2025-04-02 11:04
April 2 (Reuters) - Circle Internet Group disclosed a nearly 16% jump in revenue after markets closed on Tuesday, as the USD Coin issuer attempts a second go at listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company reported revenue and reserve income of $1.68 billion for last year, compared with $1.45 billion in 2023. Net income from continuing operations was nearly $157 million in 2024 versus $271.5 million in the previous year. Sign up here. The IPO market is currently in a delicate place, as investors look to balance demand for new listings against risks posed by economic uncertainty, such as tariffs. However, the U.S. has embraced cryptocurrencies, with Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, pledging to adopt a more "rational" approach to crypto regulation. "In many respects, Circle has for a long time been under intense public scrutiny," co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire wrote in a letter. "Becoming a publicly traded corporation is a continuation of our desire to operate with the greatest transparency and accountability possible." USDC is the second-biggest stablecoin, after Tether, and the seventh-biggest crypto token overall, according to market tracker CoinGecko. While the duo chiefly dominate the market, competition has been heating up. PayPal (PYPL.O) , opens new tab and Ripple have their own stablecoins, while Trump's World Liberty Financial has promised to launch one as well. Circle had previously attempted to go public via a $9 billion merger with a special purpose acquisition company, but the deal was terminated in late 2022. It confidentially filed for an IPO last year. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to keep a constant value. They are backed by traditional, low-risk assets such as the U.S. dollar, euro or Treasury bonds. J.P. Morgan and Citigroup are the lead underwriters for Circle's IPO. The company is expected to trade under the ticker "CRCL". https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/stablecoin-giant-circle-reveals-revenue-growth-us-ipo-filing-2025-04-02/
2025-04-02 11:04
FRANKFURT, April 2 (Reuters) - Eastern German gas company VNG, majority-owned by utility EnBW (EBKG.DE) , opens new tab, said on Wednesday it will start test operations at a 30 megawatts (MW) electrolysis plant in the third quarter of 2025 as the basis of a new green hydrogen value chain. VNG intensified a green gases strategy, along with alternative gas procurements, to replace former supplier Russia, which in 2022 turned off export taps to the West, hitting VNG's business as much as those of its big peers SEFE and Uniper (UN0k.DE) , opens new tab. Sign up here. "We have scheduled the commissioning and trial operation of the 30 MW electrolyser in the third quarter," said technical director Hans-Joachim Polk in a company statement. The plant, situated in Bad Lauchstaedt in Saxony-Anhalt state, will produce green hydrogen from power derived from local wind turbines and dedicated to the purpose of supplying the nearby Leuna chemicals and oil park with TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) , opens new tab as VNG's anchor customer. When produced with renewable electricity through the electrolysis of water, rather than by stripping it from natural gas and releasing carbon dioxide, hydrogen is a greener fuel, as it leaves only water and oxygen as byproducts when burned. "The plant will subsequently feed 2,700 tonnes of green hydrogen annually into the grid, for delivery for commercial use to... TotalEnergies' refinery," Polk said. ($1 = 0.9268 euros) https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/vng-start-test-operations-30-mw-electrolyser-q3-2025-2025-04-02/
2025-04-02 10:55
ACCRA, April 2 (Reuters) - Ghana's annual consumer inflation slowed for a third straight month to 22.4% in March from 23.1% the previous month, as food price pressures eased, the statistics agency said on Wednesday. The easing of inflationary pressures is likely to be welcomed by Ghana's central bank, which last week surprised the market with a 100-basis-point interest rate hike to 28%, saying a tight monetary policy stance was needed to lower inflation. Sign up here. "The rate of 22.4% is the lowest in the last four months," government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told a press conference. "In the month of March 2025, we recorded a much sharper decline in food inflation and a marginal decline in non-food inflation." Ghana's central bank governor Johnson Asiama has warned that consumer inflation in the gold, oil and cocoa-producing West African nation remains "uncomfortably high" and above its target of 8% with a margin of error of 2 percentage points either side. Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson said during his budget speech in March that steep spending cuts would allow Ghana to drive down inflation to 11.9% by the end of the year. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ghana-consumer-inflation-eases-224-march-2025-04-02/
