2024-07-31 11:59
PARIS, July 31 (Reuters) - Britain's Alex Yee ran a perfectly-paced 10km to snatch a dramatic Olympic triathlon gold on Wednesday, overhauling a fading Hayden Wilde of New Zealand in brutal conditions. The race was originally due to be held on Tuesday but postponed due to poor water quality in the river Seine and, after the swim and bike leg, a huge group of 32 hit the transition to the run together. Yee and Wilde immediately forged clear but the New Zealander, bronze medallist in Tokyo, surprisingly made an early move, with Yee, widely regarded as the fastest runner in the field and silver medallist three years ago, declining to respond. It looked to be Wilde's race but the hard pace and 30 degree Celsius heat sapped his energy and Yee, previously a British 10,000 metres champion, showed his mastery of the distance, flying past with less than 300 metres to go and finishing clear. The 26-year-olds, who have been trading podium places for years, collapsed after the finish line and Wilde put his arm around Yee. "I honestly thought the race was over for me, but I wanted to give myself that one last chance and not give up," Yee said. Wilde paid homage to New Zealand's Dylan McCullough, who pulled back in the bike stage to pick up his teammate and carry him into the leading peloton. "He came back, he waited and he bridged that gap... he's the one who helped me get the silver medal," Wilde told reporters. Leo Bergere of France took the bronze on a good day for the host nation after Cassandre Beaugrand won the women's race. Yee breaking the ribbon in Paris crowns an already remarkable career and adds to Britain's domination of the Olympic individual triathlon, marking the 10th medal for the country after Beth Potter earlier won bronze. Norway's 30-year-old Kristian Blummenfelt, who won gold in Tokyo, finished 12th. Britain's Sam Dickinson, who played the role of domestique to Yee for the bike stage, dropped back barely a kilometre into the run, pointing at his teammate in pole position and encouraging the crowd to cheer him on. Dickinson's focus will now be on the mixed team relay on Monday, where France will be a force to reckon with and hoping to better their bronze from Tokyo. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/sports/olympics/triathlon-britains-yee-wins-mens-triathlon-gold-2024-07-31/
2024-07-31 11:41
July 31 (Reuters) - Bunge (BG.N) , opens new tab missed Wall Street expectations for second-quarter profit on Wednesday, sending shares down nearly 6% before the opening bell, as narrower processing margins hurt the grain trader. Ample global supplies of soybeans and corn are keeping crop prices near four-year lows and discouraging farmers from selling their harvests, squeezing global traders and oilseed processors. Adjusted earnings in Bunge's agribusiness segment, its largest by revenue and volume, in the April-June quarter fell 55% from a year ago to $298 million. Its processing business suffered as higher results in European soy crushings were offset by lower results in North and South America and Asia. In the merchandising business, which includes grain trading and purchasing, quarterly adjusted earnings sank by 78% from last year to $33 million. "Lower results were primarily driven by global grains, where higher volumes were more than offset by lower margins," Bunge said. Bunge still raised its full-year adjusted profit forecast to $9.25 per share from $9.00 per share and said market conditions have improved in some regions. The company posted an adjusted profit of $1.73 per share for the quarter, compared with analysts' estimates of $1.80 per share, according to LSEG data. Rival trader Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM.N) , opens new tab on Tuesday also missed Wall Street expectations for quarterly profit due to lower soy crush margins and waning demand for U.S. crops. Top soy importer China is facing an oversupply of soybeans at a time when animal-feed demand remains subdued. The soybean surplus also threatens to curb China's appetite for imports in the September-December period, the peak marketing season for U.S. soybeans. Separately, Bunge said that integration plans are progressing for its proposed $34 billion merger with Glencore-backed (GLEN.L) , opens new tab Viterra. The deal is heading towards conditional EU antitrust approval, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said last week. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/bunge-reports-quarterly-profit-miss-weak-processing-margins-shares-slide-2024-07-31/
2024-07-31 11:30
July 31 - Industrial materials maker DuPont de Nemours (DD.N) , opens new tab raised its full-year forecasts on Wednesday, benefiting from strong demand for its products used in making electronics and semiconductors amid an artificial intelligence-led boom. Shares of the company rose 4.8% in afternoon trade. After widely destocking last year due to low demand, an uptick in the manufacturing sector is benefiting companies that make chemicals and other materials used in a variety of industries including automotive and electronics. DuPont's electronics and industrial unit, its biggest in terms of sales, saw a 7.1% rise in net sales in the quarter, driven by strong demand for semiconductors and consumer technology products. Earlier this week, Samsung (005930.KS) , opens new tab and AMD (AMD.O) , opens new tab reported a jump in their earnings on the AI-boom that has boosted prices for semiconductors and memory chips. Demand in the electronics market is expected to remain strong for the rest of the year, DuPont said. The company on Wednesday raised its 2024 adjusted earnings forecast to $3.70 to $3.80 per share, from $3.45 to $3.75 previously, and net sales estimate to between $12.40 billion and $12.50 billion, from $12.10 billion to $12.40 billion. The 2024 forecast raise was based on the semiconductors and electronics segment, stronger-than-expected recovery in the water business, and stable growth in its building products business despite a soft housing environment, said Aleksey Yefremov, senior analyst of U.S. chemicals equity research at KeyBanc Capital Markets. DuPont expects to announce leadership appointments for its new businesses early next year. It revealed plans to split its electronics and water segments in May, and had said it expected to complete the process within 18-24 months. The Wilmington, Delaware-based company reported an adjusted profit of 97 cents per share for the second quarter, above analysts' average estimate of 85 cents, according to LSEG data. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/dupont-raises-full-year-forecasts-strong-electronics-ai-tech-demand-2024-07-31/
