2024-03-19 03:02
TAIPEI, March 19 (Reuters) - Taiwan's consumer price index (CPI) and core CPI will be above 2% this year due to higher food prices and possible electricity price increases, but will still be lower than last year, the island's central bank chief said on Tuesday. "Even though electricity prices will rise this year, we estimate that both CPI and core CPI will gradually ease," central bank Governor Yang Chin-Long told parliament. Taiwan's CPI and core CPI rose 2.49% and 2.61% respectively in 2023, he added. Yang's comments came after he said last week the central bank would probably not cut interest rates before June, as it may be necessary to raise the 2024 inflation forecast because of rising consumer prices. Taiwan's central bank is expected to hold its policy interest rate steady this week and to stay the course until early next year as it navigates ongoing concerns over inflation, according to economists in a Reuters poll. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/taiwan-cbank-chief-says-inflation-will-be-above-2-this-year-lower-than-2023-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 01:23
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel said on Monday that the tax agency will need to boost its workforce to over 100,000 people over the next three years to achieve its modernization, service and enforcement goals and additional funding will be needed to maintain that extra capacity. Werfel told reporters on his first anniversary in the IRS' top job that near-term hiring will focus on improving taxpayer services and on handling complex audits. He added that the IRS will detail its hiring plans next month in an update to its strategic operating plan , opens new tab for deploying some $60 billion in supplemental funding over a decade from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. "We're at 90,000 now. I think to get into a right-size position over the next two to three years, we need to be above 100,000, but not that much above 100,000," Werfel said. That figure would represent a more than 20,000 full-time-equivalent staff increase over the fiscal 2022 level of 79,070, which was about 9.1% below the 2013 level of 86,974, according to IRS data , opens new tab. IRS employment dipped to 73,519 in 2019 after years of budget cuts, mostly passed by Republican-controlled Congresses. The overall level of increase in the IRS' staffing would be far less than Republican accusations that the agency is building an "army" of 87,000 agents, many of them armed. That figure was derived from a 2021 Treasury report that estimated gross hiring needs to overcome a wave of IRS retirements and rebuild the workforce, but it has motivated Republicans to try to claw back funding. A top-line fiscal 2024 spending agreement is set to cut the original $80 billion in funds back to $60 billion. As congressional negotiators wrangle over another partial government shutdown deadline on Friday, in the midst of tax filing season, Werfel warned of potential disruptions for taxpayers in receiving refunds. He said the agency would "work within the law to keep as much open as we can, but we can't keep everything open." FUTURE FUNDS President Joe Biden's fiscal 2025 proposed budget includes a request for an additional $104 billion in IRS funding, which Werfel said would cover later years of the 10-year budget window. Even though the supplemental funding has been cut by $20 billion, IRS will continue making near-term investments in technology at the current pace, he said. Werfel added that there would not be enough funding in the separate, annual operating budget for the IRS to support a "new baseline" for the IRS, with the additional employees, to continue to pursue sophisticated audits and continually upgrade technology. "So we so if we don't add funds, then at some point we're going to hit a cliff and we're going to have to lose some of that capacity," he said. Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-irs-chief-sees-workforce-topping-100000-within-three-years-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 01:00
LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Portfolio investors took a breather last week after the earlier rush to repurchase short positions lifted oil and gas prices significantly since the start of the year. Hedge funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 14 million barrels in the six major petroleum futures and options contracts over the seven days ending on March 12. Fund managers had sold a total of 32 million barrels in the two most recent weeks after purchasing 325 million over the previous 11 weeks, according to exchange regulatory records. The combined position was just 501 million barrels on March 12, which was in only the 35th percentile for all weeks since 2013, but that conceals some important differences: Extended output cuts by Saudi Arabia and its OPEC⁺ allies have kept petroleum inventories close to the long-term average and supported prices around the inflation-adjusted average since the start of the century. But efforts to drive prices higher have been frustrated by continued output increases from non-OPEC producers in the western hemisphere (United States, Canada, Brazil and Guyana). Distillate prices have been underpinned by inventories below the long-term average as well as the disruption of trade through the Red Sea and attacks on Russia's oil refineries. But manufacturing and freight activity is taking longer to recover in North America, Europe and Asia than seemed likely a few months ago, postponing the expected depletion of distillate stocks. U.S. NATURAL GAS Fund positions in U.S. natural gas were basically unchanged after two weeks of heavy buying driven mostly by repurchases of previous bearish short positions. Hedge funds and other money managers purchased the equivalent of just 33 billion cubic feet (bcf) in the two major futures and options contracts linked to prices at Henry Hub in Louisiana over the seven days ending on March 12. It came after they had bought a total of 1,079 bcf over the two previous weeks, according to records filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Since the middle of February, future production cuts announced by a number of major domestic producers have helped lift prices from their lowest level in real terms for over 30 years. But the market will exit the winter heating season with a near-record amount of gas in storage which will take time to normalise. Chartbook: Oil and gas positions , opens new tab Working gas inventories amounted to 2,325 bcf on March 8, the highest for the time of year since 2016 and before that 2012. Stocks were 606 bcf (+35% or +1.35 standard deviations) above the prior 10-year seasonal average and the surplus had ballooned from 64 bcf (+2% or +0.24 standard deviations) on Oct. 1. Much warmer-than-normal temperatures across the major population centres of the Lower 48 states have combined with continued gas production growth to leave the market with enormous excess inventories. The drawdown in inventories this winter has been the smallest since 2015/16 and before that 2011/2012 (allowing for the extra day in leap years). Depleting excess inventories will require a big increase in gas-fired generation this summer and/or a sharp deceleration in production growth. Related columns: - Oil prices stall after funds complete short covering (March 11, 2024) - Oil prices rise as funds scale back bearish positions (March 4, 2024) John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own. Follow his commentary on X https://twitter.com/JKempEnergy , opens new tab Get a look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets with the Morning Bid U.S. newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/hedge-fund-optimism-about-diesel-ebbs-away-kemp-2024-03-18/
