2024-05-14 20:35

TSX ends down 0.1% at 22,243.34 Energy falls 0.9% as oil settles 1.4% lower Materials sector advances 1.8% Hudbay Minerals rises on Q1 profit beat May 14 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index ended lower for a third straight day on Tuesday as a drop in oil prices weighed on energy shares and investors awaited a key U.S. inflation report that could shape expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) New Tab, opens new tab ended down 15.83 points, or 0.1%, at 22,243.34, extending its decline since notching a record closing high on Thursday. "Not doing quite as well as the U.S. market today. I suspect that's mostly a drag from energy because the oil price is down today," said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management. Wall Street's main indexes rose as investors assessed a mixed producer prices report and awaited crucial consumer prices data expected early on Wednesday. The energy sector (.SPTTEN) New Tab, opens new tab was down 0.9% as the price of oil settled 1.4% lower at $78.02 a barrel and investors watched wildfires in remote western Canada that could disrupt oil supplies. Industrials (.GSPTTIN) New Tab, opens new tab were also a drag, falling 0.6%, and the utilities sector (.GSPTTUT) New Tab, opens new tab, which includes many high-dividend paying stocks that could particularly benefit from rate cuts, was down 0.5%. Gains for the materials sector (.GSPTTMT) New Tab, opens new tab, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, helped limit the TSX's decline. The sector rose 1.8% as gold and copper prices climbed and after Hudbay Minerals Inc (HBM.TO) New Tab, opens new tab beat first-quarter profit estimates. Shares of Hudbay Minerals rose 14.1%, while BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO) New Tab, opens new tab shares were up 11.8% following a meme stocks trading frenzy reminiscent of a similar rally in January 2021. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/tsx-futures-little-changed-ahead-key-economic-data-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 20:34

May 13 (Reuters) - Walmart Inc (WMT.N) New Tab, opens new tab announced on Tuesday that it plans to cut hundreds of jobs at its corporate headquarters and relocate a majority of its U.S. and Canada-based remote workforce to three offices, a shift in strategy after initially endorsing virtual work during the pandemic. "We are asking the majority of associates working remotely, and the majority of associates within our offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and our Toronto Global Tech office, to relocate," Donna Morris, Walmart's chief people officer wrote in a memo to its U.S. campus associates on Tuesday. The world's largest retailer and the country's largest private employer, with 2.1 million workers globally, said most of the relocations will be to its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, while some will move to its offices in the San Francisco Bay Area or Hoboken, New Jersey. The goal of the move was to bring more people together more often but also to strengthen Walmart's culture and develop the careers of its employees, Morris said in the memo. The retail giant also said it was reducing "several hundred" roles in its headquarters due to changes in some parts of its business, without elaborating further. The Wall Street Journal first reported New Tab, opens new tab news of the job cuts late on Monday. On a "business update" call with employees on Monday, remote workers were given until July 1 to make a decision about relocating or to quit with severance, according to a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity with Reuters. The source added that Walmart would be closing its Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto offices later this year. Those who choose to leave will receive two weeks' pay for every year they worked at Walmart as severance, the source said. Walmart said it had discussions with employees who were directly affected and that it would work with them on the next steps forward. NEW NORMAL? Like other U.S. companies, Walmart is shifting its strategy towards more in-person work after years of pandemic-induced remote working. At one point it even endorsed remote work as the new norm. "We believe the future in tech will be one in which working virtually will be the new normal, at least for most of the work we lead," Suresh Kumar, the head of Walmart's global tech operations wrote in a LinkedIn post in 2021. However, it has slowly transitioned away from stance. In 2023, it closed three tech offices and asked some staff to relocate to central corporate hubs. In the meantime, Walmart is constructing a new headquarters in northwest Arkansas, just a few miles from its previous location, which it plans to open in phases in 2025. The expansive 350-acre campus is designed to accommodate over 15,000 employees across 12 buildings, according to Walmart's website. "This is likely just part of a broader push towards operational efficiency. The mandate that remote workers report into the office is the closet way to get people to quit instead of doing a layoff," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, which holds Walmart in mutual funds and ETFs it manages. "Giving people a choice to relocate to a hub isn't much of a choice. It's more of a choice of whether to quit or not," Jacobsen added. The retailer is set to report first-quarter results on Thursday. Walmart shares were down 1% at $59.77 in afternoon trading on Tuesday. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/walmart-lay-off-hundreds-corporate-staff-relocate-others-wsj-reports-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 20:27

