2025-10-31 06:04

Amazon surges nearly 10% on strong cloud revenue growth Fed officials' comments boost dollar, dampen rate cut expectations Global stocks set for seventh straight monthly gain NEW YORK, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Global stocks were on pace for their third straight week of gains and seventh consecutive monthly advance on Friday buoyed by strong gains in megacap Amazon after its quarterly earnings, while the dollar climbed after hawkish comments from some Federal Reserve officials. Amazon (AMZN.O) , opens new tab surged 9.6% after reporting cloud revenue rose at the fastest clip in nearly three years, enabling the company to forecast quarterly sales above estimates. Sign up here. Meanwhile, Apple shares edged down 0.4% to $271.37, paring gains after reaching an intraday record of $277.32 after it reported quarterly earnings and forecast holiday-quarter iPhone sales and overall revenue that surpassed Wall Street expectations thanks to strong demand for its iPhone 17 models. The results cap off a run of earnings this week from several megacap companies, included in the so-called Magnificent Seven group of stocks, that made clear the massive build of infrastructure surrounding artificial intelligence shows no signs of abating. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> closed up 40.75 points, or 0.09%, to 47,562.87, the S&P 500 <.SPX> advanced 17.86 points, or 0.26%, to 6,840.20 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> climbed 143.81 points, or 0.61%, to 23,724.96. Stocks closed well off earlier highs, however, as several Fed officials further echoed comments from Chair Jerome Powell earlier in the week, who dented expectations the central bank would cut rates at its December meeting following a 25 basis point cut on Wednesday. "The theme today is pretty similar to what we saw yesterday. It's earnings coming in a little better than expected but tempered by a little more hawkish commentary from the Fed," with James Ragan, Co-CIO and Director of Investment Management Research at D.A. Davidson. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic said a December rate cut is not locked in while Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said she was open to reforming the interest rate target used by the Fed to implement monetary policy. Markets are pricing in a 65% chance for a 25 basis point cut at the December meeting, down from almost 92% a week ago, according to CME's FedWatch Tool , opens new tab. Each of the three major Wall Street indexes were on track for a third straight weekly gain, while the Nasdaq was set for its seventh straight monthly climb, its longest streak since January 2018. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) , opens new tab inched up 0.81 point, or 0.08%, to 1,005.99, and was on track for a seventh straight monthly climb, its longest run since August 2021. The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX) , opens new tab closed down 0.51% after a round of mixed quarterly earnings and a benign euro zone inflation report that reinforced the European Central Bank's view that price pressures remain contained but notched its fourth straight month of gains. In currencies, earlier comments from Fed officials also supported the greenback. Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid said he dissented against cutting interest rates this week out of concern that continued high inflation and signs of price pressures spreading in the economy could raise doubts about the central bank's commitment to its 2% inflation target. In addition, Dallas Federal Reserve President Lorie Logan said the Fed should not have cut interest rates this week and should not do so again in December. The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.31% to 99.78, with the euro down 0.31% at $1.1529. The greenback was on pace for a second straight weekly gain and a monthly climb of about 2%. The Japanese yen edged 0.02% higher against the greenback to 154.10 per dollar. Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the government has been monitoring foreign exchange movements with a high sense of urgency after the yen plunged to around 154 per U.S. dollar. Economic data showed core inflation in Japan's capital accelerated in October and stayed above the central bank's 2% target, keeping market expectations for a rate hike from the Bank of Japan intact. This week, the Bank of Japan held interest rates steady despite many economists predicting a hike. The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 0.2 basis point to 4.095% while the 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with rate expectations for the Fed, slipped 1.6 basis points to 3.598%. The 10-year yield was up nearly 10 basis points on the week, its biggest rise since the week ended April 11 while the 2-year yield was up more than 11 basis points on the week, its biggest rise since the first week of July. U.S. crude settled up 0.68% to $60.98 a barrel and Brent settled at $65.07 per barrel, up 0.11% on the day. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-markets-wrapup-1-2025-10-31/

