2024-02-26 21:46

Feb 27 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. Japanese inflation figures could provide the biggest market fireworks in Asia on Tuesday, potentially pushing the yen to a new 2024 low, closer to its recent three-decade depths, and into territory likely to spark louder warnings from Tokyo. Asian markets have started the week on a more cautious footing following the tech-fueled buying frenzy of last week - the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index had its biggest fall in over two weeks, and a 1% decline in Chinese stocks snapped their longest winning streak in six years. Tuesday's economic calendar is light, with current account data from Taiwan and Hong Kong trade figures overshadowed by January consumer inflation numbers from Japan. Inflation is expected to have fallen below the Bank of Japan's 2% target for the first time in nearly two years, according to a Reuters poll, with annual core inflation seen slowing to 1.8% from 2.3%. Headline inflation should also ease from December's 2.6% pace. This could further complicate the BOJ's policy normalization plans, after figures earlier this month showed the economy unexpectedly fell into a recession at the end of last year. A below-consensus reading could be particularly problematic. Some economists think the BOJ could end years of ultra-loose policy and raise interest rates as soon as next month. But that might be hard for the BOJ to deliver and communicate with inflation below target and the economy in recession. Little wonder, perhaps, that the yen remains under heavy selling pressure. While the dollar is struggling against a major currencies on an index basis, it is pushing new highs for the year against the yen just under 151.00 yen. U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show that speculators increased their net short yen position - effectively a bet that the currency will depreciate - to the largest since November and the second biggest in six years. There are reasons to believe Japanese authorities may be less willing to conduct yen-buying intervention to support the currency like they did in 2022, but stretched positioning among hedge funds and speculators will almost certainly be a red flag. FX traders don't seem to be too concerned though - three-month dollar/yen implied volatility is its lowest in almost two years. In China, meanwhile, official figures on Monday showed that Chinese banks purchased the most dollars from their clients via FX swaps in January, suggesting exporters preferred to only temporarily acquire the local currency while holding on to dollars. State media also reported that President Xi Jinping held a meeting of a key economic policy body on Friday, the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, to discuss providing support to manufacturers and lowering logistics costs. Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Tuesday: - Japan inflation (January) - Hong Kong trade (January) - Taiwan exports (January), current account (Q4) https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/global-markets-view-asia-graphic-pix-2024-02-26/

2024-02-26 21:44

Feb 26 (Reuters) - Flight control engineers expect to lose contact with the private U.S. moon lander Odysseus on Tuesday morning, cutting short the mission five days after its sideways touchdown, the company behind the spacecraft, Intuitive Machines (LUNR.O) , opens new tab, said on Monday. It remained to be seen how much scientific data might be lost as a result of the shortened lifespan of Odysseus, which according to previous estimates from the company and its biggest customer, NASA, was supposed to operate on the moon for seven to 10 days. The company's forecast for a premature end to the mission came as new details emerged about testing shortcuts and human error that led to an in-flight failure of the spacecraft's laser-guided range finders ahead of its landing last Thursday near the moon's south pole. An Intuitive Machines official said the loss of the range finders stemmed from the company's decision to forgo a test firing of the laser system to save time and money during pre-flight checks of Odysseus at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "There were certainly things we could've done to test it and actually fire it. They would've been very time-consuming and very costly," Mike Hansen, the company's head of navigation systems, told Reuters in an interview on Saturday. "So that was a risk as a company that we acknowledged and took that risk." On Friday Intuitive Machines had disclosed that the laser range finders - designed to feed altitude and forward-velocity readings to Odysseus' autonomous navigation system - were inoperable because company engineers neglected to unlock the lasers' safety switch before launch on Feb. 15. The safety lock, akin to a firearm's safety switch, can only be disabled by hand. The range-finder glitch, detected just hours before the final descent, forced flight controllers to send Odysseus into an extra lunar orbit while they improvised a work-around to avoid what could have been a catastrophic crash-landing. SOLAR POWER LIMITED Hansen, the engineer who crafted the software "patch" that solved the problem, said the company had yet to determine whether the ad-libbed navigational solution, which employed an experimental NASA-supplied system on the lander, might have been a factor in the spacecraft's sideways landing. Newly released images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft showed Odysseus as a tiny speck on the moon's surface, within a mile (1.5 km) of its intended landing site near a crater called Malapert A. Intuitive Machines also released images Odysseus captured during its descent, but there were none yet from the surface. The company said during its first post-landing news briefing on Friday that Odysseus caught the bottom of one of its six landing legs on the uneven lunar surface on final descent and tipped over, coming to rest horizontally, apparently propped up on a rock. Intuitive Machines executives speculated that the forward speed of the spacecraft on landing, about twice as fast as expected, may have been a factor in stumbling. But it remained uncertain whether use of the original laser range finders might have made a difference. In any case, Odysseus' sideways posture substantially limited how much its solar panels were exposed to sunlight, necessary for recharging its batteries. Moreover, two of its antennae were pointed toward the ground, impeding communications with the lander, the company said on Friday. Intuitive Machines executives said then that its engineering teams would need more time to assess how the overall mission would be affected. In an update posted online on Monday, the Houston-based company said: "Flight controllers intend to collect data until the lander's solar panels are no longer exposed to light. Based on Earth and Moon positioning, we believe flight controllers will continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday morning," five days after landing. NASA, which has several research instruments aboard the vehicle, had said those payloads were designed to operate for seven days on solar energy before the sun set over the polar landing site. Company executives had told reporters on Friday, the day after Odysseus landed, that its payloads would be able to function for about nine or 10 days under a "best-case scenario." Shares of Intuitive Machines plunged 35% on Monday. Despite its less-than-ideal touchdown, Odysseus became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since NASA's last crewed Apollo mission to the lunar surface brought astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt there in 1972. It was also the first lunar landing ever by a commercially manufactured and operated space vehicle, and the first under NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to Earth's natural satellite this decade. Intuitive Machines has said it spent roughly $100 million on the lander, and received $118 million from NASA under the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, a low-budget effort to spur flights to the moon by private enterprise. https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/moon-lander-odysseus-mission-expected-end-tuesday-morning-5-days-after-touchdown-2024-02-26/

