2024-05-14 20:06

May 14 (Reuters) - The ban on imports of enriched uranium from Russia will help drive investments into the domestic market, according to Urenco, the company which operates the United States' only enrichment facility. U.S. President Joe Biden signed a ban on Russian enriched uranium into law on Monday, with the ban to take effect on Aug. 11. There are provisions for waivers in case nuclear power plants have supply issues. The ban will also help investment decisions for high assay low enriched uranium, which doesn't yet have a commercial market, Urenco said on Tuesday. The law unlocks about $2.7 billion in funding in previous legislation to build out the U.S. uranium fuel industry, at a time when nearly 20% New Tab, opens new tab of the country's energy needs are met by nuclear energy. "The legislation provides for a rational transition ... and includes appropriate considerations for certain situations where alternative supply is not available," said Cameco (CCO.TO) New Tab, opens new tab, the world's largest uranium miner by market value. Domestic enrichment capacity supplies only 30% of fuel needs, with the U.S. importing over 20% of enriched uranium from Russia, according to a U.S. House of Representatives report New Tab, opens new tab in December 2023. Urenco's announcement last July to expand its operations in New Mexico and French nuclear fuel specialist Orano's studying of a plan to build a uranium enrichment plant in the United States were some of the signs that the domestic industry is growing, Maria Korsnick, head of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobby group, said on Tuesday. There are 94 operational nuclear reactors in the United States, many of which are reaching the end of their 40-year lifespans. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-uranium-enrichment-industry-gets-new-lease-life-after-ban-russian-imports-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 20:01

Producer prices up more than expected in April Fed's Powell: PPI 'mixed', next move unlikely to be a rate hike Meme stocks extend gains, Home Depot shares fall after report Alphabet advances after AI updates Indexes rise: Dow 0.32%, S&P 0.48%, Nasdaq 0.75% May 14 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq scored a record closing high on Tuesday and the S&P 500 and the Dow also advanced as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reassured investors while they digested Tuesday's data and waited for Wednesday's crucial consumer inflation report. U.S. producer prices increased more than expected in April as the cost of services and goods rose sharply, leading traders to pare back bets of a first rate cut in September. But Powell on Tuesday described the producer price index report as more mixed than hot given that prior-period data was revised lower. Investors were also encouraged by Powell's comment that he did not expect the central bank's next interest rate move to be a hike, despite a recent run of higher-than-expected inflation. "The market is getting more comfortable with higher-for-longer rates. The real question has been lately if a hike is a possibility and Powell's reiterating that it's not on the table right now," said Lindsey Bell, chief strategist, 248 ventures, Charlotte, North Carolina. She also noted that stocks appeared to gain ground during the session as Treasury yields declined. "It seems that the bond market is digesting all this and the stock market is reacting to the bond market," Bell said. Still, investors cautiously awaited Wednesday's Consumer Price Index figures to assess whether upside surprises in the first quarter extended into April. Sticky inflation and persistent labor market strength have prompted financial markets and most economists to push bets for an initial Fed rate cut back to September from March previously. Still, stocks have rallied so far this year, thanks to better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter and expectations that the Fed would cut rates. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite easily cleared its April 11 record close, the S&P 500 ended the day around 0.1% below its March 28 record close. The Dow ended less than 1% below its record close, also reached on March 28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) New Tab, opens new tab rose 126.60 points, or 0.32%, to 39,558.11. The S&P 500 (.SPX) New Tab, opens new tab gained 25.26 points, or 0.48%, at 5,246.68 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) New Tab, opens new tab advanced 122.94 points, or 0.75%, to 16,511.18. Among the S&P's 11 major industry sectors, consumer staples (.SPLRCS) New Tab, opens new tab was the biggest decliner, down 0.2%, while technology (.SPLRCT) New Tab, opens new tab was the biggest gainer, adding 0.9%. Shares of Alphabet (GOOGL.O) New Tab, opens new tab closed up 0.7% after the Google parent showed how it is using artificial intelligence across its businesses, including a beefed-up Gemini chatbot and improvements to its search engine. Shares in Home Depot (HD.N) New Tab, opens new tab closed down 0.1% after falling more than 2% earlier in the day following the retailer's quarterly report, which showed that same-store sales fell more than expected as Americans focused on small-scale home projects, spending less on big-ticket items. U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba ended down 6% after it reported an 86% drop in fourth-quarter profit. On Holding rallied 18.3% as the footwear maker raised its annual sales forecast after beating quarterly sales expectations, citing strong demand for its running shoes. U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled a bundle of steep tariff increases on an array of Chinese imports including electric vehicles, computer chips and medical products. U.S.-listed shares of Chinese EV maker Li Auto fell more than 2% while Tesla (TSLA.O) New Tab, opens new tab gained more than 3%. GameStop (GME.N) New Tab, opens new tab shares extended their recent rally to close up 60% at $48.75 after flag bearer Roaring Kitty posted on X.com for the first time in three years. Other 2021 meme rally participants and highly shorted stocks also advanced with AMC Entertainment (AMC.N) New Tab, opens new tab rising almost 32% to $6.85 and Koss Corp (KOSS.O) New Tab, opens new tab ending up 40.7% at $6.15. The most heavily traded NYSE shares were AMC and GameStop. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.43-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 358 new highs and 31 new lows. On the Nasdaq, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.87-to-1 ratio and it recorded 171 new highs and 74 new lows. The S&P 500 posted 31 new 52-week highs and no new lows. On U.S. exchanges 13.66 billion shares changed hands compared with the 10.91 billion moving average for the last 20 sessions. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/futures-lackluster-with-inflation-data-fed-chair-powell-speech-tap-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 18:24

