2024-05-13 22:32

GameStop rallies, sparks gains in other meme stocks Alphabet OpenAI to launch search competitor Indexes: S&P 500 off 0.04%, Nasdaq adds 0.27%, Dow off 0.15% May 13 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 closed very slightly lower on Monday as investors took a breather after three weekly gains while they awaited key inflation readings and earnings reports due this week while a survey showed consumers concerned about inflation. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey, released on Monday, found that Americans see inflation at 3.3% a year from now from March’s 3% while they expect inflation three years from now at 2.8%. This followed a University of Michigan report on Friday that showed U.S. consumer sentiment sagged to a six-month low in May as households worried about the cost of living. Last week the Nasdaq composite and the S&P 500 both registered their third straight weeks of gains, boosted by strong earnings reports and signs of a cooling labor market that fueled bets of one or two Federal Reserve rate cuts this year. But on Monday investors appeared anxious to stay clear of making big bets ahead of April Consumer Price Index (CPI) data due out on Wednesday. They will also preparing to monitor producer price index data, retail sales data, weekly jobless claims and earnings reports from big retailers Home Depot (HD.N) New Tab, opens new tab and Walmart (WMT.N) New Tab, opens new tab, all due out this week. "Investors are like somebody looking out the window trying to see what the weather's like before deciding what to wear. Today and tomorrow are going to be all about Wednesday's consumer inflation report," said Burns McKinney, portfolio manager at NFJ Investment Group in Dallas. "In the last three months that's been the single biggest mover. Each of these times inflation's come in a little bit stickier than investors had expected. Each time that's happened investors have ratcheted back expectations for interest rate cuts." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) New Tab, opens new tab fell 81.33 points, or 0.21%, to 39,431.51, the S&P 500 (.SPX) New Tab, opens new tab lost 1.26 points, or 0.02%, to 5,221.42 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) New Tab, opens new tab gained 47.37 points, or 0.29%, to 16,388.24. Anthony Saglimbene, Ameriprise chief market strategist, said the "marked deterioration in consumer sentiment and rising expectations around inflation" from the consumer sentiment surveys puts even more weight on the upcoming inflation data. "Stocks are just kind of stuck in this really tight trading range until we get some more information on inflation trends," said Saglimbene. Core consumer prices are expected to have risen 0.3% on a month-over-month basis in April and 3.6% on an annual basis according to economist forecasts in a Reuters poll ahead of Wednesday's release. Fed Vice Chair Phillip Jefferson said earlier on Monday that he supports keeping interest rates steady until it is clear that price pressures are moderating. Among the S&P 500's 11 major industry sectors only two gained ground on Monday. Technology (.SPLRCT) New Tab, opens new tab provided the biggest boost and Apple (AAPL.O) New Tab, opens new tab was its biggest index point contributor. Investors in the sector were focused on artificial intelligence technology with Apple shares closing up 1.8% after a report that it had closed in on an agreement with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to use the startup's technology on the iPhone. OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft (MSFT.O) New Tab, opens new tab, said it would release a new AI model capable of realistic voice conversation and able to interact across text and image. Alphabet (GOOGL.O) New Tab, opens new tab, expected to show off its own new AI-related features at its developers' conference on Tuesday, managed to close up 0.3% after falling as much as 2.7% during the session. Shares of videogame retailer GameStop (GME.N) New Tab, opens new tab jumped soared 74% after "Roaring Kitty", a former marketer at an insurance firm credited with sparking the 2021 meme stock rally, returned to X.com after a three-year hiatus. Other highly shorted names involved in the 2021 meme rally also rose. AMC Entertainment (AMC.N) New Tab, opens new tab jumped 78% and Koss Corp (KOSS.O) New Tab, opens new tab closed up 36.7%. On U.S. exchanges 10.09 billion shares changed hands compared with the 10.79 billion moving average for the last 20 sessions. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.23-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 311 new highs and 40 new lows. On the Nasdaq, advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.14-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted 34 new 52-week highs and no new lows while the Nasdaq recorded 145 new highs and 91 new lows. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/futures-edge-higher-start-data-heavy-week-2024-05-13/

2024-05-13 22:24

May 13 (Reuters) - Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N) New Tab, opens new tab, the largest U.S. oil refiner, on Monday named President Maryann Mannen to succeed Michael Hennigan as chief executive officer effective Aug. 1. Hennigan, 64, successfully underwent treatment for throat cancer during his nearly four years at the helm of the largest U.S. crude oil refiner. He becomes executive chairman on stepping down as CEO, the company said. Three years ago, Marathon closed the $21 billion sale of its Speedway gasoline retail operations to 7-Eleven, a unit of Seven & i Holdings (3382.T) New Tab, opens new tab, following a long pressure campaign by investor Elliott Investment Management. Mannen "has demonstrated a keen understanding of our business, clear judgment and a strong financial expertise that will serve shareholders well," Hennigan said in a statement. Mannen joined the Findlay, Ohio-based refiner from TechnipFMC as finance chief in 2021 and was promoted to president on Jan. 1. As CEO, she will run a refiner that processes 3 million barrels per day of crude oil across 13 refineries. Hennigan will replace independent chairman John Surma, 69. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/marathon-petroleum-names-insider-maryann-mannen-ceo-2024-05-13/

