2025-10-03 23:33

Trump administration officials discuss equity interest in Greenland rare earths project Washington has taken stakes in other minerals companies Administration official says hundreds of companies seek administration investment in critical minerals Oct 3 (Reuters) - Trump administration officials have discussed taking a stake in Critical Metals Corp (CRML.O) , opens new tab, four people familiar with the discussions told Reuters, which would give Washington a direct interest in the largest rare earths project in Greenland, the Arctic territory that President Donald Trump once suggested buying. If finalized, the deal would mark the latest political twist for the Tanbreez rare earths deposit, which former President Joe Biden successfully lobbied to have sold to New York-based Critical Metals for far less than a Chinese firm was offering. Sign up here. Washington has recently taken stakes , opens new tab in Lithium Americas (LAC.TO) , opens new tab and MP Materials (MP.N) , opens new tab, underscoring Trump's desire for the U.S. to benefit from growing production of minerals used across the global economy. Details of the discussions about Washington's interest in an equity stake in Critical Metals have not previously been reported. The four sources declined to be named, citing the sensitivity of the negotiations. "Hundreds of companies are approaching us trying to get the administration to invest in their critical minerals projects," a senior Trump administration official told Reuters in response to a request for comment. "There is absolutely nothing close with this company at this time." Critical Metals did not respond to repeated requests for comment via email and phone. Greenland is a semi-autonomous part of Denmark and the Danish Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rare earths offer strong magnetic properties critical to high-tech industries ranging from electric vehicles to missile systems. Their importance is spurring an intense push for fresh supplies by Western countries looking to lessen their dependence on China's near total control of their extraction and processing. Critical Metals, which agreed to buy Greenland's Tanbreez deposit last year for $5 million in cash and $211 million in stock, applied in June for a $50 million grant through the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era piece of legislation aimed at boosting production of goods for national security purposes. In the last six weeks, though, the administration has begun discussions with the company about converting the grant into an equity stake, three of the sources said. If the deal goes through, a $50 million conversion would mean a roughly 8% stake in the company, although negotiations are not final and the final size of the stake could be higher or the deal itself could collapse, the same three sources said. Administration officials have considered reallocating $2 billion from the CHIPS Act to fund critical minerals projects, Reuters reported in August. The law, formally known as the CHIPS and Science Act, was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in 2022 and aims to lure chip production away from Asia. The Critical Metals investment discussions were delayed by the administration's negotiations in recent days for a 5% stake in Lithium Americas , opens new tab(LAC.TO) , opens new tab, two of the sources said. The U.S. government shutdown is not expected to affect the negotiations, given that high-level staff involved in the discussions are considered essential government workers, two of the sources said. Part of the discussion centers on how warrants would be issued to give Washington the stake, one of the sources said. Warrants give their holders the right to buy stock at a set price. The equity stake would be separate from a $120 million loan the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is considering to help the company develop Tanbreez, according to two of the sources. An EXIM spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. GREENLAND'S APPEAL Even before Trump expressed an interest in acquiring Greenland, Washington had long-running economic interests in the Danish territory. Biden officials were visiting Greenland's capital Nuuk , opens new tab as recently as last November trying to woo additional private investment in the island's mining sector. Trump also sent Vice President JD Vance to the island in March. One of the largest U.S. Air Force bases is in northern Greenland. The Tanbreez project is expected to cost $290 million to bring into commercial production, the company has previously said. The EXIM loan would be used to fund technical work and get the mine to initial production by 2026. Once fully operational, the mine is expected to produce 85,000 metric tons per year of rare earths concentrate. The site also contains gallium, which China subjected to export restrictions last year, and tantalum. Greenland's mining sector has developed slowly in recent years, hindered by limited investor interest, bureaucratic challenges and environmental concerns. Currently, only two small mines are in operation. The remote, cold location of Tanbreez is seen posing challenges to its development, although the deposit is located near a major waterway. https://www.reuters.com/business/trump-administration-eyes-stake-company-developing-greenland-rare-earths-mine-2025-10-03/

2025-10-03 22:26

Oct 3 (Reuters) - The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog urged Ukraine and Russia on Friday to show the "political will" required to keep the area around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant safe to allow the external power line to be reconnected to the facility. The plant, Europe's largest with six reactors, was seized by Russian forces in the early weeks of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The facility has been cut off from external power since September 23 -- the 10th time the line has come down. Sign up here. The plant produces no electricity, but fuel in its reactors is being cooled by emergency diesel generators. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the external line had to be restored. "Both sides say they stand ready to conduct the necessary repairs on their respective sides of the frontline. But for this to happen, the security situation on the ground must improve so that the technicians can carry out their vital work without endangering their lives," Grossi said in a statement. "I'm calling on both sides to do what is necessary to prevent a further deterioration. It is a question of political will, not whether it is technically possible, which it is." Each side accuses the other of compromising nuclear safety. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned Ukraine that it was playing a dangerous game by launching strikes near the plant. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Moscow of deliberately cutting the link in order to connect the station to its own grid. In his statement, Grossi also said that an external power cutoff this week at the decommissioned Chornobyl nuclear power plant -- site of the world's worst civil nuclear accident in 1986 -- had lasted 16 hours. He said the containment vessel erected in 2016 to prevent contamination had experienced a partial blackout and had no reserve power for three hours when a power line to the nearby town of Slavutych came down. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia deliberately staged the attack that cut power to the station. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/un-nuclear-chief-seeks-restore-power-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-plant-2025-10-03/

