2024-05-01 23:02

HOUSTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) New Tab, opens new tab is set to close its $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD.N) New Tab, opens new tab after an agreement with antitrust enforcers that will keep former Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield off its board, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will allege that Sheffield engaged in collusive activity with members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that could have raised the price of oil, the newspaper reported. The FTC will claim that Sheffield sent hundreds of messages to OPEC representatives that included discussions of market dynamics, including pricing and production levels, the Journal reported. Sheffield retired as Pioneer's CEO on Dec. 31, but continued to serve on its board and was due to take a seat on Exxon's board when the acquisition deal closed. Pioneer and the FTC both declined to comment. "We continue to work constructively with the FTC as they conduct a very thorough review," an Exxon spokesperson said on Wednesday. During a discussion of Exxon's first-quarter earnings last week, executives said they had responded to the FTC's second request for information and received no indications of anti-trust issues. The agency's 30-day review is expected to wrap up this week. Exxon CEO Darren Woods said on Friday the company had supplied an enormous "material of documents, contracts, line items on productions and sales." "We are very confident that there are no antitrust issues," he told analysts. The FTC's 30-day review period likely began in early April, said Bob Brackett, an analyst with Bernstein investment firm. "Few obstacles remain to an imminent second-quarter close." Antitrust experts said in October that despite the size of the proposed Exxon-Pioneer deal, the FTC would struggle to stop it because it is a merger of producers rather than refiners or retail outlets. Even so, the regulator has stepped up its review of oil and gas deals and sent a second request to both companies last year. It has also sought additional information from Chevron (CVX.N) New Tab, opens new tab, Diamondback Energy (FANG.O) New Tab, opens new tab, Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N) New Tab, opens new tab and Chesapeake Energy (CHK.O) New Tab, opens new tab related to their respective acquisitions of rivals. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/us-ftc-set-rule-60-bln-exxon-pioneer-deal-bloomberg-reports-2024-05-01/

2024-05-01 22:58

OTTAWA, May 1 (Reuters) - Canadian legislators on Wednesday agreed to hold hearings into how major aerospace companies were granted exemptions from the country's sanctions on Russian titanium. Reuters reported last week that Airbus (AIR.PA) New Tab, opens new tab, Bombardier (BBDb.TO) New Tab, opens new tab and Safran (SAF.PA) New Tab, opens new tab had all been allowed to sidestep sanctions imposed on Russia's state-backed VSMPO-AVISMA. Canada is the first Western government to ban Russian supplies of the strategic metal as part of a package to mark the second anniversary of Russia's Ukraine invasion in February. The 12-person foreign affairs committee of the House of Commons elected chamber said it would call the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and other unspecified witnesses, after a proposal to have representatives of Bombardier and Airbus testify failed. The hearings are part of a study of waivers granting the use of Russian titanium in Canadian aerospace manufacturing. "We have heard that this is particularly egregious because Ukraine has titanium that they could use and instead we have waived the sanction on Russian titanium," said opposition NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson who pressed for the study. "So I think it is very important that we understand why the government made this decision." Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly last week defended the waiver decisions and said jobs in Canada had been the decisive factor. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/canada-mps-set-discuss-possible-probe-into-titanium-sanction-waivers-2024-05-01/

