2024-05-10 19:07

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, May 10 (Reuters) - Less than three months from the Olympic Games in Paris, Brazilian athletes from the devastated southern state of Rio Grande do Sul are giving up their dreams to compete and staying at home to help with the rescue of victims of the severe floods. Rowers Evaldo Becker and Piedro Tuchtenhagen, due to compete in the qualifying phase for the Olympic Games in the lightweight double sculls category, decided to drop their sporting quest and join volunteers saving stranded neighbors, finding them shelter and distributing aid. "I said: Piedro, I can't do it anymore," Becker told Reuters by telephone. "The Olympics are the dream of our lives, but today we cannot see ourselves leaving our state," said Tuchtenhagen. Their training was disrupted by the floods that inundated the streets of state capital Porto Alegre after the river Guaiba burst its bank. So they began helping to distribute donations and rescue families and their pets. "I didn't even think twice. It was my last chance to get to the Olympics. I was excited. But the flood waters took my dream away just as it took lives," Becker said. Swimmer Viviane Jungblut, who already qualified for the open water race, also dropped out and said on social media she would put her efforts into the rescue and recovery operations. World and Olympic surfing champion Italo Ferreira went to Rio Grande do Sul to help in the rescue efforts. The coach of the Brazil Olympic men's judo team, Antonio Carlos Kiko Pereira, also joined in rescue work. The athletes stayed in Rio Grande do Sul even as the Brazilian Olympic Committee devised a plan to evacuate them from the state to train elsewhere in Brazil for the qualifiers. Former Olympic athletes also volunteered to help. Gymnast Daiane dos Santos, who competed in three Summer Games, and former Olympic swimmer Nicholas Santos, who holds the world record for 50-meters butterfly, joined the rescue operations. Unprecedented floods in Rio Grande do Sul have left a toll of 113 dead, with 146 people still unaccounted for in the disaster that has displaced more than 300,000 from their homes, civil defense said. The level of the Guaiba river dropped overnight, but it began to rain again on Friday and more rain is forecast in coming days, raising fears of more extensive flooding. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/sports/olympics/brazilian-athletes-drop-olympic-dreams-help-flood-victims-2024-05-10/

2024-05-10 19:00

NEW ORLEANS, May 10 (Reuters) - Debate over whether U.S. interest rates are high enough deepened among Federal Reserve officials this week, and may be stoked further after a key survey showed a jump in consumers' inflation expectations. "There are ... important upside risks to inflation that are on my mind, and I think there's also uncertainties about how restrictive policy is and whether it's sufficiently restrictive" to return inflation to the U.S. central bank's 2% target, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said at a Louisiana Bankers Association conference in New Orleans. "I think it's just too early to think about cutting rates ... I think I need to see some of these uncertainties resolved about the path that we're on, and we need to remain very flexible," Logan said, though she did not directly address whether she feels the Fed may need to again raise its benchmark policy rate from the 5.25%-5.50% range that has been maintained since July. In on appearance on CNBC, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he's in a "wait-and-see mode" in regards to what's next for central bank policy and the Fed can stay at current rates "as long as needed" to bring inflation down. But he added there is a "high" bar to concluding that higher rates are needed to cool inflation. Many U.S. central bank officials, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have said they still think further rate hikes will prove unnecessary. In an interview with Reuters, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said he still thought inflation was likely to slow under the current monetary policy and allow the central bank to begin reducing its policy rate in 2024 - though perhaps by only a quarter of a percentage point and not until the final months of the year. "I still have that belief," Bostic said in the interview on Thursday, though "it is going to take some time" to be sure inflation is set to fall. But the outlook is in flux after three months in which inflation stopped improving. Data on Friday provided a further jolt in the wrong direction. Year-ahead inflation expectations in the University of Michigan's survey of consumer sentiment rose from 3.2% to 3.5% in May, the highest level since November, and longer-term expectations ticked higher as well. While a month's reversal may not be significant, if it continues it would challenge the Fed's current assessment that expectations are "anchored" - and add to arguments made by Logan and some others that rates may not be high enough to finish the inflation fight. Anchored expectations are considered by Fed officials as an important sign of the central bank's credibility, and an aid in bringing inflation back to 2%. 'WALKING A TIGHTROPE' Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, in an appearance at the Economic Club of Minnesota, said a drift higher in inflation expectations "bodes awful" for further inflation progress, but the immediate results were not a concern. "There is not much evidence that inflation is stalling out," Goolsbee said, adding that he regarded current policy as "relatively restrictive." The University of Michigan data was released after Logan began her remarks, and she did not address it. The survey also showed overall consumer sentiment nose-diving, a confusing signal that could point to lower consumer spending in the months ahead even as households expect higher inflation. "The Fed is walking a tightrope as they balance both mandates of price stability and growth," Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial, wrote. "Although it's not our base case, we do see rising risks of stagflation," in which growth slows and price increases remain strong. The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index, rose at a 2.7% annual rate in March, with little progress shown in the first three months of the year. In an essay published earlier this week, Kashkari New Tab, opens new tab also raised the possibility that rates may not be restrictive enough, given the continued strength of the U.S. economy, particularly the housing market. "It is hard for me to explain the robust economic activity that has persisted," Kashkari said. "It raises questions about how restrictive policy really is." In contrast, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, in a taped interview on Thursday, said it is possible the "neutral" interest rate for the U.S. had risen a bit, implying that any given level of the benchmark policy rate would lean less on economic activity than it would otherwise. But she said the solution for the Fed in that case would be to keep its policy rate at the current level for longer. Even if the neutral rate is higher "we still have restrictive policy, which is what we want," Daly said. "But it might take more time to ... bring inflation down." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/fed-officials-mull-if-rates-are-high-enough-inflation-expectations-jump-2024-05-10/