2025-10-03 21:24

Bridgewater's Pure Alpha fund surges 26% on year-to-date basis Marshall Wace's Eureka Fund sees 8.04% year-to-date return Systematic stock trading funds up more than 13% in 2025, Goldman Sachs reports LONDON/NEW YORK, October 8 - Hedge funds returned 1.3% in September, with managers in Europe, Asia and the Middle East outperforming their North American rivals, according to a JPMorgan client note on Thursday that was seen by Reuters on Friday. Global equities in September climbed 3.4% (.MIWD00000PUS) , opens new tab. An index of developed market sovereign bonds rose around 0.7% last month. Sign up here. The JPMorgan note, which tracks hedge fund trading, said positioning in U.S. stocks was only "somewhat bullish," indicating an expectation for equities to rise. Crowding in the biggest "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks, which include Apple, Amazon.com and Nvidia, remained near historical highs, the note said. In Europe, stock-pickers tended to bet that equities would rise. But multi-strategy funds - those that trade many strategies - and quantitative funds, which use algorithms, tended to wager that stock prices would decline. In Asia, where stocks rose, hedge funds had more bets on a decline than a rise, the note said. Bridgewater , opens new tab, with $92.1 billion in assets under management, notched a 6% monthly gain in its Pure Alpha fund to September 29. From the beginning of the year until September 29, Bridgewater's Pure Alpha, Asia Total Return, All Weather, and China Total Return funds posted returns of 26.2%, 32.5%, 15.3%, and 28.4%, respectively. British hedge fund Marshall Wace posted returns in September of 1.32%, up 8.04% for the year so far in its Eureka Fund, a source said. The $79 billion hedge fund's Market Neutral Tops fund returned 0.45% in September and was up 13.66% for the year, the source added. Systematic stock-trading hedge funds, such as Marshall Wace, are up more than 13% for 2025 so far, Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients. Multi-strategy funds remained largely flat on the month, apart from the $28 billion Balyasny Asset Management, which added 1.3% in September to its annual return so far this year of 10%, another source with knowledge of the matter said. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/how-hedge-funds-performed-september-2025-10-03/

2025-10-03 21:09

Fed's Miran again presses for aggressive rate cuts Other Fed officials more wary of easing amid still-high inflation Miran does see easy financial conditions stopping rate cuts Oct 3 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran on Friday again pressed for an aggressive path of rate cuts citing the impact of Trump administration policies on the economy, while other central bank officials made the case for a more cautious approach citing still-worrisome inflation pressures. “My view is that if policy is out of whack, you should adjust it at a reasonably ... brisk pace,” Miran said in an interview on Bloomberg television. When it comes to the current setting of central bank interest rate policy, “we're not at the point yet where, if you sort of keep it there another day, it's a crisis, but if you keep it there for an extra year, yeah, I think you have…problems on your hands.” Sign up here. Miran said his belief that monetary policy needs to be much easier than it is now is based on his view that economic shifts largely on the immigration front suggest that the so-called neutral interest rate has declined from where it was. That means that if left near current levels, Fed policy has become more restrictive of growth, Miran said. Miran spoke on a day the government was supposed to release its latest employment sector report but did not due to a shutdown created by elected leaders' failure to agree on a budget. Miran did not express concern about missing the key data, noting the central bank still has time before its next meeting scheduled for late October. Miran is the Fed's newest governor and in a highly unusual state of affairs is on leave from a job at the Trump White House. He dissented in favor of a half-percentage-point rate cut at the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee meeting last month. Then, officials trimmed their federal funds rate target range by a quarter percentage point to between 4% and 4.25% as they sought to balance a desire to lower still-high inflation while providing support for a weakening jobs market. Officials also penciled in further rate cuts and see the interest rate target in the 3.5% to 3.75% range by year's end, with a move to between 3.25% and 3.5% in 2026. Miran's preference for aggressive rate cuts puts him at a distance from most policymakers, especially as a wide range of regional Fed bank presidents are still worried about lowering rates with inflation well above the Fed's 2% target and expected to accelerate as President Donald Trump's tariffs surge through the economy. SERVICES INFLATION PUTS FED IN A STICKY SPOT Speaking on CNBC, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said the Fed now finds itself in "a bit of a sticky spot" with recent data showing an upswing in services inflation while payroll job creation has been weakening. "You see this uptick in inflation and particularly the uptick in services inflation, which is probably not coming from tariffs," he said, adding "I'm a little wary about front-loading too many rate cuts and just counting on the inflation going away." Meanwhile, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan remained hawkish and told a conference that "we really need to be cautious of further rate cuts from here" in an environment where things like non-housing services inflation remain "worrisome" and suggestive that current above-target inflation is not just a tariff-driven issue. Fed second-in-command Philip Jefferson also spoke in remarks that noted the recent rate cut was important to help ward off further trouble in the job market. "With the unemployment rate at 4.3%, the labor market is softening, which suggests that, left unsupported, it could experience stress," he said, adding last month's easing "moved our policy rate closer to a more neutral stance while maintaining a balanced approach to promoting our dual-mandate objectives." In a press conference after the September FOMC meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted at Miran's isolation and said "there wasn’t widespread support at all for a 50-basis-point cut today," noting that policy moves of greater than 25 basis points often happen "when you feel that policy is out of place and needs to move quickly to a new place. That’s not at all what I feel, certainly now." That said, while Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman voted for the 25-basis-point cut, she has since argued that Fed policy is at risk of falling behind the curve in offsetting risks to the labor sector. In his remarks to the television channel, Miran said his longer-run expectations for monetary policy are not dissimilar from other policymakers and "all that's different is the fact that I want to get there a little bit faster." Miran also shrugged off the risks of cutting rates aggressively at a time when financial markets have been very buoyant and could rise further on cheaper short-term borrowing costs. "It can be a little bit of a mistake to look at financial conditions and infer something necessarily about the stance of monetary policy, because they can be driven up by other things," Miran said. And he added financial conditions are "not all loose" and housing finance, for example, is "relatively tight." https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/feds-miran-wants-aggressive-rate-cuts-downplays-differences-with-other-officials-2025-10-03/