2024-05-13 21:47

May 14 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. Asian markets on Tuesday will be looking to maintain the positivity with which the week has started, with subdued volatility, stable bond markets and mostly upbeat stocks trumping worries over tariffs and gloomy Chinese data. For now, at least. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce new China tariffs this week, targeting strategic sectors including a major hike in levies on electric vehicles, measures which could elicit a significant response from Beijing. Sentiment toward China is also being dampened by the mixed macro numbers out of Beijing. The latest were persistent deflationary pressures and the lowest credit growth New Tab, opens new tab on record, and on Monday the finance ministry said it will start raising 1 trillion yuan in special treasury bonds to stimulate key sectors of the flagging economy. How that is received by investors remains to be seen, but with the government's 5% GDP growth target this year under threat and the possibility of a trade war with the United States growing, it may prove to be largely ineffective. If Chinese stocks are grinding higher laboriously, the same can't be said for Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, which climbed to a fresh nine-month high on Monday. It has now risen in 13 of the last trading 15 sessions, gaining almost 20% in the process, and is outperforming the S&P 500 year to date. Asia's economic calendar on Tuesday is extremely light, with wholesale price inflation figures from Japan and India being the main releases, while the corporate spotlight shines on the latest earnings reports from Japan's Sony and China's Tencent. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks in Europe on Tuesday and the main event of the week for world markets will probably be U.S. consumer price inflation on Wednesday. Until then, markets may try and maintain a holding pattern. Japanese wholesale inflation figures don't often move markets, but they will be watched more closely than usual on Tuesday given the weakness of the yen and how intense speculation is growing around the Bank of Japan's next step. BOJ officials appear to have turned more hawkish lately, leading some analysts to pencil in an interest rate hike next month. Money markets are fully pricing in a 10-basis point hike in July and another in the fourth quarter. Economists expect a slight pick up in monthly inflation to 0.3% from 0.2%, and the annual rate to stay at 0.8%. That's probably not enough to move the BOJ's dial, but a reasonably strong out-of-consensus number might. The annual rate of wholesale inflation in India, meanwhile, is expected to almost double to 1.00% in April from 0.53% in March. Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Tuesday: - Japan wholesale price inflation (April) - India wholesale price inflation (April) - Indonesia retail sales index (March) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/global-markets-view-asia-graphic-pix-2024-05-13/

2024-05-13 21:37

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday approved the first major electric transmission policy update in over a decade that aims to speed up new interregional lines to move more clean energy to meet growing demand amid the explosion of electric vehicles, data centers and artificial intelligence. Approved in a 2-1 vote, the new rule is also the first time the FERC has ever squarely addressed the need for long-term transmission planning, playing a key role in helping meet the Biden administration's goal of decarbonizing the economy by 2050 and making the grid more resilient to more frequent climate-fueled extreme weather events. "This rule cannot come fast enough," FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, who voted for the final rule. "There is an urgent need to act to ensure the reliability and the affordability of our grid." "We are at a transformational moment for the electric grid with phenomenal load growth," he added, citing the surge in domestic manufacturing, proliferation of data centers, and the surge in extreme weather events that have pushed the country's ageing infrastructure to its limits. FERC has been working for nearly two years on the rule to reform how new electric transmission gets approved and paid for, with new requirements for moving electricity across states and covering the costs of new projects. FERC said that reforms to transmission planning received over 30,000 pages of comments, creating the largest public record ever considered by the commission. The final rule requires transmission owners to conduct 20-year plans assessing regional electric transmission needs that would need to be revisited every five years. It also requires transmission project participants to submit plans for how to split costs between states and companies; weigh seven specific benefits during the review process to determine whether transmission proposals will meet long-term needs cost effectively and gives operators the ability to re-evaluate projects that face cost-overruns or delays. Before applicants submit plans, they would be required to hold a six-month engagement period with state agencies. It also asks operators to identify opportunities to modify existing transmission facilities instead of replacing them when needed, a process known as “right-sizing” and to hold public meetings during the regional transmission planning cycle. BEYOND FERC'S MANDATE? President Joe Biden's administration has a goal of a carbon-free power sector by 2035, in order to fight climate change. To meet that target, the country needs to more than double regional transmission capacity and expand interregional transmission capacity more than fivefold, a U.S. Department of Energy study said in November. Boosted by tax incentives in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the queue of power generation projects awaiting a connection to the electric grid is currently around 2,600 gigawatts, twice the amount of generation of the current U.S. power plant fleet, as the grid struggles to integrate new wind, solar and battery power. FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, who opposed the final transmission planning rule, said in his dissenting remarks that the commission rushed through the process and attempted to impose a major policy shift that favors renewables that went beyond FERC's mandate. "This rule is a pretext to enact a sweeping policy agenda that Congress never passed," Christie said. "A policy that is intended to facilitate a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to for-profit, special interests, particularly generation developers - primarily wind and solar transmission developers and influential powerful corporations with preferences as to the types of power they want to purchase." Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming said it could make some states "foot the bill" to bring more renewable energy online and "force customers – often in rural states – to pay for new transmission lines even when those lines don’t provide any meaningful benefit to them." All three commissioners also approved on Monday a separate but related order that would give FERC backstop siting authority to approve permits for interstate transmission projects that have been rejected or not acted upon by states. That order also codified a code of conduct for project participants to engage with communities, conduct early outreach with Native American tribes and issue an environmental justice resource report. "FERC’s backstop siting rule will help ensure that no one state can veto transmission lines that are in the general interest of the nation,” said Cullen Howe, a senior advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ferc-overhaul-us-electric-transmission-system-2024-05-13/