2024-05-10 18:55

CHICAGO, May 10 (Reuters) - Final testing of U.S. retail dairy samples came back negative for viable H5N1 bird flu virus, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. The FDA said it finished its laboratory research into 297 retail dairy samples tested for bird flu, after previously reporting that preliminary results showed the commercial milk supply was safe. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/final-tests-us-dairy-samples-are-negative-bird-flu-virus-us-fda-says-2024-05-10/

2024-05-10 18:45

Canadian dollar notches weekly gain of 0.1% Canada's economy adds 90,400 jobs in April Price of U.S. oil falls 1.2% Bond yields rise across the curve TORONTO, May 10 (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar steadied against its broadly stronger U.S. counterpart on Friday, with the currency maintaining a modest weekly advance after a bigger-than-expected domestic jobs gain tempered expectations for Bank of Canada interest rate cuts. Canada's economy added 90,400 jobs in April, five times the number that was forecast, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly held steady at 6.1%. Money markets see a 44% chance of a Bank of Canada interest rate cut at its next policy announcement on June 5, down from nearly 60% before the data. Investors also weighed readings from the University of Michigan's survey of consumer sentiment which showed year-ahead inflation expectations rising from 3.2% to 3.5% in May, the highest level since November. "We saw the Canadian dollar rally on a stronger jobs number but then pull back on a stronger U.S. dollar after that Michigan inflation reading," said Michael Goshko, senior market analyst at Convera Canada. The loonie was trading nearly unchanged at 1.3675 to the U.S. dollar, or 73.13 U.S. cents, after trading in a range of 1.3636 to 1.3690. For the week, the currency was up 0.1%. Buyers of the U.S. dollar are emerging in the low 1.36s after that area acted as sustained resistance for the greenback in the five months through April, Goshko said. The U.S. dollar (.DXY) New Tab, opens new tab edged higher against a basket of other major currencies on Friday, while the price of oil , one of Canada's major exports, was down 1.2% at $78.33 a barrel as investors grappled with conflicting demand signals out of the U.S. and China. Canadian government bond yields moved higher across the curve, with the 5-year up 8 basis points at 3.766%. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/c-holds-weekly-rise-jobs-gain-crushes-estimates-2024-05-10/

