2025-12-06 05:42

Dec 6 (Reuters) - The EU will take a top-down approach to building a cross-border energy grid, as the bloc's Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen warned of billions lost from bottlenecks and failures to match supply with demand, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Brussels will develop a plan to identify where investment is needed and will find projects to fill those gaps to push EU countries to better co-ordinate energy infrastructure across borders and sectors, the report added. Sign up here. Jorgensen told the Financial Times that the "biggest danger" to the bloc’s decarbonisation and energy security goals was the slow construction of its power grid. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-plans-strategic-overhaul-fix-energy-grid-bottlenecks-ft-reports-2025-12-06/

2025-12-05 23:42

Warner Bros gains after Netflix agrees to buy the company Investors assess inflation and consumer sentiment data Ulta Beauty soars after raising forecasts Indexes up: Dow 0.22%, S&P 0.19%, Nasdaq 0.31% NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks closed out the trading week with slight gains on Friday as the latest flurry of economic data kept elevated expectations for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut next week intact. In the wake of the 43-day government shutdown, market participants have been digesting delayed economic data as the backlog slowly dwindles, while also looking to secondary indicators to gauge the health of the economy. Sign up here. Delayed data from the Commerce Department showed consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, rose 0.3% in September to match the estimate of economists polled by Reuters, after a downwardly revised 0.5% gain in August. In addition, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index increased 0.3% after gaining 0.3% in August, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said. In the 12 months through September, the PCE Price Index advanced 2.8% after rising 2.7% in August. Both were in line with forecasts. A separate report from the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers showed consumer sentiment improved in early December to 53.3, topping the 52 forecast. Markets were pricing in an 87.2% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut at this month's Fed meeting, according to CME's FedWatch Tool , opens new tab, although the meeting is expected to have a large number of dissenting voters over concerns about persistent inflation. Expectations for a cut were below 30% two weeks ago until several Fed officials voiced support for a rate reduction. "Investors are looking ahead to next week. We get a little bit more in the way of economic data ... but all eyes will be on the Fed meeting on Wednesday, and right now there's a very high likelihood the Fed will cut rates by another quarter point," said Michael Sheldon, vice president and senior portfolio manager at Washington Trust Wealth Management, in New Haven, Connecticut. "Then, the question is what they say following the meeting and whether they give any hints about future policy." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab rose 104.05 points, or 0.22%, to 47,954.99, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab gained 13.28 points, or 0.19%, to 6,870.40 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab gained 72.99 points, or 0.31%, to 23,578.13. For the week, the S&P 500 gained 0.31%, the Nasdaq rose 0.91%, and the Dow climbed 0.5%. All three indexes recorded a second straight weekly advance. Shares of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O) , opens new tab climbed 6.3% after Netflix (NFLX.O) , opens new tab agreed to buy its TV, film studios, and streaming division for $72 billion, ending a weeks-long bidding war. Netflix shares closed 2.9% lower, while Paramount Skydance , one of the other bidders for Warner Bros, tumbled 9.8%. Communication services (.SPLRCL) , opens new tab was the best-performing of the 11 S&P 500 sectors with a gain of nearly 1% as it set a record closing high. The S&P 500 healthcare index (.SPXHC) , opens new tab declined after a group of vaccine advisers scrapped a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. children receive the hepatitis B shot at birth. The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab is about 1% shy of a record high, but small-cap stocks have rallied strongly over the past two weeks with the Russell 2000 (.RUT) , opens new tab up 0.8% this week after a 5.5% jump last week as they are seen as likely to benefit strongly from rate cuts. "All the low-quality, unprofitable, highly levered businesses have been high beta, high volatility, that's been the best performing stocks," said Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management in St. Louis. "A lot of that is just due to rates coming down a fair amount and expectations for rates to come down further." Ulta Beauty surged 12.7% after the beauty retailer raised its annual sales and profit forecasts. Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.01-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.22-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted 33 new 52-week highs and seven new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 116 new highs and 61 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 16.2 billion shares, compared with the 17.72 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. https://www.reuters.com/business/wall-st-futures-steady-investors-await-key-inflation-report-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 23:29