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 14 (Reuters) - Weaker-than-expected earnings at Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras (PETR4.SA) New Tab, opens new tab drew criticism on Tuesday from industry groups of a pricing policy that has kept fuel costs in Brazil more stable than in the international market for much of the past year. Petrobras shares traded about 1.4% lower in Tuesday trading after the company reported a 38% drop in its first-quarter results to 23.9 billion reais ($4.66 billion), missing analyst forecasts. After years of frequent price updates to follow global markets, Petrobras enacted in May 2023 a new pricing policy cheered by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has pushed the firm to keep down pump prices as part of its mandate to serve the country. In December, the government also increased the required biodiesel blend into diesel to 14% from 12%. Both changes have hurt earnings at Petrobras, said Evaristo Pinheiro, president of Refina Brasil, an industry group representing private refineries. From last May to March 2024, the firm could have booked an extra 9 billion reais in revenue if it had sold fuel at parity with international markets, said Pinheiro. In just the first quarter of this year, the disparity cost Petrobras about 3.5 billion reais in foregone revenue, according to Sergio Araujo, president of Brazilian fuel importers association Abicom. "One thing that is a consensus is that the prices of diesel and gasoline should be adjusted," said Aldren Vernersbach, an economist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro focused on the oil and gas sector. Petrobras sales director Claudio Schlosser told journalists on an earnings call that the company is not holding down fuel prices, but rather acting upon its commercial strategy. In a call with analysts, Petrobras' Chief Financial Officer Sergio Leite confirmed the impact of the biodiesel blend on the firm's results. He also said lower profit margins were due to pressure from Russian diesel arriving in the Brazilian market. Leite said the firm constantly assesses its commercial strategy, and that current fuel prices allow it to remain profitable. Petrobras said in a Monday release that the weaker earnings were mainly due to lower sales, a drop in oil prices and a slimmer profit margin for diesel sales compared to the end of 2023. The company also blamed a weaker exchange rate. ($1 = 5.1297 reais) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/petrobras-shares-fall-after-fuel-sales-hurt-earnings-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 20:16

UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (Reuters) - North Korea laundered $147.5 million through virtual currency platform Tornado Cash in March after stealing it last year from a cryptocurrency exchange, according to confidential work by United Nations sanctions monitors seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The monitors told a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee in a document submitted on Friday that they had been investigating 97 suspected North Korean cyberattacks on cryptocurrency companies between 2017 and 2024, valued at some $3.6 billion. That included an attack late last year where $147.5 million was stolen from HTX cryptocurrency exchange before being laundered in March this year, the monitors told the committee, citing information from crypto analytics firm PeckShield and blockchain research firm Elliptic. In 2024 alone, the monitors said they had been looking at "11 cryptocurrency thefts ... valued at $54.7 million," adding that many of those "may have been conducted by DPRK IT workers inadvertently hired by small crypto-related companies." The monitors said that according to U.N. member states and private companies, North Korean IT workers operating abroad generate "substantial income for the country." Formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 and those measures have been strengthened over the years in a bid to cut funding for its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. North Korea's mission to the U.N. in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022 over accusations it supports North Korea. Two of its co-founders were charged in 2023 with facilitating more than $1 billion in money laundering, including for a cybercrime group linked to North Korea. Lawyers for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm, who pleaded not guilty to the U.S. charges in September, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. So-called virtual currency "mixer" platforms such as Tornado Cash take the cryptocurrencies of many users and mash them together to help hide the source and owners of the funds. The U.N. sanctions monitors were disbanded at the end of April after Russia vetoed the annual renewal of their mandate. Some of the monitors submitted unfinished work, which was shared with the council's North Korea sanctions committee on Friday. Traditionally, reports by the sanctions monitors are first agreed by all eight