2024-05-01 21:47

May 2 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. Asia gets back up toward full speed on Thursday after many markets were closed for the May Day holiday, with the U.S. Fed's guidance, a surging yen and manufacturing PMIs from across the continent all serving as potential market sign posts. Asia's economic calendar is jam-packed on Thursday, with highlights including: manufacturing PMIs from seven countries, consumer inflation from South Korea and Indonesia, Hong Kong's first quarter GDP, Australian trade figures, and consumer confidence from Japan. Moves in U.S. trading on Wednesday will likely set the early market tone - Wall Street gyrated, yields tumbled New Tab, opens new tab and the dollar fell after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said an interest rate hike was "unlikely", and that his baseline scenario is still for inflation to cool and pave the way for lower interest rates. This came after the Fed announced a more aggressive tapering of its quantitative tightening program than had been expected. Taken together, the overarching signal was dovish. Treasuries and the dollar played ball, but Wall Street didn't - stocks surged as much as 1.5% on Powell's comments before the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed in the red. Will Powell's dovish stance, certainly relative to the hawkish drum beat that had dominated markets in recent days, get investors dancing to a more upbeat tune? Global stocks had kicked off the new month on Wednesday on the defensive, as doubts over the U.S. economy's resilience, high bond yields and some U.S. earnings misses sapped risk appetite. Some of that gloom may lift, if only temporarily. There may also have been a few sighs of relief at the Bank of Japan and Ministry of Finance in Tokyo - the dollar's fall relieves pressure on the yen, and by extension, pressure for further yen-buying intervention from Japanese authorities. Indeed, the yen staged an extraordinary rally in late U.S. trade on Wednesday, strengthening more than 2% past where it was just before the BOJ's policy decision last Friday. Zooming out from Wednesday's Fed frenzy, and the extraordinary upward shift in implied U.S. rates this year is being widely felt - easing expectations around the world have been pared back, and rates in Australia, for example, are more likely to be raised this year than cut. One central bank that has raised rates is Bank Indonesia, with its surprise move last month. Sticky inflation numbers on Thursday could bolster expectations of further tightening - rates markets currently expect another quarter-point increase by the summer. South Korea's annual inflation rate, meanwhile, is seen slowing slightly to 3.0% - probably not enough of a decline to move the dial on the Bank of Korea's rate outlook. Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Thursday: - Manufacturing PMIs (April) - South Korea, Indonesia CPI inflation (April) - Japan consumer confidence (April) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/global-markets-view-asia-graphic-pix-2024-05-01/

2024-05-01 21:37

May 1 (Reuters) - The dollar tumbled against the yen late Wednesday afternoon, recoiling further from 34-year highs two days after traders said Japanese authorities were buying yen to support their currency, which had fallen 11% this year. Dollar/yen suddenly fell more than 3% from late Tuesday levels, trading as low as 153.00. That was below the 154.40 low seen in Monday's recoil from 160.245. It was last at 154.845 down 1.85% from Tuesday. COMMENTS: JOHN VELIS, FX AND MACRO STRATEGIST AT BNY (emailed to Reuters) “We think it was Japan MoF intervening. A good time to do so, with liquidity low late in the day and the dollar weakening after the FOMC. Always better to intervene when market is going in your direction to begin with.” MARC CHANDLER, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, AT BANNOCKBURN GLOBAL FOREX "It looked like intervention and it caught people by surprise." JOSEPH TREVISANI, SENIOR ANALYST, FX STREET, NEW YORK "It looks like intervention. The Japanese, I don't think, are going to say anything or admit to it. They didn't last time, but it certainly looks like it. I'm going from the market action that you're seeing here... It's the kind of movement you will get when some entity, whoever it is, comes in and sells a great deal of currencies to move the market, a great deal of dollars in this case. But at this point I haven't seen any comment from the BOJ. They know that if they don't continue to make their point, then the market will go back to the original levels. "AMO SAHOTA, DIRECTOR AT KLARITY FX, SAN FRANCISCO "This smells like an intervention. There's a lot of liquidity around with the Fed rate decision as well. It looks like the Bank of Japan or the Ministry of Finance was an active earlier this week." "It's a pretty significant move. The writing was always on the wall whenever it got up above 155 and into that 160 bracket that they would be unhappy about unreasonable moves. Although there was nothing really unreasonable over the last 24 hours." "Maybe they thought this was the path of least resistance right now. It hasn't seen to have been having a knock on effect to other FX ... It's very much dollar/yen position. That's what really leads us to think about that this would be a yen story rather than anything else on a day like today after the FOMC meeting because we're not seeing we're not seeing equally sized moves on the US dollar across the board." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/view-dollaryen-nosesdives-again-market-watches-boj-intervention-2024-05-01/