2025-04-02 10:55
Spin-off would speed shift to growth markets of copper, potash Would be radical pivot from iron ore heritage BHP declined to comment MELBOURNE, April 2 (Reuters) - The world's biggest listed miner BHP Group (BHP.AX) , opens new tab considered spinning off its Australian iron ore and coal divisions as part of a medium-term growth strategy, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. As part of a planned focus on future-facing commodities potash and copper, BHP weighed separating out the divisions, as it did with South32 (S32.AX) , opens new tab in 2015, with an Australian listing most likely, two of the sources said. Sign up here. The consideration was underway as BHP was pushing hard to green its business and preparing its bid for Anglo American (AAL.L) , opens new tab in 2023 and 2024, they said, asking to remain anonymous because the issue was sensitive. BHP declined to comment. Such a move would radically reshape BHP, divorcing it from more than half a century of iron ore mining in Australia, where it was incorporated in 1885. Iron ore accounts for approximately 60% of its profits. Unbundling coal with iron ore would also remove the bulk of its carbon exposure. BHP would, however, keep its South Australian copper assets, backing its strategy to be a leading supplier of the metal needed for the energy transition. While BHP opted not to progress with its plans for now, the discussions are an insight into the scale of transformation the miner would consider as it recalibrates its future direction with a change in senior leadership. Former National Australia Bank head Ross McEwan assumed his role as new BHP chair this week, following the departure of Ken MacKenzie, and the contest for a successor to CEO Mike Henry - in his fifth year in the top job - is about to begin. Henry and CFO David Lamont, who stood down from the role in February 2024, discussed with investors the plan to separate BHP's future growth from its declining growth businesses towards the end of the decade. Ultimately they decided it was not the right time because BHP still required the huge amounts of cash generated by the two Australian divisions to fund capital spending at its Escondida copper complex in Chile and its Jansen potash development in Canada. BHP's view was a spin-off of iron ore and coal would generate cash and franking credits that benefit Australian tax-payers, meaning there could be considerable Australian interest in any flotation, one of the people said. In addition, a freed-up copper and potash unit would have more scope to seek out fresh combinations, such as with Teck Resources (TECKb.TO) , opens new tab, the people said. The plan was complicated by BHP's failure to purchase Anglo, which would have bulked up the copper business and helped with cash flow, while the incentive to green its business has become less strong as many corporations across the world step back from environment goals. That suggests any move down that path may be further off. "The whole strategy is contingent on copper and potash being self-sustaining businesses, both of which have large capital requirements for at least the next five years," another of the people said. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/bhp-considered-spinning-off-iron-ore-coal-divisions-2025-04-02/
2025-04-02 10:51
LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) - What matters in U.S. and global markets today By Mike Dolan , opens new tab, Editor-At-Large, Financial Industry and Financial Markets Sign up here. The bigger the buildup to an event, the greater the risk of disappointment. Wednesday's much-heralded U.S. tariff announcements might not live up to the hype, but even if they do, this is not going to be the end of the matter, and the market reaction won't be cut and dried either. I'll discuss how markets are reacting in advance of the big reveal and then explore the risk investors should be focusing on right now. Hint, it's not a tariff surprise today. Today's Market Minute * U.S. President Donald Trump is poised to impose sweeping new reciprocal tariffs on global trading partners today, upending decades of rules-based trade, threatening cost increases and likely drawing retaliation from all sides. * Drugmakers are lobbying to Trump phase in tariffs on imported pharmaceutical products in hopes of reducing the sting from the charges and to allow time to shift manufacturing, according to this Reuters exclusive. * Reuters takes a look at past examples of eras dominated by tariffs and at how they've affected prices and trade. * The U.S. administration is planning an executive order that would loosen the rules around exports of military equipment, just as Europe is rearming at the fastest pace in at least 80 years, according to four sources familiar with the discussions. * One of the world's largest auto part suppliers is preparing for Trump's tariffs by "controlling the uncontrollable" as the industry faces a seismic shakeup. Trouble with a capital 'T' The timing of the Rose Garden set piece laying out Donald Trump's long-awaited trade strategy is now pencilled for 4 p.m. Eastern Time today. Various reports have circulated indicating that Trump will be announcing 20% across-the-board import tariffs, but other reports have talked of a tiering system. No one, including financial traders and investors, seems fully sure of what is coming. Perhaps prepping for all outcomes, Wall Street stocks rose slightly on Tuesday as the second-quarter got underway, though they still underperformed their European peers (.STOXXE) , opens new tab. But S&P 500 futures gave back those gains overnight, and most world markets were slightly in the red on Wednesday. The VIX (.VIX) , opens new tab "fear index" was around 22, above historical averages but still well shy of the 7-month high near 30 set a month ago. Whatever the outcome later today, there is likely to be a wave of retaliatory tariff measures, which have been less discussed in analyses of the potential worldwide impact of the U.S. tariffs. ISM's March manufacturing readout on Tuesday showed U.S. factory activity slipping back into contraction last month, with price expectations surging. And job openings fell in February, a nervy start to the week's big labor market updates. March payrolls are coming on Friday, and the ADP private sector job tally is due later today. While the futures markets continue to price in three Federal Reserve interest rate cuts this year, it's interesting that five are priced by July next year despite the tariff-related inflation jitters. That would take the policy rate back to where Fed officials see the long-term neutral rate. Treasury yields were a touch higher early Wednesday, however, and the dollar index (.DXY) , opens new tab was a tad weaker. In other non-tariff political news, Wisconsin voters elected Susan Crawford to the state Supreme Court, maintaining the court's 4-3 liberal majority in a setback for Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who had backed her conservative rival. In better news for the administration, however, Republican candidates are projected to win two special elections in Florida, which would boost the party's slim majority in the House of Representatives by filling vacancies created by Trump's picks for cabinet posts. And now I'll turn back to tariffs to explain why a "crash, bang, wallop" surprise today is not the risk investors should be most worried about. Tariff shock less worrying than slow burn The still mysterious U.S. tariff sweep coming on Wednesday makes it tough for investors to see much beyond this week, but the real risk is more of a slow-burning U.S. market decline on some open-ended plan - seeding months more of uncertainty rather than a cathartic one-off. Most medium-range market forecasting has simply been abandoned over the past week, as strategists have no tariff baseline to work with. Guesswork has ensued for the most part, while a lousy quarter-end funk descended on Wall Street and implied volatility gauges crept higher. The size, shape and duration of the tariffs are all unknown, and the breadth of countries affected remains up in the air. If the big announcement on Wednesday does come as some "crash, bang, wallop", that could at least clear the air on Wall Street, which has been on tenterhooks over the issue all year. In fact, analysts looking at the elevated but relatively contained pricing of stock index volatility suggest that there's little left to come out on Wednesday that truly surprises and pushes those gauges up much further. Maxwell Grinacoff, head of equity derivatives research at UBS, made the case on Tuesday that tariffs were now well priced into the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab index and that investors had substantially "derisked" in March by selling equities in lieu of hedging. This trend led to sharp equity price declines, but a more modest reaction in "vol" (.VIX) , opens new tab, especially when compared to some of the periodic spikes in the "fear index" seen during the bull market of recent years. "Volatility is now having its 'dirty-shirt' effect – it's already stained, so a little more 'mud' won't do much else," wrote Grinacoff, adding that VIX levels were likely to remain range-bound around 20 as a result. MARKET LAUNDRY The prospect of the tariffs announcement on Wednesday clearing the decks then could be considered a positive, but only if you're generally bullish about the U.S. economic outlook. "We think the potential for even higher volatility from here is thus limited," Grinacoff added. "Unless the U.S. falls into recession territory over the coming months/quarters - albeit not our base case." Absence of recession is a big caveat. Goldman Sachs joined JPMorgan this week in arguing that the chance of recession in the U.S. over the next 12 months has risen markedly. Goldman