2024-05-13 21:29

May 13 (Reuters) - Aluminum products maker Novelis, owned by Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla Group's Hindalco Industries (HALC.NS) New Tab, opens new tab, made public its filing for an initial public offering in the United States on Monday. The company is moving ahead with a listing at a time when the U.S. IPO market is on a rebound this year, after a two-year lull, on hopes of a "soft landing" for the economy, where inflation falls without a recession or big job losses. Novelis is seeking to complete the planned IPO as soon as early June, Bloomberg News reported New Tab, opens new tab, citing people familiar with the matter. The company could begin formally marketing the deal in about two weeks, according to the report. Novelis, a leading producer of flat-rolled aluminum products, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment for more details on the IPO. The company reported net sales of $16.21 billion in fiscal 2024, compared with $18.49 billion a year earlier. Net income in fiscal 2024 was $600 million, compared with $658 million. Novelis in May reported a rise in its fourth-quarter core profit on strong aluminum demand and higher prices, with the long-term outlook for the company's earnings expected to increase further, according to analysts. Hindalco acquired Novelis in 2007 in an all-cash deal. Novelis, which has rolling and recycling facilities across North America, South America, Europe and Asia, will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "NVL". Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Citigroup Global Markets are the lead underwriters for the offering. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/novelis-makes-us-ipo-filing-public-2024-05-13/

2024-05-13 20:17

MUCUM, Brazil, May 13 (Reuters) - Devastating and ongoing flooding in southern Brazil is forcing some of the half million displaced residents to consider uprooting their lives from inundated towns to rebuild on higher ground. Two weeks after the onset of torrential rains, the Guaiba River running by state capital Porto Alegre is rising again, having passed the all-time high. In the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the streets of dozens of towns have turned into slow-moving rivers. Just in the area around Porto Alegre, where four rivers converge to form the Guaiba River, researchers estimate nearly 3,800 square km (1,500 square miles) were flooded. That is more than the urban footprint of the Washington DC metro area, which includes 10 counties in two adjacent states. With hundreds of thousands of families fleeing the floods, the disaster - which has killed at least 147 people, with 127 still missing - could touch off one of Brazil's biggest cases of climate migration in recent history. Southern Brazil's location at the confluence of tropical and polar currents has fed periods of increasingly intense drought and rains due to climate change, according to scientists. The record devastation in Rio Grande do Sul follows floods in the second half of last year, leading many of the 538,000 people now displaced from their homes to consider more extreme adaptations. For the third time in seven months, businessman Cassiano Baldasso had to remove wheelbarrows of mud from his home in Muçum, a small town 150 km (90 miles) upriver from Porto Alegre, only to see the waters rise again. He says he has had enough. "I have no idea where I'm going, but it will be somewhere far from the river, where our lives will not be at risk," Baldasso told Reuters as he removed another cart of mud from inside the house. Mayor Mateus Trojan said many of Muçum's 5,000 residents will have to relocate. His office is planning to rebuild 40% of the town elsewhere. Baldasso had already saved his family in September by climbing onto the roof of their two-story house until they were rescued by the fire brigade in the middle of the night. During that flood, just a few blocks away, Maria Marlene Venancio's house was swept away and she lost everything. This month, the rented house she had moved to was flooded 1.5 meters (5 ft) deep. She fears it is time to leave Muçum. "I think the town will become a river one day, and it will be difficult for us to live here. People with money are all leaving," she said. Governor Eduardo Leite has said initial calculations show Rio Grande do Sul will need at least 19 billion reais ($3.7 billion) to rebuild from the disaster. The federal government has offered to freeze 11 billion reais of debt payments for three years. On the streets of Muçum and other nearby towns, the slowly receding waters leave desolate scenes of furniture, clothing and appliances piled up in front of the houses. Maria Ines Silverio has returned to her house, but she keeps her clothes in plastic bags for fear of the river rising again. She has a 30-year mortgage and says she cannot afford to leave. "When we bought the house, this wasn't a flooded area. Now it is, and the river is going to rise more and more," she said. Environmental experts warn that there is no alternative for some towns in the state but to relocate entire neighborhoods. "We need to move urban infrastructure away from high-risk environments and return space to the rivers ... so they no longer impact cities with such magnitude," said ecologist Marcelo Dutra, professor at the Rio Grande Federal University. "We can't oppose nature. We have to wake up to this force that is telling us we need to adapt and respect nature," he said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/persistent-brazil-floods-raise-specter-climate-migration-2024-05-13/