2024-05-01 21:32

May 1 (Reuters) - Oil and gas firm Marathon Oil (MRO.N) New Tab, opens new tab narrowly beat first-quarter profit estimates on Wednesday, helped by higher oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) pricing. Crude oil prices in the quarter mirrored prices from the previous year as production cuts by OPEC+ countries offset lower demand, helping oil producers such as Marathon Oil. The Houston-based company said average price for crude oil and condensate in the United States was up about 1% at $75.39 per barrel (bbl) and international price was up 5.6% to $61.86 per bbl. "We remain fully on track to deliver a 2024 program that provides a sector-leading combination of free cash flow, capital efficiency and shareholder returns," said CEO Lee Tillman. Quarterly oil production was down 2.7% to 181,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared with a year earlier. The company said January winter storms negatively affected its quarterly production by 4,000 net bopd, with the impact primarily concentrated in the Bakken. The company said its average realized price for natural gas sold as LNG was $7.21 per million cubic feet (mmcf) in the reported quarter. The company reported an adjusted profit of 55 cents per share for the quarter ended March 31, compared with analysts' average estimate of 54 cents per share, according to LSEG data. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/marathon-oil-narrowly-beats-first-quarter-profit-estimates-higher-prices-2024-05-01/

2024-05-01 21:29

TOKYO/NEW YORK, May 2 (Reuters) - The yen surged against the dollar in early Asian hours on Thursday on what traders suspected was another round of intervention by Japanese authorities to stop a sharp slide in the currency, with the 160 level seen as a key line of defence. The dollar tumbled to precisely 153 yen from about 157.55 yen for reasons that were not immediately clear , but traders and analysts were quick to attribute it to dollar selling ordered by Japan's Ministry of Finance to support a currency languishing at 34-year lows. The latest move came in a quiet period for the currency pair, after the U.S. stock market had closed and with the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting ending hours earlier. The dollar was already on the back foot after Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed that the central bank's bias was towards interest rate cuts, even if the timing has been delayed by sticky inflation. "There's no doubt the MOF intervened," said Daisaku Ueno, chief currency strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, who says officials have set 160 yen per dollar as their "final defence line." "This morning's intervention is proof that Japanese authorities will intervene any time of the day, and any day of the year," he added. "They will continue to intervene." Bank of Japan money market projections for cash balances later showed more than 9 trillion yen ($57.96 billion) discrepancy with broker expectations. It suggests intervention around that size - which would mark a new record - though factors other than foreign exchange intervention can influence money market balances. Additionally, Columbia University academic and former finance ministry executive Takatoshi Ito told Reuters it was plausible Japanese authorities intervened to signal they see 160 yen to the dollar as their line in the sand. The yen has been under pressure as U.S. interest rates have climbed and Japan's have stayed near zero, driving cash out of yen and into higher-yielding assets. The pressure has intensified since March as expectations for Fed rate cuts receded, reinforcing the yen's status as a cheap funding currency. When contacted by Reuters, Japan's vice finance minister for international affairs, Masato Kanda, who oversees currency policy, said he had no comment on whether Japan had intervened in the market. A U.S. Treasury spokesperson also declined to comment on the move in the currency pair. Yellen told Reuters last week that currency interventions were acceptable only in "very rare and exceptional circumstances" when markets were disorderly with excessive volatility. CHALLENGING The difficulty in arresting the yen's slide has been made clear by the speed at which the currency has reversed direction after its spike. As of 1000 GMT, the yen was 0.5% lower at 155.23 per dollar, giving up some of the ground it gained overnight. And it remains down about 10% against the dollar this year amid receding bets for near-term Fed rate cuts, while the Bank of Japan has signalled it will go slow with further policy tightening after its first rate hike since 2007 in March. The gap between long-term government bond yields in the two countries is a yawning 376 basis points, which helped push the yen to the weakest since April 1990 at 160.245 per dollar on Monday. Official data earlier this week suggested a sharp rebound that followed was due to Japanese intervention totalling about $35 billion, close to a record amount. The finance ministry has consistently declined to say whether it was behind the move. ($1 = 155.2900 yen) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/dollaryen-extends-loss-amid-specter-boj-intervention-2024-05-01/