2024-03-19 00:58
March 19 (Reuters) - Thirteen miners were trapped after a rock fall in a gold mine in Russia's Amur region, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations said on Tuesday. "Communications are being restored and mechanized clearing of the transport slope is being carried out," the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app. The accident occurred at the Pioneer mine, one of the largest gold mines in Russia based on processing capacity, Russian media reported. The mine is located in the Eastern Siberia Amur region that borders China to the south. The mine is owned by the London-listed Russian gold miner Petropavlovsk (POG.D) , opens new tab, which in 2022 filed for administration after Western sanctions on Gazprombank, its main lender and the sole buyer of its gold, left it struggling to repay debt. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thirteen-miners-trapped-russian-gold-mine-authorities-say-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 00:50
NEW YORK/LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) - The yen tumbled to a four-month low on Tuesday after the Bank of Japan's momentous, widely anticipated decision to end its negative interest rate policy, while the dollar strengthened ahead of the Federal Reserve's latest outlook for rates. In a historic shift from decades of massive monetary stimulus, the Japanese central bank ended eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants of unorthodox economic policy after a two-day meeting of policymakers. As most investors had already priced in a change, the yen dropped more than 1%, weakening in U.S. trading hours to 150.96 to the dollar after the news. The yen was last down 1.19% at 150.91 to the dollar. Against the euro , the Japanese currency similarly slid 1.1% to 163.99, also its weakest in four months. "They're very much in favor of trying to normalize the way the money market and the financial system work locally," said Brad Bechtel, global head of FX at Jefferies in New York. "I think they've done a lot of big steps to get there." With Japan's first rate hike in 17 years, the BOJ said it would guide the overnight call rate - its new policy rate - in a range of zero to 0.1%, adding it expected "accommodative financial conditions" to be maintained for the time being. That is likely to keep pressure on the yen, as U.S.-Japanese rate differentials remain stark. It will also attract foreign investment into Treasury bonds and keep the dollar strong. "The market has taken it as a green light to increase the short yen positioning that was already in place, given the forward guidance from the BOJ was fairly cautious, and not really enough to draw further hawkish repricing in the Japanese rate market," MUFG currency strategist Lee Hardman said. DOLLAR DOMINANCE This week's raft of central bank decisions are dominating action in the currency market, headlined by the Fed. The U.S. central bank will deliver its policy outlook on Wednesday, when it is widely expected to keep rates unchanged at 5.25% to 5.50%. The market is awaiting clues on the likely course of monetary policy through policymakers' economic projections for this year through 2026. "Anytime the Fed and the BOJ are moving policy settings at about the same time, it's always the Fed that rules and dominates the price action, even in dollar/yen," said Gareth Berry, Macquarie's FX and rates strategist. "So the BOJ's decisions generally are, as far as the yen is concerned, a matter of secondary importance." The dollar index , which measures the performance of the U.S. currency against six others, is around its highest in two weeks, up 0.33% on the day at 103.90. Recent data showing a resilient U.S. economy has suggested inflation is still sticky enough to deter the Fed from cutting rates too much or too quickly this year, which has boosted the dollar. The Australian dollar dropped after the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left rates unchanged on Tuesday, as expected, but watered down its guidance over the likelihood of further rate hikes. The Aussie slid 0.85% to an almost two-week low of $0.6504, dragging the New Zealand dollar down 0.5% to $0.6055. Elsewhere, a broadly stronger dollar pushed the euro and sterling to two-week lows. The euro was last down 0.08% at $1.0863, while sterling fell 0.2% to $1.2723. In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell as much as 7% to skim two-week lows, after last week's record highs triggered some profit taking. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, was last down 4.07% at $62,624. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/yen-holds-nerve-boj-decision-looms-dollar-resurgent-2024-03-19/
2024-03-19 00:38
LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) - Britain’s National Grid (NG.L) , opens new tab has proposed a 58 billion pound ($74 billion) investment programme to boost grid networks beyond 2030 to accommodate expected growth in electricity demand and an increase in renewable power projects. Britain has a target to decarbonise its power sector by 2035, which will require many more renewable power plants such as wind and solar that need to be connected to the electricity grid. National Grid’s Electricity System operator (ESO) said Britain's electricity network has mostly had only small upgrades over the last 70 years, but as more sectors such as vehicles and heating switch to using electricity demand is expected to grow by 64% by 2035. “The current electricity grid is reaching its capacity and is unable to transport much more electricity without reinforcing the network,” the ESO’s Beyond 2030 report said. The ESO was tasked with presenting a plan on how the country’s electricity networks could grow to meet this demand while also decarbonising the system by 2035. It recommends extending the offshore power grid and building a new north to south electrical spine that would help transport electricity generated in Scotland to the north of England and several new transmission lines from Scotland to further south in England. Many new wind projects are planned off the coast of Scotland, with Scotland’s Crown Estate offering leases for nearly 28 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, far in excess of Scotland’s electricity demand, which currently has peak winter demand of around 5 GW, the ESO said. The report did not detail how the upgrades should be funded but currently costs of energy networks are recouped through consumer energy bills. The plan would have to be approved by the government and regulator Ofgem. ($1 = 0.7857 pounds) The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-national-grid-proposes-74-bln-energy-system-upgrade-2024-03-19/