2024-02-26 21:29

Feb 26 (Reuters) - The United Steelworkers (USW) signed a non-disclosure agreement with Nippon Steel (5401.T) , opens new tab, the union said on Monday, as the Japanese company remains on track to finalize its planned $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel (X.N) , opens new tab. However, the union said even with the agreement, Nippon has not provided it with all of the information requested. The world's fourth-largest steelmaker's planned deal has drawn criticism from Democratic and Republican lawmakers and the powerful USW union. Nippon Steel aims to gain consent from the USW, the main union at U.S. Steel, by emphasizing the deal would strengthen the U.S. company's profitability and finances, leading to stable employment. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/united-steelworkers-signs-non-disclosure-agreement-with-nippon-steel-2024-02-26/

2024-02-26 21:18

TSX ends down 0.4% at 21,324.31 Utilities sector loses 2.2% Financials decline ahead of bank earnings Materials group falls on lower metal prices Feb 26 (Reuters) - Canada's commodity-linked main stock index pulled back from a 22-month high on Monday as metal prices fell and investors turned cautious ahead of earnings reports this week from major domestic banks. The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) , opens new tab ended down 88.84 points, or 0.4%, at 21,324.31, after posting on Friday its highest closing level since April 2022. "There's not a lot of urgency to buy anything today," said Greg Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments. "Everyone's more just recovering from the big week we had last week with some big moves in technology." The high-dividend paying utilities sector lost 2.2% as bond yields climbed and financials, the most heavily-weighted sector on the TSX by far, were down 0.7%. Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) , opens new tab and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO) , opens new tab are due to report earnings on Tuesday, kick-starting Canada's bank earnings season. "There's still some nervousness with the banks ... Some of the (analyst) previews were a little more cautious on commercial real estate," Taylor said. The materials sector, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, declined 1.2% as gold and copper prices fell. Technology was a bright spot, adding 0.7%, while energy was up 0.5% as oil settled 1.4% higher at $77.58 a barrel on possible shipping disruptions. https://www.reuters.com/markets/tsx-sees-downbeat-start-week-commodity-prices-trend-lower-2024-02-26/

