-clean-energy-agencies-sign-purchase-agreements-stranded-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 11:49
Nov 4 - What matters in U.S. and global markets today By Mike Dolan , opens new tab, Editor-At-Large, Finance and Markets Sign up here. With one eye on Tuesday's U.S. local elections, stocks have been knocked back sharply from Monday's heady highs - partly on Palantir's 6% earnings-day drop and ahead of Wednesday's Supreme Court hearings on the legality of some U.S. import tariffs. Despite a headline beat and decent revenue forecast, the poor reaction to the update from AI and data analytics darling Palantir - whose stock has more than doubled this year on AI excitement and government and business demand - tapped a nerve in markets about excessive valuations and the increasingly high bar required to impress. Even the suggestion of slowing revenue growth can be jarring for a stock trading at a whopping 12-month-forward price-to-earnings ratio of 246 - many times even that of AI behemoth Nvidia's 33 times. What's more, chief executives of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs cautioned that global equity markets could be heading towards a correction. With Fed officials turning equivocal about another rate cut this year even as U.S. manufacturing activity remained in contractionary territory last month, Fed lending data showed business loan demand from large and mid-sized firms strengthened by the most in about three years in the third quarter - questioning the case for more rate cuts. That added to earnings and valuation jitters to sweep across world markets. Wall Street index futures were down more than 1% ahead of Tuesday's open and global bourses were in the red too. AMD, Super Micro, Amgen and Pfizer top today's diary. Perhaps also partly related to Palantir, crypto tokens were also hit by the 'risk off' tone and Bitcoin skidded to its lowest in more than four months. Hit by the stock swoon and Monday's ISM survey, Treasury yields retreated - but the dollar was knocked about in different directions. Japan's yen jumped sharply after the country's new finance minister Satsuki Katayama warned against excessive yen weakness and said the government was monitoring the situation with "a high level of urgency". But Britain's pound slid to its lowest in more than six months on the dollar as an unusual pre-budget speech by UK finance minister Rachel Reeves trailed tighter fiscal policy and higher taxes later this month, encouraging bets on offsetting interest rate cuts from the Bank of England - which meets this week. The Australian dollar fell after the Reserve Bank of Australia left its cash rate steady as expected and cautioned about further easing. Tuesday's sudden bout of market doubts and burst of volatility, which have lifted the VIX gauge back above long-term averages around 20, came after another effervescent day of dealmaking and AI investment spending on Wall Street on Monday. Amazon's shares jumped 4% after it announced a $38 billion deal with OpenAI to allow the ChatGPT maker to run and scale its AI workloads on Amazon Web Services' cloud infrastructure. And Kimberly-Clark shares slid 15% after the consumer goods firm moved to buy Tylenol-maker Kenvue for more than $40 billion. Kenvue jumped 12%. Worldwide mergers and acquisitions totaled $3.5 trillion during the first ten months of 2025 - a 38% increase from year-ago levels and the second-biggest year-to-date tally on record, according to LSEG data. It was the most active October since 2016. In today's column, I discuss the difficult political dance the Bank of England has to perform around this month's critical annual government budget announcement - and how it may affect the sequencing of further interest rate cuts. Today's Market Minute Chart of the day U.S. manufacturing contracted for an eighth straight month in October as new orders remained subdued, and suppliers were taking longer to deliver materials to factories against the backdrop of tariffs on imported goods. Still, the PMI remained above 42.3, a level that the ISM said over time was consistent with an expansion of the overall economy, and the survey's prices paid measure eased to a still-high 58.0 from 61.9 in the prior month. Today's events to watch Want to receive the Morning Bid in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for the newsletter here. You can find ROI on the Reuters website , opens new tab, and you can follow us on LinkedIn , opens new tab and X. , opens new tab Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles , opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/global-markets-view-usa-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 11:46