members. The unfinished work submitted to the committee did not go through that process. The monitors said they had been investigating a Feb. 6 New York Times report that Russia released $9 million out of $30 million in frozen North Korean assets and allowed Pyongyang to open an account at a Russian bank in South Ossetia so it could better obtain access to international banking networks. ILLICIT ARMS, COAL The monitors also said ships suspected of involvement in arms trade between North Korea and Russia had continued voyages carrying containers between North Korea's Rajin port and Russian ports, including Vladivostok and Vostochny. The sanctions monitors said one particular ship called the Angara had been at China's Ningbo port since February, where it may have been undergoing maintenance. Reuters has reported that China was providing moorage for the ship. Russia's mission to the U.N. in New York declined to comment on the monitors' work. China's U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. and others have accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, which it invaded in February 2022. Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the accusations, but vowed last year to deepen military relations. In a separate report last month, U.N. sanctions monitors told the Security Council that debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile. The U.N. Security Council has banned North Korean exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capped imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products. "The DPRK and its facilitators continue to evade sanctions through maritime means, including with the ongoing acquisition by the DPRK of vessels, import of refined petroleum including via ship-to-ship transfer, and export of coal," the monitors wrote. The monitors said they had been investigating information from an unnamed member state about 208 voyages by North Korean cargo ships to offload coal in Chinese coastal waters, adding it was likely that most took place via ship-to-ship transfers. "Chinese Coast Guard vessels were on several occasions identified in close proximity to DPRK vessels suspected of offloading coal in Chinese waters," the monitors wrote. China's U.N mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/north-korea-laundered-1475-mln-stolen-crypto-march-say-un-experts-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 20:15

May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled steep tariff increases on an array of Chinese imports, including electric vehicle (EV) batteries, computer chips and medical products. Following are reactions to the move. AMERICANS FOR FREE TRADE, A COALITION OF BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS THAT OPPOSE TARIFFS "Throughout this process, USTR received hundreds of comments from businesses large and small that have been negatively impacted by the tariffs. It is unfortunate that these comments were ignored. Maintaining the tariffs, and even increasing them in some categories, will lead to increased prices and nullify any progress the United States has made to combat inflation." ELISSA PIERCE, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, WOOD MACKENZIE "U.S. solar manufacturers are still relatively dependent on China for other module components, such as glass and wafers. While these products are also subject to the Section 301 tariffs, it doesn't look like the tariff rate on these will be increased." "However, there is one important change to the tariff that will benefit U.S. solar manufacturers. President Biden has directed Ambassador Tai to establish an exclusion process for some solar manufacturing equipment. This is something that domestic module producers have been advocating for, because it is difficult to source this machinery from outside of China. This should lower the costs of building solar factories in the U.S." MARIUS MORDAL BAKKE, SENIOR ANALYST OF SOLAR SUPPLIER RESEARCH, RYSTAD ENERGY "The doubling on tariffs from 25% to 50% for microchips in 2025 could spur inverter manufacturers looking to expand in the U.S. to look outside of China for suppliers of these components." "A new round of AD/CVD tariffs on the top exporters of solar PV components to the U.S. is likely to have a much larger impact on U.S. prices and company margins than any further duty increases to Chinese solar PV cells and modules." ESWAR PRASAD, CORNELL UNIVERSITY TRADE POLICY PROFESSOR AND FORMER IMF CHINA DEPARTMENT HEAD "Despite the modest volume of imports directly affected, these tariffs clearly draw the battle lines for trade in products that the two countries are pinning their manufacturing sectors' futures on." "It is almost certain that Beijing will hit back against these tariffs with its own measures, although the question is whether these will be calibrated to seem proportional rather than setting off an escalating trade war. Given the high stakes involved, this round of tariffs could ratchet up the trade tensions between the two countries in a way that is difficult to pull back from." "Some U.S. industries and manufacturers will experience cost increases and supply-chain disruptions as a result of these tariffs but the Biden administration is clearly taking the view that these will be modest and can be managed." UNITED AUTO WORKERS "The UAW applauds today's decisive action from the White House on ensuring that