2024-05-10 18:35

May 9 (Reuters) - OpenAI plans to announce its artificial intelligence-powered search product on Monday, according to two sources familiar with the matter, raising the stakes in its competition with search king Google. The announcement date, though subject to change, has not been previously reported. Bloomberg and the Information have reported that Microsoft (MSFT.O) New Tab, opens new tab-backed OpenAI is working on a search product to potentially compete with Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) New Tab, opens new tab Google and with Perplexity, a well-funded AI search startup. OpenAI declined to comment before Reuters published its report on Thursday. After publication, OpenAI on Friday posted on X that the company would stream a live event on Monday, to "demo some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates." CEO Sam Altman later posted on X, "not gpt-5, not a search engine, but we’ve been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love! feels like magic to me." Alphabet's stock partly recovered from an over 2% loss following Altman's post, and was last down 0.9%. OpenAI's announcements could be timed a day before the Tuesday start of Google's annual I/O conference, where the tech giant is expected to unveil a slew of AI-related products. OpenAI's search product is an extension of its flagship ChatGPT product, and enables ChatGPT to pull in direct information from the Web and include citations, according to Bloomberg. ChatGPT is OpenAI's chatbot product that uses the company's cutting-edge AI models to generate human-like responses to text prompts. Industry observers have long called ChatGPT an alternative for gathering online information, though it has struggled with providing accurate and real-time information from the Web. OpenAI earlier gave it an integration with Microsoft's Bing for paid subscribers. Meanwhile, Google has announced generative AI features for its own namesake engine. Startup Perplexity, which has a valuation of $1 billion, was founded by a former OpenAI researcher, and has gained traction through providing an AI-native search interface that shows citations in results and images as well as text in its responses. It has 10 million monthly active users, according to a January blog post from the startup. At the time, OpenAI's ChatGPT product was called the fastest application to ever reach 100 million monthly active users after it launched in late 2022. However, worldwide traffic to ChatGPT's website has been on a roller-coaster ride in the past year and is only now returning to its May 2023 peak, according to analytics firm Similarweb New Tab, opens new tab, and the AI company is under pressure to expand its user base. An earlier attempt to bring updated and real-world information in to ChatGPT, called ChatGPT plugins, was retired in April, according to a help center posting on OpenAI's website. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-plans-announce-google-search-competitor-monday-sources-say-2024-05-09/

2024-05-10 18:25

Consumer sentiment index falls to 67.4 in May One-year inflation expectations rise to 3.5% from 3.2% Long-run inflation expectations edge up to 3.1% from 3.0% WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) - U.S. consumer sentiment sagged to a six-month low in May as households worried about the higher cost of living and unemployment, but economists cautioned against drawing conclusions on the implications for the economic outlook. The larger-than-expected drop in sentiment reported by the University of Michigan on Friday was across all age, income and education groups as well political party affiliation. "Consumer confidence is volatile on a month-to-month basis and has not been an important driver of consumer spending in recent years," said Michael Pearce, deputy chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. "The resilience of consumer spending is dependent on the strong state of household balance sheets and the robust labor market. Only if the latter begins to falter would we expect to see more meaningful signs of economic weakness emerge." The University of Michigan's preliminary reading on the overall index of consumer sentiment came in at 67.4 this month, the lowest level since last November, compared to a final reading of 77.2 in April. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a preliminary reading of 76.0. They estimated that the University of Michigan's ongoing transition to web-based interviews from telephone surveys had knocked about 2 points off the headline index this month. Economic growth slowed in the first quarter and employers hired the fewest number of workers in six months in April, recent data showed. University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said consumers "expressed worries that inflation, unemployment and interest rates may all be moving in an unfavorable direction in the year ahead." With gasoline prices pretty much stable in recent weeks and stock market prices mostly trending higher, economists were at a loss to explain the rest of the drop in sentiment. "It is hard to explain given that .... there is little evidence of any major downturn in the labor market. Households could also still be reacting to the earlier selloff in equities around mid-April," said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics. "It could also be due to other non-economic factors like the upcoming election, the brief Israel-Iran conflict or the spread of pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses. It might simply be noise rather than signal." The mood was downbeat among Democrats, independents and Republicans. Stocks on Wall Street were mixed. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices fell. HIGH INFLATION The survey's reading of one-year inflation expectations rose to 3.5% in May from 3.2% in April, remaining above the 2.3%-3.0% range seen in the two years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its five-year inflation outlook increased to 3.1% from 3.0% in the prior month. While long-run inflation expectations have been within the narrow 2.9%-3.1% range for 30 of the last 34 months, they remain high relative to the 2.2-2.6% range seen in the two years pre-pandemic. Inflation reaccelerated in the first quarter, but economists believe the disinflation trend will reassert itself in the second quarter as domestic demand cools in response to 525 basis points worth of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve since March 2022. Inflation data next week is expected to show consumer prices moderating in April after three straight months of strong readings. Financial markets expect the U.S. central bank to start its easing cycle in September. But some economists are skeptical as inflation remains way above the Fed's 2% target. The central bank last week left its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged in the current 5.25%-5.50% range, where it has been since July. "The Fed is unlikely to cut rates, absent the onset of recession, unless inflation is clearly headed sustainably to 2%," Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital. "Anchored inflation expectations are a key part of this assessment and a 3.1% longer-term expectation is near the high end of the range that the Fed judges as being anchored." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-consumer-sentiment-slides-six-month-low-may-2024-05-10/