2023-11-10 06:37
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The dollar dipped against the euro on Friday but gained against the yen as investors evaluated comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that the central bank could hike rates again if inflation remains above its target. The Japanese currency also remained on watch for possible intervention as it holds near a one-year low against the greenback. Powell and other Fed officials said on Thursday that they are still not sure that interest rates are high enough to finish the battle with inflation, with Powell saying that the Fed may get further help in taming price increases from improvements in the supply of goods, services and labor. Markets are looking for “the ray of sunshine” that the Fed is done hiking rates, even though Powell since Jackson Hole has been clear that it will depend on data as it comes in, said Lou Brien, market strategist at DRW Trading in Chicago. “Yesterday was another one of those occasions where Powell reminded that we have to take care of inflation, we don’t know that we’ve done enough yet - we will know as the data unfolds but we might have to do more if the data doesn’t unfold as we anticipate,” he said. Consumer price inflation and retail sales data due next week are expected to offer the next clues on whether further rate increases are likely. The dollar briefly gained on Friday after a survey showed that U.S. consumer sentiment fell for a fourth straight month in November, and households' expectations for inflation rose again, with their medium-term outlook for price pressures shooting to the highest in more than a dozen years. The dollar index was last down 0.06% on the day at 105.85. The dollar tumbled last week after Powell was interpreted as striking a dovish tone after the Fed’s two-day meeting, with softer-then-expected jobs data on Friday adding to a belief that the Fed has finished hiking interest rates. Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a 22% chance of an additional hike by January, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool. Some analysts, however, see the market as too complacent about the risk that the Fed is not yet done. "Markets continue to underestimate the persistence of inflation globally and that in turn leads them to underestimate the likelihood of further monetary tightening. Right now, market pricing is leaning heavily to rate cuts by mid-2024 and we suspect this will have to be rethought in the coming weeks," Win Thin, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman said in a note on Friday. Fed Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly said on Friday she is not ready to say yet whether the central bank is done raising its interest rate target to get inflation back to 2%. The dollar also spiked on Thursday in line with Treasury yields after the U.S. Treasury Department saw weak demand for a $24 billion 30-year bond auction. It was not clear whether demand for the debt was impacted by a ransomware attack on the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's (ICBC) U.S. arm, which has disrupted some trades in the U.S. Treasury market. The euro gained 0.10% to $1.0679. European Central Bank interest rates kept at a record high for long enough could return inflation to the bank's 2% target, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Friday. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar gained 0.16% to 151.59 yen , the highest since Nov. 1. Traders remained on alert for potential intervention in the Japanese currency, which is near a one-year low of 151.74 reached last week. The yen is on track for its worst week since August, with the dollar gaining 1.48% against the currency this week. The euro also hit a 15-year high of 161.95 yen on Friday. The Norwegian crown jumped after data showed Norway's inflation was stronger than expected in October, boosting market rate hike expectations. The dollar was last down 0.94% at 11.13 crowns to the dollar . The Australian dollar fell to $0.63395, the lowest since Nov. 1. It has tumbled since the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday raised interest rates to a 12-year high but played down the probability of further increases. Bitcoin , the world's largest cryptocurrency, was at $37,167, having peaked at $37,978 in the previous session, its highest level since May 2022. Prices of the digital assets have surged after speculation of an imminent approval of BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF. A spot crypto ETF would make the sector "more accessible for institutional investors to enter the crypto space, likely boosting demand and subsequently prices," said Carl Szantyr, managing partner of digital asset hedge fund Blockstone Capital. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 3:01PM (2001 GMT) https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/dollar-eyes-best-week-against-yen-three-months-cryptos-leap-2023-11-10/
2023-11-10 06:33
MUMBAI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee dropped to a record low against the U.S. dollar on Friday, which alongside the outage of the interbank order matching system, prompted the central bank to step in. The rupee dropped to a record low of 83.42 to the dollar and was last at 83.3925. The rupee had been in a narrow range for more than a month, with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) not allowing it to weaken past 83.30, according to traders. "On why the RBI today decided that (allow rupee to drop below 83.30), it's impossible to say," a forex trader at a bank said. "What is important is what happens over the next few days - whether 83.30 will now be the new bottom (for USD/INR) and how the RBI will mange the currency from here on out. Next week will be very important to see if a new range has been made." Alok Sharma, associate vice president of treasury at ICBC, said that trading activity in the rupee will be low on Monday due to the Diwali holiday and he will eye moves Wednesday onwards. The pressure on the rupee was exacerbated due to an outage of the interbank order matching system, likely leading to the RBI stepping in to calm the market, traders said. The central bank is unlikely to allow an unchecked slide in the rupee, according to some analysts. The RBI will defend the currency "in a systematic way" like it has in recent months, said Arnob Biswas, head of foreign exchange research at SMC Global Securities. He, however, said that the range in the USD/INR has now shifted higher. https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-rupee-drops-record-low-tracking-asian-peers-2023-11-10/
2023-11-10 06:31
JAKARTA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Vale will divest its 14% stake in its Indonesian nickel miner Vale Indonesia (INCO.JK) to bring their holding below the maximum permitted for overseas firms, Indonesia's mining minister said on Friday. Shares divestment is a condition Indonesia requires to extend the operation permit for Vale Indonesia. Vale's current contract is due to end in 2025. Under Indonesian rules, foreign miners are required to divest 51% of their stake to local buyers after a certain period of operation. Minister Arifin Tasrif told reporters there will be a "special pricing" for the divestment, though he did not provide details of the pricing, adding the government is aiming for the deal to be secured this year. Vale could not be immediately reached for comment. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/vale-will-divest-14-stake-vale-indonesia-minister-2023-11-10/