2024-07-31 11:22
TOKYO, July 31 (Reuters) - Japan's biggest power generator JERA said on Wednesday its April-June net profit nearly halved on smaller gains from a time-lag effect in a fuel price adjustment mechanism, and stuck to its annual forecast even though its Taketoyo coal-fired power plant remains shut. The 1,070-megawatt (MW) Taketoyo power station in Aichi prefecture in central Japan has been shut since it was hit by a fire on Jan. 31. JERA, an unlisted company jointly owned by Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) , opens new tab and Chubu Electric Power (9502.T) , opens new tab, reported 93.4 billion yen ($619 million) in profit for the April-June quarter, down 48% from the year-ago period. The fall in profit showed the impact of a drop in the time-lag gain - when a change in fuel prices is reflected in sale prices with a delay - which shrank to 20.3 billion yen in the quarter from 155.3 billion yen a year earlier. JERA, Japan's biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), said, its profit excluding the time-lag effects increased to 73 billion yen from 23.1 billion yen a year earlier, due to improved competitiveness in procuring LNG and thermal coal. "We always make an effort to purchase fuels at lower prices... but last year, some deals where we tried to fix coal prices backfired. We've made improvements this year," JERA's executive officer, Naohiro Maekawa, told a news conference. Asked about the timing of restarting Taketoyo plant, Maekawa said no date has been set yet. The Taketoyo shutdown is expected to have a negative impact of several tens of billions of yen for the full-year due to the use of alternative fuels such as LNG, but this estimate has been factored into the annual forecast, he said. For the year ending in March 2025, JERA maintained its annual forecast of 200 billion yen profit. ($1 = 150.7700 yen) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/jeras-april-june-profit-halves-taketoyo-plant-remains-shut-2024-07-31/
2024-07-31 11:21
PARIS, July 31 (Reuters) - Traffic on high-speed trains had to be halted on two lines from Paris to eastern France on Wednesday after a train hit a tree fallen on tracks during a thunderstorm, French SNCF railways operator said on X. Traffic was due to be disrupted until at least 1200 GMT between Paris and Lyon and Paris and Dijon after being halted around 0530 GMT, SNCF said. The incident, which was expected to impact some 80,000 travellers, comes after vandals sabotaged signal stations and cables at key points in the high-speed train network on July 26, causing travel chaos hours before the Paris Olympic games. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fallen-tree-disrupts-high-speed-trains-eastern-france-sncf-2024-07-31/
2024-07-31 11:12
FRANKFURT, July 31 (Reuters) - Euro zone inflation unexpectedly edged up in July, data showed on Wednesday, although a widely watched gauge of price growth in the services sector eased. Wednesday's figures did not seem to derail market expectations for an interest rate cut by the European Central Bank in September, but they were likely to strengthen concerns about a difficult last mile in the ECB's efforts to bring down inflation. Price growth in the 20 countries that share the euro accelerated to 2.6% in July from 2.5% in June according to Eurostat's flash estimate. A key measure of underlying growth in prices -- which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco -- failed to show the expected decline and came in unchanged at 2.9%. "It's a difficult print for the ECB," said Fabio Balboni, an economist at HSBC. "Disinflation on the goods side is coming to an end and services inflation remains high." Still, Balboni stuck to his call for ECB cuts in September and December, as did investors in euro zone money markets, on expectations that inflation would eventually ease. "I still expect a second rate cut to come in September," said Kyle Chapman, a foreign exchange markets analyst at Ballinger Group. "I don’t think it matters too much if we get the odd data point that’s slightly stronger than expected." Euro zone inflation has fallen a long way since briefly hitting double digits in late 2022, when it had been boosted in large part by a brisker-than-expected reopening of the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic and more expensive fuel in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But that progress has stalled in recent months as prices in the services sector got a boost from higher salaries. In a small, positive sign for the ECB, services' price growth eased to 4.0% from 4.1% in June as an expected boost from the Olympics in Paris failed to materialise, with some consumers balking at what they saw as price-gouging. "This kind of pushback bodes well for the medium term inflation outlook," economists at ABN-Amro wrote in a note. The ECB has made clear it would not be swayed by individual data points and will focus instead on the broader trend for inflation, which it expects to bounce around current levels this year before pulling back towards its 2% target in 2025. The central bank started cutting rates last month, paused in July and is widely expected to slowly dial back over the next 1-1/2 years some of the steepest hikes it has made in its 25-year history. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/euro-zone-inflation-unexpectedly-edges-up-july-2024-07-31/