2025-10-31 06:02

PERTH, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Australia's largest power producer AGL (AGL.AX) , opens new tab said on Friday it will cut jobs as part of a move to cleaner energy and a mid-2030s closure of its coal-fired power plants. The Mining and Energy Union (MEU) said it had been told 300 jobs would go across management and operational roles at AGL's Bayswater and Loy Yang A power stations. Sign up here. "As we transition our portfolio, and connect our customers to a sustainable future, we need to ensure that today's business remains productive and competitive in this changing market while we continue to invest in our business for tomorrow," an AGL spokesperson said. The AGL spokesperson did not confirm exactly how many jobs out of its total workforce of about 4,200 would be cut. "We understand this may be a difficult time for our people and we're committed to communicating with transparency and respect and providing support throughout the consultation process," the spokesperson said. The company, which generates and sells power, has said previously that it plans to spend up to A$20 billion ($13 billion) in the next decade to build out clean energy and storage capacity to replace its ageing coal fleet. AGL, which has the highest carbon emissions footprint in Australia, separately said on Friday it will buy four new gas turbines from Siemens AB for its Kwinana gas peaking power plant in Western Australia for A$185 million. MEU General Secretary Grahame Kelly said in a statement the restructure plans were "a kick in the guts" for workers in the lead-up to Christmas. "Coal-fired power station workers around the country are already facing stress and uncertainty with moving timelines for closures. News that hundreds of jobs will be cut as soon as this December is a further blow." https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/australias-agl-cut-jobs-part-clean-energy-push-2025-10-31/

2025-10-31 06:00

LONDON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Copper's just made the headlines again with the London Metal Exchange price punching out an all-time nominal high of $11,200 per metric ton on Wednesday. Macro and micro drivers have both turned price-positive and fund managers have jumped back in on the long side, adding financial potency to the bull cocktail. Sign up here. Investment fund long positioning on the LME copper contract has risen to levels last seen in March, just before U.S. President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff tsunami. The threat of a full-blown trade war between the United States and China, the world's largest copper consumer, was decidedly bad news for copper. The partial truce just agreed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping lifts some of the macro weight. While copper's demand prospects brighten, its supply challenges accumulate. A string of copper mine disasters this year is likely to result in a refined metal shortfall in 2026, according to the International Copper Study Group. Add inventory dislocation to the mix and it's not hard to understand why Doctor Copper is back on the investment radar. For now. FUNDS RETURN Fund managers gave copper a wide berth after March as the market was buffeted by tariff turbulence, both general and specific in the form of a possible U.S. import tariff on refined copper. Investor positioning on the CME's U.S. copper contract, which was at the heart of the tariff storm, shrank to decade lows in August. Volumes and open interest tumbled as investors rotated into red-hot precious metals markets. LME copper volumes benefited from the disruption to global physical supply-chains but the rise in industrial activity masked an equally sharp drop in fund participation. All that changed in August as the LME price started building upwards momentum against a steady backbeat of production downgrades from some of the world's largest mines, Funds have boosted long positions from an August low of 55,325 contracts to 87,152 contracts. Short positions have been simultaneously cut, resulting in a sharp shift, equivalent to over a million metric tons, in investor positioning to the long side. If fund money is returning to the London market, it is almost certainly also doing so on the CME contract but it's hard to say since the weekly Commitments of Traders Report has been suspended due to the government shutdown. The last available positioning picture, dating from the end of September, showed funds tentatively re-entering the market on the long side after the implosion of the U.S. premium in July, when the Trump administration deferred a decision on refined copper tariffs until next year. Open interest on the CME contract has since surged to four-month highs in tandem with a recovering price, suggesting more investors have returned to the fray. DISLOCATION Investor short positioning on the LME copper contract has almost halved since April. The recent rally will no doubt have played its part in forcing momentum-based funds to cover back shorts. But low LME stocks are also a powerful disincentive to run a short copper position, as someone found out earlier this month when the cash premium over three-month metal briefly flared out to $224 per ton. That spread has since flipped back to contango but at $25 per ton, it's a far cry from the $90 plus levels seen as recently as August. That's because the unwind of the U.S. tariff trade has got stuck. Even though any possible U.S. import tariff on refined metal has been pushed back to July next year at the earliest, the CME spot price is still trading at a hefty $300-per ton premium over the LME price and higher still on a forward basis. The import arbitrage is still open and the United States continues to draw in copper, Richard Holtum, chief executive of trade house Trafigura, told the LME Week Seminar earlier this month. The pace of shipments to U.S. ports has likely slowed but the knock-on effect is continued downward pressure on LME stocks. A burst of Chinese deliveries to LME warehouses in July lifted LME inventory to 159,000 tons but registered stocks have since dropped back to just 135,350 tons with only a small 30,477-ton extra cushion in off-warrant storage. The China tap seems to have been turned off for now. Exports of refined copper surged to 118,400 tons in July, the second highest monthly tally this century, but September's count was a lowly 26,400 tons, much of it destined for Thailand and Vietnam, neither of which hosts LME warehouses. TURBULENCE AHEAD The resilience of the CME premium over the LME international price attests to the continued influence of tariffs in the copper price mix. That may yet come back to haunt the funds which have just re-entered the market because the current alignment of macro and micro could still easily be blown off course in today's ever-shifting trade landscape. Markets, including copper, are not sure whether what Trump described as his "amazing" meeting with the China's Xi marks anything more than a tactical pause in hostilities. The copper price was back below $11,000 per ton on Thursday morning as traders digested the latest turn of the tariff roulette wheel. Copper's micro narrative may be compellingly bullish, but the macro outlook remains highly unpredictable. This year's tariff price turbulence may be far from over. Andy Home is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/lme-copper-hits-record-highs-funds-fundamentals-align-2025-10-30/