2025-10-03 21:08

TSX ends up 1% at 30,471.68 Eclipses Thursday's record closing high Shopify jumps 6.5%; posts record intraday and closing highs For the week, the index adds 2.4% Oct 3 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index rose to another record high on Friday as shares of e-commerce company Shopify (SHOP.TO) , opens new tab jumped and investors shrugged off downbeat domestic economic data. Toronto's S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) , opens new tab ended up 311.09 points, or 1%, at 30,471.68, its sixth straight day of gains and eclipsing Thursday's record closing high. Sign up here. For the week, the index was up 2.4%. "From a big picture point of view, we seem to be back to a situation where bad news for the economy is good for the markets," said Elvis Picardo, a portfolio manager at Luft Financial, iA Private Wealth. "On the Canadian side, we had pretty soft data but that was shrugged aside." Canada's services economy contracted at a steeper pace in September as businesses shed jobs and outstanding work sank to a five-year low, S&P Global's Canada services PMI data showed. A soft economy spurred the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates last month to a three-year low of 2.50%. Money market pricing has leaned toward further easing this month. The technology sector (.SPTTTK) , opens new tab rose 1.5%. Shopify's shares were up 6.5%, notching an all-time closing high. They also surpassed the record intraday peak from November 2021. "Shopify could be benefiting from enthusiasm for anything AI-related," Picardo said. "We don’t have too many companies with that pedigree in Canada." OpenAI has recently introduced a feature that would allow users to make purchases through ChatGPT, in partnership with Shopify and Etsy (ETSY.O) , opens new tab. Technology accounts for 11.5% of the TSX's weighting, far less than the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 where technology represents 50% of the index. Industrials added 1.1% and energy was up 1%. The price of oil settled 0.7% higher at $60.88 a barrel, clawing back some of this week's decline. Eight OPEC+ countries are likely to further raise oil output on Sunday. Nine of 10 major sectors ended higher. The exception was healthcare, which lost 1%. https://www.reuters.com/business/tsx-futures-inch-up-fed-rate-cut-hopes-despite-us-government-shutdown-2025-10-03/

2025-10-03 20:55

Oct 3 (Reuters) - Locomotive engineers at Union Pacific (UNP.N) , opens new tab voted to ratify a new five-year contract with the railroad operator, the BLET-Teamsters union said on Friday. Under the new contract, nearly 6,000 members represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, a division of the rail conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), will earn raises of 18.8% over the life of the agreement. Sign up here. The contract also includes improved health and welfare benefits, the union said. Last week, the largest U.S. railroad union, SMART-TD, approved Union Pacific's $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern (NSC.N) , opens new tab, helping to advance a deal that had been expected to face resistance from unions and regulators. The deal will create the nation's first coast-to-coast freight rail operator and reshape the movement of goods from grains to autos across the country. The two companies are expected to file a formal merger application with the Surface Transportation Board, which oversees rail competition and service, by late October or by January 2026. https://www.reuters.com/business/union-pacific-locomotive-engineers-ratify-new-five-year-contract-2025-10-03/