the transition to electric vehicles is a just transition. We have warned for many months that, left to the forces of corporate greed, the EV future was threatened by a race to the bottom, from China to Mexico to right here in the United States. Making sure that major corporations have to pay a price for pitting worker against worker, pushing wages lower and lower, is a key part of a pro-worker trade policy. America's autoworkers, our families, and working class communities across this country want a trade policy that puts workers first. Today's announcement is a major step in the right direction." TOBIN MARCUS, HEAD OF U.S. POLICY AND POLITICS, WOLFE RESEARCH "Overall we view this as more protective/symbolic than currently disruptive. Chinese overcapacity and subsidized production of products like EVs is rightly seen as a future threat, but current volumes in the highest-risk sectors are very modest ... We expect there will be some Chinese response, but that Beijing will aim for proportionality, which means the U.S. fallout should be limited. The U.S. move here may also make it easier for Europe to impose new duties on Chinese EVs, as they are considering." JASON OXMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY COUNCIL "Today's announcement from the Biden Administration disregards significant stakeholder input and fails to address the top concerns raised by affected industries, including tech. The business community has repeatedly documented how Section 301 tariffs disproportionately harm U.S. businesses, manufacturers, workers, and consumers, and have failed to motivate China's leaders to change their unfair trade practices. The expansion and significant increase of Section 301 tariffs will continue to strain Americans' wallets, exacerbate the effects of global inflation by raising the price of goods, and harm U.S. global leadership." BRIAN BRYANT, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE 600,000-MEMBER INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS AND AEROSPACE WORKERS "As International President of one of the largest manufacturing unions in North America, I've seen first-hand the negative impacts of the Chinese government's anti-competitive trade practices, such as dumping heavily subsidized imports ... The IAM has been a leader over the years in sounding the alarm on unfair trade practices that cost North American jobs. Tariffs aren’t an end goal but a very important tool to end trade practices that kill good American jobs and drive down American pay." MIKE CARR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOLAR ENERGY MANUFACTURERS FOR AMERICA COALITION "The Administration made the right decision to strengthen protections for solar components we seek to build in the U.S. While no one action can unwind the years of a concerted effort to dominate this industry, including in manufacturing equipment and heavily subsidized production by Chinese-headquartered firms in Southeast Asia, we are encouraged by this indication of the Biden administration's commitment to use all the tools at their disposal in a targeted and strategic way." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/biden-hikes-us-tariffs-chinese-imports-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 20:09

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy said on Tuesday it has offered a conditional loan guarantee of up to $1.66 billion to Plug Power (PLUG.O) New Tab, opens new tab to help it build up to six plants to produce clean hydrogen. The hydrogen fuel from the plants would power fuel cell-electric vehicles used in material handling, transportation, and heavy industry, the department's office of loan programs said. Clean or green hydrogen is expected to result in an 84% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional hydrogen production, which derives hydrogen from natural gas, releasing large amounts of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, unless captured and stored underground. President Joe Biden's administration believes that low-carbon hydrogen can fight climate change by fueling heavy industry such as aluminum, cement and steel and long-haul transportation. "Today’s announcement will help unlock the full potential of this versatile fuel and support the growth of strong, American-led industry," the Energy Department's Loan Programs Office said in a release. The clean hydrogen plants will use Plug Power's technology - called electrolyzer stacks - manufactured at the company’s factory in Rochester, New York. Plug Power is one of the top U.S. commercial-scale manufacturers of electrolyzers. "Green hydrogen is an essential driver of industrial decarbonization in the United States," Plug Power CEO Andy Marsh said in a statement. This year, Plug launched the first U.S. commercial-scale green hydrogen plant in Woodbine, Georgia. "This loan guarantee will help us build on that success with additional green hydrogen plants," Marsh said. Clean hydrogen can be produced with electrolyzers powered by wind and solar power, nuclear, or natural gas with carbon capture, that split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Today the vast majority of hydrogen is produced with fossil fuels with unabated emissions, at a fraction of the cost of clean hydrogen. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-offers-conditional-166-billion-loan-hydrogen-producer-plug-power-2024-05-14/