2025-10-31 05:33

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Ankur Banerjee A whirlwind October is set to end with investors unsure of the global monetary policy path in the near term, while a trade truce between the world's top two economies calmed market nerves even as a mixed bag of mega-cap earnings kept momentum in check. Sign up here. The action-packed week started with signs of cooling tensions between the U.S. and China. It also had the Federal Reserve delivering an expected rate cut, but with a warning from Chair Jerome Powell that this cut might be the last one in 2025. That helped firm up the dollar, which is on pace for a nearly 2% gain for the month. The yen, on the other hand, was loitering around its lowest level since February at just under 154 per dollar, spurring some verbal jawboning by Tokyo officials. The Bank of Japan held rates steady on Thursday as expected, but markets interpreted comments from Governor Kazuo Ueda as dovish even though he dropped hints that a rate hike remains on the table. The slump in the yen, down nearly 4% in October, has been a boost for the Nikkei (.N225) , opens new tab, which breezed past another record high and is on pace for a 16% surge in the month, its strongest monthly performance since January 1994. The "Takaichi trade" in all its glory. South Korea's Kospi (.KS11) , opens new tab, the best-performing stock market in the world this year, is on course for a 20% rise in October, the biggest surge since January 2001. Much of the enthusiasm in the stock market this year has been about artificial intelligence. The earnings season has sketched out a mixed picture so far, with investors desperately seeking a clearer sense of how the massive - and still growing - capex binge around AI will boost future earnings. Amazon (AMZN.O) , opens new tab shares soared as cloud revenue rose at its fastest pace in nearly three years, lifting Nasdaq futures and setting up a strong Halloween for tech stocks. The online retailer benefited as businesses continue to spend relentlessly on AI software development. Watch out for a boost from Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab as well after the iPhone maker gave forecasts for holiday quarter revenue that surpassed Wall Street expectations. Key developments that could influence markets on Friday: Economic events: October inflation data for euro zone and France, September retail sales for Germany https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-markets-view-europe-2025-10-31/

2025-10-31 05:32

MUMBAI, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee fell on Friday but managed to hold above its all-time low on the back of intermittent dollar sales by state-run banks that also helped the currency end the month on a quiet note. The rupee had rallied to a peak of 87.6250 earlier this month following heavy-handed intervention by the central bank, but has since shed those gains to once again hover close to its record low of 88.80, hit in late-September. Sign up here. The currency ended Friday's session slightly lower at 88.7650 and was little changed month-on-month. India's benchmark equity indexes, the BSE Sensex (.BSESN) , opens new tab and Nifty 50 (.NSEI) , opens new tab, were both down 0.4% each, tracking weakness in Asian peers, but were set to end October over 4.5% higher - their best monthly gain since March. While traders expect the Reserve Bank of India to continue keeping a lid on rupee volatility, the broad bias is geared towards depreciation in the absence of clear progress on a U.S.-India trade deal. A pact between New Delhi and Washington is "very near," a senior government official said last week. Elsewhere, signs of cooling U.S.-China trade tensions helped support Asian currencies this week, even as a hawkish tilt in the U.S. Federal Reserve's commentary boosted the dollar and U.S. bond yields. "Measures of FX volatility have fallen to fresh year to date lows this week highlighting that current market conditions remain supportive for FX carry trades," MUFG said in a note. Carry trades involve borrowing low interest currencies to buy currencies with better yields. The dollar index was last at 99.54, on course to end the month 1.8% higher, while Asian currencies were mostly stronger. The rupee was down 1% for the week. Traders will keep a close watch on portfolio flows related to initial public offerings next week that could help the rupee find modest relief. https://www.reuters.com/world/india/rupee-likely-inch-higher-asian-cues-rbi-support-hopes-2025-10-31/