Temperatures plunge as much as 20 degrees below average Chill stretches from Plains to mid-Atlantic, New England Cold snap hits records from Iowa prairie to upstate New York Dec 5 (Reuters) - A blast of Arctic air gripped much of the central and eastern portions of the U.S. on Friday in sub-freezing temperatures well below normal for this time of year, setting records from Iowa and Michigan to New York. The frigid weather pattern stemmed from a fluctuation in the clockwise circulation of polar air, also known as the polar vortex, that was drawing icy air from Canada into northern tier of the U.S., according to meteorologist Marc Chenard of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center outside Washington. Sign up here. The Arctic chill, plunging temperatures much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below average, began on Thursday and was expected to persist in waves over the next week or two, making it the most extensive and intense cold snap of the season, Chenard said. The official start of winter is still more than two weeks away. "Cold air is spilling into the central and eastern parts of the country, coming down from the Arctic," he said. The deep freeze stretched from the northern Plains through the Great Lakes region and Ohio Valley into the mid-Atlantic and New England. Colder-than-normal temperatures, though still above freezing, were expected to dip into the Southeast, according to Chenard. Local weather forecasts in Indiana and Oklahoma called for the possibility of freezing fog, tiny super-cooled water droplets suspended in air that can freeze on exposed surfaces, causing a dangerous road condition known as black ice. On Thursday, temperatures fell to new benchmark lows in more than a dozen places across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, Chenard said. Iowa, where temperatures have been tracked since 1895, accounted for most of the record cold, including an all-time low on Thursday of 19 degrees below zero in the prairie town of Spencer, a full 10 degrees colder than its previous record of minus-9 degrees set in 2005. Detroit appeared to have set a record low on Friday morning of 5 degrees above zero, 1 degree colder than the standing record, while the New York City-area airports of John F Kennedy and LaGuardia both posted low readings of 20 degrees, setting or tying their respective previous records, according to Chenard. In upstate New York, the temperature plummeted to an apparent new bone-chilling record of minus-22 degrees, exceeding the previous record low of negative 20. In addition to unseasonable cold, snow was expected in parts of the mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and Rockies through Saturday, the National Weather Service said. A storm system crossing the northern Plains and Midwest on Saturday will bring the potential for heavy snow at times, according to the forecast. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/arctic-blast-grips-central-northeastern-us-sub-freezing-cold-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 22:29

Dec 5 (Reuters) - U.S. electrical grid operator PJM Interconnection said on Friday that it received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday to simplify its rules for connecting generation resources at the distribution level. FERC has allowed PJM to drop a rule that required certain distribution-level interconnections to be processed under federal instead of state and local rules. Sign up here. Starting April 28, 2026, all resources in PJM’s region will be processed under state and local rules and agreements. PJM said the change will help reallocate time and resources to their work on transmission-level interconnections and provide greater clarity to project developers earlier in the interconnection process. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/pjm-gets-ferc-approval-simplify-connection-distribution-level-resources-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 22:14

Dec 5 (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley said on Friday it now expects the U.S. Federal Reserve to deliver a quarter-percentage point rate cut in December, joining peers J.P.Morgan and BofA Global Research, following dovish remarks from central bank policymakers. All three brokerages previously expected the Fed to hold rates steady in December. Sign up here. Softer U.S. economic data released late November and dovish comments from key Fed officials, including from New York Fed President and the Federal Open Market Committee Vice Chair John Williams, Fed Governor Christopher Waller and San Francisco President Mary Daly, have bolstered expectations for a cut. "It seems we jumped the gun," Morgan Stanley strategists said. "We expect dissents, and Chair Powell will likely trade the cut for language changes in the statement that signal further cuts will have a higher bar." Traders are currently pricing in a 87.2% chance of a quarter-point interest rate cut at the monetary policy meeting on December 9-10, as per the CME FedWatch Tool. In addition, Morgan Stanley now expects the Fed to reduce rates in January and April by 25 basis points each to a terminal rate of 3.0%-3.25%, revised from a previous forecast of a cut each in January, April and June. "We expect Chair Powell to signal that the recalibration phase of monetary policy is now complete. Any additional adjustments will be considered on a meeting-by-meeting basis and guided by incoming data," they said. Meanwhile, J.P.Morgan expects another cut in January, while BofA forecasts a cut each in June and July next year. https://www.reuters.com/business/jumped-gun-says-morgan-stanley-reverses-dec-fed-rate-call-25bps-cut-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 19:57

Dec 5 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's maritime authorities, border police and navy, are carrying out a rescue of a vessel that entered the country's territorial waters on Friday but the operation has been put on hold due to bad weather, the transport ministry said in a statement. The vessel is identified as sanctioned tanker Kairos, which was hit in the Black Sea last week by a Ukrainian drone in Turkey's Exclusive Economic Zone and its crew rescued after it was caught by fire. Sign up here. Kairos was one of the two sanctioned tankers Ukrainian naval drones hit as they headed to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, as Kyiv tries to pile pressure on Russia's vast oil industry. It suffered an explosion and caught fire while en route from Egypt to Russia, Turkey's Transport Ministry has said. It was spotted by the maritime control services earlier on Friday but did not respond to calls for contact. Following the contacts with passing ships and the Maritime Coordination Centre in Ankara, it was confirmed there were 10 people on board, who later sent a request for evacuation, the ministry said. The border police and a navy helicopter were sent to help but the ship anchored about one nautical mile east of the resort village of Ahtopol and stopped its movement. It has been under constant surveillance because of strong winds. The ministry said that the border police specialised team was ready to sail to the ship and two air-tractors prepared to join the operation as soon as the weather stabilises. On Tuesday, another Russian-flagged tanker loaded with sunflower oil reported a drone attack off the Turkish coast but its 13 crew members were unharmed. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday said the "very scary" attacks on Russia-linked tankers in the Black Sea threatened the safety of all in the region and showed the reach of the war in Ukraine was expanding. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bulgaria-rescuing-sanctioned-tanker-that-was-hit-by-ukrainian-drone-2025-12-05/