2025-08-21 00:22
Aug 21 (Reuters) - New Zealand's Fonterra Co-operative Group (FCG.NZ) , opens new tab on Thursday increased its milk price forecast for the 2024/2025 season, banking on stable global dairy prices and solid sales book. The company increased the midpoint of its annual forecast for farmgate milk price - the price it pays to farmers for milk - to NZ$10.15 per kilogram of milk solids (kgMS) from prior expectations of NZ$10.00 per kgMS. Sign up here. Fonterra also narrowed the milk price forecast range for the 2025/2026 season to NZ$9.00 to NZ$11.00 per kgMS from an earlier view of NZ$8.00 to NZ$11.00 per kgMS. "Global dairy trade prices continue to be strong, supporting the NZ$10.00 per kgMS forecast midpoint for the current season," CEO Miles Hurrell said. (This story has been refiled to fix the spelling of 'dairy' in the headline) https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nzs-fonterra-raises-annual-milk-price-forecast-stable-dairy-prices-2025-08-20/
2025-08-20 23:22
Aug 21 (Reuters) - Australia's Whitehaven Coal (WHC.AX) , opens new tab said on Thursday its profit declined by more than half in fiscal 2025, hurt by lower realized prices and higher costs of sales. The country's largest independent coal miner reported a 57% drop in underlying net profit after tax to A$319 million ($205.18 million) for the year ended June 30, down from A$740 million a year earlier. Sign up here. However, the results beat the Visible Alpha estimate of A$261.1 million. Cost of sales, or the expenses to cover operations such as mining and processing, increased more than 80%, while realised coal prices slipped to A$215 per tonne from A$228 per tonne last year. Meanwhile, Whitehaven said it has decided to cut back on capital spending for its Narrabri Stage 3 extension project in New South Wales, reducing the allocation to between A$260 million and A$300 million, down from A$800 million to A$850 million. ($1 = 1.5547 Australian dollars) https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/whitehaven-coals-annual-profit-halves-lower-prices-higher-costs-2025-08-20/
2025-08-20 23:21
Aug 21 (Reuters) - New Zealand's Fonterra Co-operative Group (FCG.NZ) , opens new tab on Thursday increased its milk price forecast for the 2024/2025 season, banking on stable global dairy prices and solid sales book. The company increased the midpoint of its annual forecast for farmgate milk price - the price it pays to farmers for milk - to NZ$10.15 per kilogram of milk solids (kgMS) from prior expectations of NZ$10.00 per kgMS. Sign up here. Fonterra also narrowed the milk price forecast range for the 2025/2026 season to NZ$9.00 to NZ$11.00 per kgMS from an earlier view of NZ$8.00 to NZ$11.00 per kgMS. "Global dairy trade prices continue to be strong, supporting the NZ$10.00 per kgMS forecast midpoint for the current season," CEO Miles Hurrell said. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nzs-fonterra-raises-annual-milk-price-forecast-stable-diary-prices-2025-08-20/
2025-08-20 22:34
VALPARAISO, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Chilean copper miner Codelco (COBRE.UL) will lower its 2025 production guidance after an accident at its flagship El Teniente mine knocked 33,000 metric tons off the facility's output, executives said on Wednesday. El Teniente is now forecast to produce 316,000 tons this year, CEO Ruben Alvarado told a congressional hearing about the accident. Sign up here. The decline represents a $340-million loss tied to the lost output, Alvarado said, slightly higher than the $300 million Codelco forecast last week based on estimated losses of 20,000 to 30,000 tons. The accident on July 31 killed six people near a new section of El Teniente's vast network of underground tunnels, Andesita, and forced Codelco to halt mining operations for several days. Chairman Maximo Pacheco told Reuters the company would evaluate when it might be able to reopen Andesita only after an internal investigation concludes. He added updated total copper production guidance will be announced in the coming days when the company releases its financial results for the first half of the year. The company was due to post results on August 1 but postponed them due to the accident. Pacheco added the company will maintain its long-term goal of producing 1.7 million tons of copper per year by 2030. Codelco in March said it aimed for production between 1.37 million and 1.4 million metric tons for 2025, slightly above output from the year before. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chiles-codelco-lower-2025-copper-target-after-el-teniente-accident-2025-08-20/
2025-08-20 21:14
NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Developers are on track to add 33 gigawatts of solar power in the U.S. this year, accounting for about half of the total new electricity generating capacity planned for the country in 2025, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. If the plans are realized, large-scale solar power additions in the U.S. would reach a record high, said the EIA, which based its analysis on a survey of developers. New battery storage, which stores electricity from solar farms and other energy sources, may also hit a yearly record in 2025. Sign up here. Wind and natural gas power plants accounted for the rest of the capacity additions, the EIA said. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Solar energy does not produce global warming emissions. That makes it central to plans by U.S. states to decarbonize, while also meeting record-high electricity demand brought on by Big Tech and other expanding industries. Many of the federal government financial incentives that propelled the development of solar power over the last several years, however, will disappear under the administration of President Donald Trump, adding uncertainty to future development of the technology. TEXAS SOLAR STANDOUT Texas, which last year surpassed California as the state with the most large-scale solar capacity, accounted for more than a quarter of the solar power developed so far in 2025. For the rest of the year, the Lone Star State plans for another 9.7 gigawatts of new solar capacity, or nearly half of all of U.S. solar planned for development over the time period. Texas' sunny weather, availability of large amounts of land and quickly-increasing power demand have drawn solar energy development. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/solar-may-account-half-new-us-electricity-added-this-year-eia-says-2025-08-20/
2025-08-20 21:05