2024-02-26 20:29

LONDON/NEW YORK, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Global hedge funds sold tech stocks at their highest pace in almost eight months in the week to Feb. 23, Goldman Sachs said, piling into bets against the sector just as Nvidia's (NVDA.O) , opens new tab latest earnings fuelled a surge in tech shares. The tech share selling by hedge funds ranked among the highest seen in the last five years, according to the Goldman Sachs note released on Friday and seen by Reuters on Monday. In a separate note, Morgan Stanley said tech was the most net sold sector last week. Stock indexes, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq (.NDX) , opens new tab, have rallied to record highs on optimism about artificial intelligence. Chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O) , opens new tab added $277 billion in stock market value on Thursday, Wall Street's largest one-day gain in history, after the company's quarterly report beat expectations. But in a sign that sentiment may be turning, the number of hedge funds that now have short bets that tech stock prices will fall is twice versus those with long positions, Goldman Sachs said. Hedge funds took short bets against stocks from tech companies across the sector. They exited long positions and added short punts on manufacturing and service equipment for the semiconductor industry, tech hardware, storage and IT services, the bank said. The speculators added short bets to software companies, Goldman Sachs said, while Morgan Stanley said hedge funds bet against semiconductor and tech hardware companies. However, traders remained reluctant to completely sever their positive positions in tech, a separate note from Goldman Sachs said. That pointed to a two-year high in call options on Nvidia. These are derivatives bets which only make the trader long if the stock passes a certain price threshold - a way to express a positive position in the stock but only if it rises to a certain extent. Speculators were generally short U.S. stocks, piling into the largest net selling of the region's equity markets in five weeks, the first Goldman Sachs note said. Persistent price rises by U.S. service sector businesses have underscored the stickiness of inflation and pushed back expectations for interest rate cuts in 2024, denting hopes for a soft landing. Traders ditched tech, health care and industrial stocks and instead bought the largest amount consumer staples stocks in 10 weeks, adding companies which make products that people routinely buy, Goldman Sachs said. Morgan Stanley said hedge funds sold equities Monday through Wednesday, but changed their minds after the Thursday tech rally sparked by Nvidia and bought back all of what they previously sold, mainly in industrials, materials and financials. https://www.reuters.com/technology/hedge-flow-hedge-funds-call-time-tech-rally-goldman-sachs-says-2024-02-26/

2024-02-26 20:28

WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Hackers working for the 'Blackcat' ransomware gang are behind the outage at UnitedHealth's (UNH.N) , opens new tab technology unit that has snarled prescription deliveries for six days, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. The problems began last week after hackers gained access to Change Healthcare's information technology systems and has led to disruptions at pharmacies across the United States. Change Healthcare and UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Blackcat, also known as "ALPHV," did not immediately respond when asked whether it was responsible. Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab cybersecurity unit Mandiant is handling the investigation into the breach, the two people said. In a statement, Mandiant confirmed it "has been engaged in support of the incident response" but declined to comment further. Blackcat is one of the most notorious of the internet's many ransomware gangs - groups of cybercriminals who encrypt data to hold it hostage with the aim of securing massive payouts. It has previous struck major businesses including MGM Resorts International (MGM.N) , opens new tab and Caesars Entertainment (CZR.O) , opens new tab. In December, Blackcat was the subject of a takedown by U.S.-led international law enforcement, which seized several websites used by the group as well as hundreds of digital keys used to decrypt victims' data. The hackers had threatened to retaliate by extorting critical infrastructure providers and hospitals. CISA, the U.S. cyber watchdog agency, and the FBI also did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. One expert said the news suggested that digital disruptions, while important, could not be counted on to knock ransomware groups out for good. "It's inevitable that if you have a group that's making millions of bucks, they are going to attempt to make a comeback," said Brett Callow, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. The allegation that Blackcat was behind the hack at Change Healthcare also raised questions about parent company UnitedHealth's previous claim that it had been targeted by a "suspected nation-state associated cybersecurity threat actor." "I am not aware of any links between ALPHV and a nation state," Callow said. "As far as I am aware they are financially motivated cybercriminals and nothing more." Reuters has not been able to gauge the full extent of the disruption. A number of pharmacy chains, including CVS Health (CVS.N) , opens new tab and Walgreens (WBA.O) , opens new tab, have said the outage had knock-on effects on their businesses. The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) said on Friday many pharmacies across the nation could not transmit insurance claims for their patients following the hack. It said pharmacies were reporting "significant backlogs of prescriptions," which they were unable to process. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/cyber-security-outage-change-healthcare-continues-sixth-straight-day-2024-02-26/