gives it slightly more than a one-in-three chance, a tick below the 40% JPMorgan now sees. What's more, GDP models are already indicating a first-quarter contraction. The Atlanta Fed's , opens new tab headline "GDPNow" forecast is pointing to a whopping 3.7% annualized shrinkage of national output in the first three months of this year. Some of that is clearly distorted by gold imports, but the Atlanta Fed's gold-adjusted estimate is now clocking a contraction of 1.4%. High-frequency data on Tuesday did little to brighten the mood. ISM's manufacturing survey for March showed the factory sector slipped back into contractionary territory, and falling job openings suggest cracks are appearing in the once-watertight labor market. And no matter what happens this week, markets are still likely to face lingering doubts about the trade war endgame and the unknowable lagged effects of the import levies on prices, demand, hiring and activity. So it's hard to see how the tariff boil gets lanced this week. Trump's administration retains the right to extend, hike, postpone or even cancel the tariffs as part of its high-pressure dealmaking on a range of thorny issues with both allies and rivals. And it is also impossible to know how the rest of the world will react and retaliate to the U.S. actions, a factor in the looming trade war that is often underplayed. So economists should have more to work with after Wednesday, but crystal clarity may be stretching it. And it's this long-term uncertainty and gradual economic weakening - a slow burn - that may be truly corrosive for already bruised and still expensive equity markets. Chart of the day We're seeing the perfect storm that gold buyers have dreamt of for years - well, almost 40 years. Trade wars, military tensions, broken Western alliances, inflation concerns, recession fears and doubts about the dollar's dominant role in world finance: The combination of all this has seen gold zoom nearly 20% so far this year to an all-time high of $3,148 per ounce. It's been its best quarter since 1986. And this time around U.S. protectionism and isolationism are also in the mix. With tariff walls and military spending rising and the spectre of "stagflation" lurking in the background, central banks around the world have boosted gold holdings at the margins as part of their precautionary reserve building. Today's events to watch * White House makes announcement on 'reciprocal' trade tariff plan, expected around 4pm Eastern Time * U.S. ADP March private sector payrolls, February factory goods orders * Federal Reserve Board Governor Adriana Kugler speaks; European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and ECB chief economist Philip Lane both speak * European Union defense ministers meet in Warsaw 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/markets/us/global-markets-view-usa-2025-04-02/
2025-04-02 10:21
MUMBAI, April 2 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee closed weaker on Wednesday, although dollar sales by foreign banks capped its losses as markets await the announcement of U.S. reciprocal levies that could stoke global trade tensions further and weigh on economic growth. The rupee ended at 85.4975 against the U.S. dollar, down slightly from 85.47 in the previous session. Sign up here. The White House will announce fresh duties on U.S. imports at 2000 GMT, with the tariffs expected to take effect immediately. However, market indicators are signalling that rupee traders are not too bothered by tariff risks. Overnight options are pricing in a 25-30 paisa swing following the announcement, only a tad higher than the rupee's average intraday range of 21 paisa this year so far. The "market expects a lot of bargaining once tariffs are announced," a trader at a Singapore-based hedge fund said. On the rupee, traders are mostly holding small positions heading into the event risk, they added. On Wednesday, the rupee's decline was likely cushioned by foreign portfolio inflows, a salesperson at a large foreign bank said. Asian currencies were mostly rangebound, while the dollar index treaded water around the 104.2 mark. Meanwhile, India's benchmark bond yield declined over 8 basis points to 6.4964% on optimism over rate cuts by the central bank. "All told, we believe the financial markets are under-estimating the scale of action," MUFG Bank said in a note. "A swathe of levies capturing all the major trading partners with a 20%-25% tariff would be seen as most aggressive and likely elicit the biggest risk-off reaction," the note added. In its latest report, the office of the United States Trade Representative highlighted concerns that some of India's import requirements are not internationally aligned, and that some are burdensome or lack clear timelines. (This story has been refiled to correct bond market levels in paragraph 7) https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/rupee-closes-modestly-lower-all-eyes-reciprocal-us-tariffs-2025-04-02/