2025-10-31 05:06

BOJ holds rates, disappoints traders hoping for hawkish stance Fed dampens expectations for December rate cut, dollar gains Euro and sterling fall as ECB and BOE maintain rates NEW YORK, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The Japanese yen was heading for a monthly loss against the U.S. dollar on Friday after the Bank of Japan disappointed traders hoping for a more hawkish stance on future rate hikes, while the Federal Reserve dampened expectations for a December rate cut. The yen clawed back some losses after Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the government has been monitoring foreign exchange movements with a high sense of urgency as the yen weakens. Sign up here. Core inflation in Tokyo also accelerated in October and stayed above the central bank's 2% target, data showed on Friday. But disappointment after BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda adopted a less hawkish tone on future rate hikes than hoped held the yen in check. The Japanese central bank kept rates on hold at 0.5%. Noel Dixon, global macro strategist at State Street Global Markets, said he remains constructive on the yen, adding that “the BOJ ultimately is still going to have to normalize policy at least to 1%.” “From a multi-year perspective, wages are definitely higher than they've been … and the fiscal spending is only going to exacerbate that prospect,” Dixon said. Japan’s newly elected leader, Sanae Takaichi, is expected to pursue more fiscally expansive policies to boost economic growth. The yen was last flat on the day and heading for its worst month since July, with the dollar up 4.2% against the currency this month. The dollar index rose 0.35% to 99.82 and is on track for a 2% monthly gain, its best since July. DIVIDED FEDERAL RESERVE The greenback has been boosted by optimism over the economic outlook even as the labor market weakens, while Fed policymakers remain concerned about inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that a policy divide within the U.S. central bank and a lack of federal government data may put another interest rate cut out of reach this year. “It sounded like he was just trying to give himself some optionality,” said Dixon. The Fed cut rates on Wednesday, as expected, though two policymakers dissented. Governor Stephen Miran again called for a deeper reduction in borrowing costs, while Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid favored no cut. Schmid said on Friday that he dissented out of concern that continued high inflation and signs of price pressures spreading in the economy could raise doubts about the central bank's commitment to its 2% inflation target. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said on Friday that the Fed should not have cut interest rates this week and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said she also opposed the rate cut. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said on Friday a December rate cut is not locked in. Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a 63% probability of a cut in December, down from 93% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool. Dixon said he expects the dollar index to consolidate under technical resistance at around 102, before gaining next year when growth is likely to accelerate. “From a positioning standpoint, it's clear that investors, at least from a real money perspective, are maxed out from a short perspective, so I think it's difficult to short it,” he added. EURO, STERLING DROP The euro dropped 0.37% to $1.1522 after the European Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged at 2% for the third meeting in a row on Thursday and repeated that policy was in a "good place" as economic risks recede. The single currency has fallen 1.8% this month, as the dollar gains broadly. Sterling fell 0.14% to $1.3132, the lowest since April 14, as political pressures grew surrounding British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves. Against the euro, the pound reached its weakest since May 2023. The pound is heading for a 2.3% drop this month, while gilt yields have dropped on concern over what Reeves' November budget might mean for businesses, households and overall economic activity. Traders are also pricing in rising odds of a Bank of England interest rate cut, though the British central bank is viewed as most likely keeping rates on hold when it meets next week. "While we think GBP sentiment has turned overly bearish, we have long argued against fading the move ahead of the Budget, not to mention the tail risk of the BoE cutting rates next week," Bank of America analysts said in a report. In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin gained 1.34% to $108,972. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/dollar-three-month-high-markets-puzzle-over-outlook-2025-10-31/