2023-11-10 06:23
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Oil prices gained about 2% on Friday as Iraq voiced support for OPEC+'s oil cuts ahead of a meeting in two weeks and as some speculators covered massive short positions ahead of weekend uncertainty. Still, prices settled with weekly losses of 4%, their third straight weekly decline. "This was the perfect technical storm. We came into this week with an almost record short position and now we're seeing some short covering going into the weekend," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group. Flynn noted that in addition to Iraq's comments, Saudi Arabia and Russia confirmed this week that they would continue oil output cuts through year end. In the U.S., energy firms cut the number of oil rigs operating for a second week in a row to the lowest since January 2022, energy services firm Baker Hughes(BKR.O) said. The rig count points to future output. Brent futures rose $1.42, or 1.8%, to settle at $81.43 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose $1.43, or 1.9%, to settle at $77.17. Brent and WTI notched their third straight weekly losses for the first time since May, although both benchmarks exited technically oversold territory. "Concerns about demand have replaced the fear of production outages related to the Middle East conflict," analysts at Commerzbank said. Weak Chinese economic data this week increased worries of faltering demand. Refiners in China, the largest buyer of crude from Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter, asked for less supply for December. U.S. consumer sentiment fell for a fourth straight month in November and households' expectations for inflation rose again. U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly said she is not ready to say yet whether the Fed is done raising rates, echoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments on Thursday. Higher interest rates can reduce oil demand by slowing economic growth. In Britain, the stagnating economy failed to grow in the July-to-September period but did avoid a recession, according to the UK's Office for National Statistics. UPCOMING OPEC MEETING OPEC+, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, will meet on Nov. 26. Iraq's oil ministry said Baghdad is committed to the OPEC+ agreement on determining production levels. Chances Saudi Arabia will extend its output cut into the first quarter of 2024 "is certainly increasing given renewed market concerns about Chinese demand and the broader macro outlook," RBC Capital Markets analyst Helima Croft said. Analysts at Capital Economics said OPEC+ might cut supply further if prices continue to fall. "We are sticking with our forecast of Brent ending both this year and next year at around $85 per barrel," the research firm said in the note. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/oil-set-third-weekly-decline-middle-east-conflict-concerns-ebb-2023-11-10/
2023-11-10 06:10
BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The European Union and China's top climate change officials will meet in Beijing for talks next week, ahead of the United Nations' COP28 climate summit, an EU official told Reuters. Nearly 200 countries are set to gather from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in Dubai for this year's U.N. climate negotiations, their annual chance to strike global deals to tackle climate change. EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra will travel to Beijing next week for talks with China's top climate envoy Xie Zhenhua, the EU official said. It will be their first in-person meeting since Hoekstra, a former Dutch foreign minister, took over responsibility for climate change policies in the 27-country EU last month. The meeting will be a chance for each side to air their positions and lay the groundwork for deals at COP28, where countries will consider a variety of issues, including whether to agree to phase out carbon-dioxide-emitting fossil fuels. Deals at U.N. climate summits must be agreed unanimously between all countries. But final agreements are often hammered out among the world's economic powers. China is the world's second-biggest economy, after the United States. The EU is the third. Xie met his U.S. counterpart John Kerry for talks this week in California. The EU and U.S. are rallying support from governments for a deal at COP28 to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, and hope to win backing from China. Beijing has signalled an openness to the goal, provided it takes into account the divergent economic conditions of different countries. China has more renewable energy capacity than any other country. It is also the world's biggest user of coal, the most highly carbon-emitting fossil fuel. But Brussels and Beijing are at odds over other climate issues. The EU is the biggest provider among wealthy nations of climate finance to poorer countries, and plans to push at COP28 for China and other major emerging economies to also contribute to U.N. climate funds. Beijing resists this. China refers to itself as a developing country, and says wealthy industrialised nations, who are responsible for most of the CO2 emissions causing climate change, must meet their obligations to provide this funding. Tensions between Europe and China have also mounted after Brussels launched an investigation last month into whether to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicle it says are unfairly advantaged by state subsidies. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/top-eu-china-climate-officials-hold-talks-next-week-2023-11-10/
2023-11-10 06:09
KYIV, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The number of rail wagons heading to the ports of Ukraine's Odesa region continued to rise over the past week thanks to the successful operation of the alternative Black Sea exports corridor, a senior railways official said late on Thursday. Valeriy Tkachov, deputy director of the commercial department at Ukrainian Railways, said on Facebook that over the last week the number of grain wagons heading to Odesa ports increased by more than 26% to 5,341 from 4,227. He said up to 970 wagons were unloaded at the ports' silos every day. A week earlier the number of wagons jumped by around 50%. In August, Ukraine launched a "humanitarian corridor" for ships bound for African and Asian markets to try to circumvent a de facto blockade in the Black Sea after Russia quit a deal that had guaranteed Kyiv's seaborne exports during the war. Later, a senior agricultural official said the route - which runs along Ukraine's southwest Black Sea coast, into Romanian territorial waters and onwards to Turkey - would also be used for grain shipments. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Thursday 91 vessels had exported 3.3 million metric tons of agricultural and metal products since the corridor started operating in August. The UCAB agricultural business association said this month that Ukrainian grain agricultural exports rose by 15% to 4.8 million metric tons in October thanks to the new corridor. Ukraine's government expects a grain and oilseeds harvest of 79 million tons in 2023, with a 2023/24 exportable surplus of about 50 million tons. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/ukraine-raises-grain-deliveries-black-sea-ports-railways-2023-11-10/