Loonie trades in a range of 1.3634 to 1.3690 Canadian wholesale trade falls 1.1% in March Price of U.S. oil trades 1.5% lower Canadian bond yields were mixed TORONTO, May 14 (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar steadied against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, with the currency unable to break out of its recent trading range ahead of a key U.S. inflation report that could guide expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. The loonie was trading nearly unchanged at 1.3660 per U.S. dollar, or 73.21 U.S. cents, after moving in a range of 1.3634 to 1.3690. "USD-CAD price action is remaining very tight ahead of the US CPI release tomorrow," said Amo Sahota, director at Klarity FX in San Francisco. "Nevertheless, traders have been trying to nudge some loonie strength since late last week after the stronger employment report." Investors are leaning toward the Bank of Canada waiting until July, rather than June, to begin cutting interest rates after data on Friday showed the Canadian economy adding five times the number of jobs that was forecast. The U.S. consumer price index report, due on Wednesday, is expected to show core inflation slowing to 3.6% on an annual basis in April. "A softer reading may be enough to support the CAD buyers and give them that extra momentum to break below 1.3600," Sahota said. In domestic data, wholesale trade fell by 1.1% in March from February on lower sales in the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories subsector. The price of oil was trading 1.5% lower at $77.91 a barrel but metal prices climbed, including gains for gold and copper . Canada is major producer of commodities. Canadian government bond yields were mixed across the curve, with the 10-year easing about half a basis point to 3.689%. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/c-sticks-tight-trading-range-ahead-us-cpi-data-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 17:36