ORLANDO, Florida, Aug 20 (Reuters) - TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets Sign up here. By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist Gnawing doubts about the frenzy around artificial intelligence weighed on tech shares again on Wednesday, pushing Wall Street into the red as investors cast a nervous eye toward a key speech from Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday. More on that below. In my column today, I look ahead to Powell's eighth and final Jackson Hole speech. If market moves following his previous seven are any guide, investors should be in for a bumpy ride. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. Today's Key Market Moves Today's Talking Points: * Trump interference. Investors are increasingly concerned about the involvement - or interference - from President Donald Trump and his administration in many aspects of the economy, private sector business, and independent policymaking. Trump on Wednesday called for Fed Governor Lisa Cook to resign over mortgage allegations, which could pave the way for another Trump appointee at the Fed inclined to lower interest rates. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, meanwhile, is said to be looking into the government taking equity stakes in Intel and other chipmakers in exchange for grants under the CHIPS Act. This comes on the heels of Trump's recent sideswipe at Goldman Sachs's CEO and chief U.S. economist, criticism of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, his firing of a senior statistics official, and months of verbal attacks on Powell for not cutting rates. * Tech fatigue. After leading Wall Street's charge this year to new peaks, U.S. tech shares are now losing steam and dragging broader indexes lower. Whether that's simply rotation and diversification, unease over the megacap concentration, or doubts about the huge AI spend, air is coming out of the tech balloon. The S&P 500 tech sector is down nearly 5% in the last five trading days. But a bit of perspective is required - the sector rallied 60% between April 7 and August 13. * Fed minutes. With just two days to go until Powell's last Jackson Hole speech, investors on Wednesday had the minutes of the Fed's July 29-30 policy meeting to pore over. The minutes appear to show that the two policymakers who dissented against the central bank decision to leave rates unchanged appear not to have been joined by others in voicing support for lowering rates at that meeting. "Almost all participants viewed it as appropriate to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.50% at this meeting," the minutes read. Maybe the bar to cutting rates is higher than thought? But bear in mind, the weak July payrolls data were released two days after that decision. Jackson Hole speech could pack a punch Financial markets are taking in a collective breath ahead of Powell's eighth and final keynote Jackson Hole speech as Federal Reserve chair. If the moves following his last seven are any guide, investors should buckle up for a bumpy ride. Fed-watchers will be focused squarely on whether Powell signals that he's willing to cut interest rates at the central bank's September 16-17 meeting. His public comments in recent months have been relatively hawkish, but those were all before the release of the weak July employment figures that fired up easing expectations. Rates futures traders are pricing in an 85% probability of a quarter-point cut next month, with another 25 basis points of easing expected by year's end. Powell's words on Friday could provide significant clarity about whether these positions are "in the money" or not. Given that traders are betting so heavily on an imminent move, the "pain trade" will be if Powell holds the line that policymakers need to see more incoming data before resuming the easing cycle put on hold in December. Investors have reason to be cautious. History shows Powell's Jackson Hole speeches tend to move markets a lot, especially the bond market. And even though Powell is often considered a policy dove at heart, his Jackson Hole set-piece speeches have usually pushed yields higher, not lower. WATCH BOND YIELDS In the month following each of Powell's last seven Jackson Hole speeches, the 10-year Treasury yield has risen by an average of 21 bps, according to Reuters calculations. The dollar has risen 1.4% and the S&P 500 has fallen nearly 2%, on average, over the same period. Stretching that out, the S&P 500 has risen an average of 2.3% between the late-August speech and year-end, the dollar has gained 0.4%, while the 10-year yield has climbed 27 basis points on average. But these averages mask some much bigger moves, especially in the month after the central bank jamboree in Wyoming. The stand-out example is 2022, when Powell, in his Monetary Policy and Price Stability , opens new tab speech, invoked former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, warning of the "pain" that households and businesses were likely to face from the tight policy needed to slay inflation. In the following month, the S&P 500 tanked 12%, the dollar rallied 5%, and the 10-year Treasury yield soared 75 bps. Bond yields climbed at least 20 bps in the month following three other Powell Jackson Hole speeches, in 2018 , opens new tab, 2021 , opens new tab, and 2023 , opens new tab, the latter being another where Powell signaled a readiness to keep rates higher for longer. KEY CONSIDERATIONS Inflation today is not as lofty as it was two years ago, but, sitting around 1 percentage point above the Fed's 2% goal, it is higher than Powell would like. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Fed's dual mandate, unemployment remains at a historical low of 4.2%. This year's theme at Jackson Hole is "Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy." Powell has stated that the unemployment rate is the best measure of the labor market. But that does not mean today's low unemployment rate will automatically lead to a hawkish speech - history shows that when unemployment starts to rise, it can move quickly, leaving the Fed woefully behind the curve. Markets are probably prepared for some large price swings, whichever way Powell leans. THE LAST TIME It's also likely that Powell will use the platform to defend his tenure, just like his predecessors: Alan Greenspan , opens new tab in 2005, Ben Bernanke , opens new tab in 2012, and Janet Yellen , opens new tab in 2017. Given the unprecedented public pressure Trump has placed on Powell to cut interest rates this year, why would the Fed chair not seize this opportunity to have his say? "He may offer some soft guidance that rates may move lower at a coming meeting. But this is his last speech at Jackson Hole. He may never again have a platform this influential to offer his view of how his history should be written," economists at UBS wrote on Friday. Will he sign off with a bang? Markets are locked and loaded. What could move markets tomorrow? Want to receive Trading Day in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for my newsletter here. Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles , opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-trading-day-graphic-2025-08-20/