Nov 4 (Reuters) - U.S. refiner Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N) , opens new tab on Tuesday missed Wall Street estimates for third-quarter adjusted profit, as higher refining turnaround costs offset stronger refining margins, sending its shares more than 8% lower in premarket trading. The company's results underscore the challenges facing U.S. refiners as elevated maintenance costs and inflation eat into earnings despite strong demand and wider margins. Sign up here. Its quarterly refining turnaround costs, typically associated with periodic maintenance shutdowns, stood at $400 million, compared with $287 million from a year earlier. The company expects these costs to rise to $420 million for the fourth quarter. Its rivals Valero Energy (VLO.N) , opens new tab, Phillips 66 (PSX.N) , opens new tab and HF Sinclair (DINO.N) , opens new tab all exceeded Wall Street estimates on a recovery in margins. Refining and marketing (R&M) margin per barrel was up at $17.60 in the quarter, compared with $14.63 from a year earlier. Marathon's refining and marketing segment reported a quarterly adjusted core profit of $1.76 billion, compared with $1.14 billion from a year earlier. Its crude oil capacity utilization was at 95% in the quarter, compared with 94% from a year earlier, while its throughput volumes of 3.0 million barrels per day (mmbpd) were unchanged from last year. The refiner expects total throughput volumes of 2.9 mmbpd in the fourth quarter. On an adjusted basis, the company reported a profit of $3.01 per share for the three months ended September 30, compared with analysts' average estimate of $3.15 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. The company also expects to spend $200 million this year on its Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas, with another $575 million in 2026 and 2027. In October, Reuters reported that Marathon plans to complete repairs to the fire-damaged 64,000-bpd residual hydrotreater (RHU) at the Galveston refinery in mid-November. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/marathon-petroleum-posts-higher-third-quarter-profit-2025-11-04/
2025-11-04 11:45
FTSE 100 down 0.7%, FTSE 250 off 0.5% Pound, gilt yields down after finance minister's remarks BP down despite third-quarter profit beat Nov 4 (Reuters) - London stocks dipped on Tuesday despite a sharp drop in the pound following finance minister Rachel Reeves' comments, as equities around the world tumbled in a broader risk-off move. The blue-chip FTSE 100 (.FTSE) , opens new tab dipped 0.7% by 1120 GMT, on track for its biggest one-day drop in over two weeks, if losses hold. The midcap index (.FTMC) , opens new tab also slid 0.5%. Sign up here. Industrial metal miners (.FTNMX551020) , opens new tab bore the brunt of the selling pressure, down 2.3%, as a stronger dollar sent copper prices tumbling more than 2%. Heavyweight banks (.FTNMX301010) , opens new tab lost 1.2%, with HSBC (HSBA.L) , opens new tab, Standard Chartered (STAN.L) , opens new tab and Barclays (BARC.L) , opens new tab all down more than 1% each. The sentiment was grim all across Europe, with bourses in Germany (.GDAXI) , opens new tab, France (.FCHI) , opens new tab and Italy (.FTMIB) , opens new tab down with the pan-continental STOXX 600 (.STOXX) , opens new tab hitting its lowest since mid-October. U.S. stock index futures were also down more than 1% each. Meanwhile, the pound and UK government bond yields dipped after Rachel Reeves warned of "hard choices" in an unusual speech for a finance minister to make just three weeks before delivering her second annual budget. "Her speech was as much about managing expectations as setting direction," said Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group in a note. Looking ahead, the Bank of England is expected to pause its rate-cutting cycle on Thursday, though recent softer inflation and wage data could strengthen the case for a cut. Among individual stocks, Diversified Energy jumped 9.6% after the oil and gas company hiked its annual profit forecast. Energy giant BP (BP.L) , opens new tab reported a smaller than expected fall in third-quarter underlying profit. Its shares, however, were last down 0.5% after rising about 1% earlier in the day. Associated British Foods (ABF.L) , opens new tab fell 2.6% after the company said it could separate its Primark fashion shops from its food businesses and reported a 13% drop in full-year profit. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-stocks-swept-up-global-selloff-despite-pound-weakness-2025-11-04/