May 14 (Reuters) - The chief of Amazon.com's (AMZN.O) New Tab, opens new tab wildly profitable Amazon Web Services cloud computing unit will step down next month after a three-year term, the company said on Tuesday. Adam Selipsky, 57, who is also a member of Amazon's team advising CEO Andy Jassy, will leave the company on June 3. He will be replaced by Matt Garman, a senior vice president who has overseen sales and marketing at AWS. Selipsky has spent 14 years at AWS over two stints. He was the CEO of Tableau Software, a unit of Salesforce (CRM.N) New Tab, opens new tab, from 2016 to 2021, when he was tapped to take over the division from Jassy who had been appointed Amazon CEO. Under Selipsky's leadership, AWS saw rapid growth, doubling sales of $45.4 billion from the year before his appointment to $90.8 billion in 2023 and nearly doubling operating income to $24.6 billion over that period. Still, AWS has faced criticism that it has not been fast enough to roll out competitive generative artificial intelligence services to meet the challenge presented by competitors, including OpenAI. It recently made its Amazon Q chatbot service broadly available for businesses. Shares in the Seattle retailer were little changed on Tuesday, down less than 1%. “I don’t think it will be very disruptive at all," said Jamie Meyers, senior analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments, which owns Amazon shares. "The key player for AWS always has been Andy Jassy, who founded and led the unit until three years ago. So long as he is still at the helm of the company, AWS operations should continue according to plan." It was not immediately clear what Selipsky may do next, though he said he was leaving the company to "spend more time with family." While AWS has the largest share in the U.S. cloud market, its dominance is under pressure from Microsoft's (MSFT.O) New Tab, opens new tab fast-growing Azure service that is benefiting from AI offerings powered by its tie-up with OpenAI. And Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) New Tab, opens new tab Google is expected to roll out new AI services on Tuesday at its annual developer conference. AWS, Amazon's second-biggest business unit after e-commerce, is widely regarded as the company's growth engine, contributing about 40% to its top line. Garman started at Amazon as an intern during the summer of 2005 and joined the company full-time the next year as one of its first product managers. Selipsky also led AWS through several rounds of layoffs, including a few hundred jobs in April in the unit overseeing sales and marketing for physical stores technology. AWS was among the hardest hit divisions in 2023 when Amazon trimmed around 27,000 jobs across the company. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazons-cloud-unit-ceo-step-down-firm-says-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 17:10

May 14 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI has been talking to Oracle (ORCL.N) New Tab, opens new tab executives about spending $10 billion to rent cloud servers from the company over a period of years, The Information reported on Tuesday, citing a person involved in the talks. The deal would make xAI one of Oracle's largest customers, the report said, as Musk looks to raise funds for xAI in an attempt to rival the AI offerings of OpenAI and Google (GOOGL.O) New Tab, opens new tab. The cloud negotiations are ongoing and there is no guarantee that the two companies will sign a deal, the report added. XAI was reportedly in talks to raise $3 billion in a round last month, which would have valued the company at $18 billion. Oracle and Elon Musk did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Oracle's co-founder Larry Ellison, a self-described close friend of Elon Musk, announced in September that Musk's startup had signed a contract to train AI models in Oracle's Gen2 Cloud. Oracle released an update to its database technology earlier this month intended to make it more useful with AI. XAI is the largest H100 customer at Oracle, using more than 15,000 of the AI chips, the report said. H100 is an AI chip made by Nvidia. Last month, Musk said xAI would launch an enhanced version of its chatbot Grok to early testers and existing users on his social media platform X. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musks-xai-nears-10-bln-deal-rent-oracles-ai-servers-information-reports-2024-05-14/

2024-05-14 16:20

BUENOS AIRES, May 14 (Reuters) - Argentine market traders are betting the central bank will cut its benchmark interest rate again this week given the slowdown in monthly inflation and a planned Treasury debt auction, two money market sources and a brokerage told Reuters on Tuesday. The two Buenos Aires-based traders at major banks said the central bank would likely cut the overnight rate by five to 10 percentage points, which would follow three similar cuts since April when it dropped to 50% at the start of this month. Argentina's authorities are expected to unveil inflation figures later on Tuesday, which are expected to show monthly price rises dipping back into single digits for the first time in six months, despite the annual rate remaining near 300%. "Everything is set for the (interest) rate to continue falling this week in view of Thursday's bill tender," said one trader, who asked not to be named as they were not approved to speak publicly on the matter. The second trader source said, "everything indicates that the rate cut is about to drop." The central bank directors normally convene each week on Thursday, which this week will coincide with a Treasury bill auction. Lower benchmark rates could make those bills more attractive for investors. The central bank did not respond to a request for comment. "Peso debt is rising in the expectation of another rate cut," the local Cohen brokerage said in response to question from Reuters. Argentina's government, under libertarian President Javier Milei, has made a major swerve in monetary policy since taking office in December, repeatedly cutting the benchmark interest rate as it has grown more bullish about inflation. Monthly inflation has been declining since a peak over 25% in December after Milei devalued the peso currency sharply in a bid to undo serious distortions caused by years of capital controls that have strictly limited access to dollars. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-traders-bet-another-big-rate-cut-inflation-eases-2024-05-14/