2025-12-05 16:01

Dec 5 (Reuters) - Argentina announced on Friday the tender for a four-year dollar bond governed by local law as President Javier Milei's administration continues to test the waters for an eventual return to international capital markets. The tender for the so-called Bonar, with a 6.50% coupon, will take place December 10, Argentina's Economy Ministry said. The local law issuance, maturing November 30, 2029, does not need the approval of Congress. There were no details on the size of the offering. Sign up here. Milei's government is seeking to rebuild investor confidence and bolster depleted foreign currency reserves after years of overspending that left the country locked out of global capital markets. Argentina, a serial defaulter, most recently missed payments on its international debt in 2020. "We estimate that this bond could be priced around 86, with a yield of approximately 10.5%-11%, given that it operates under local law," local financial advisory Max Capital wrote in a client note. It added that the issuance in practice functions similarly to auctions in local pesos. Regaining access to international financing has been one of Milei's top priorities since taking office in 2023, with Argentine companies and provinces, including Santa Fe province earlier this week, tapping markets as investor confidence grows. Argentina must meet hefty debt obligations in the first month of 2026, totaling around $4.5 billion, as well as maturities this month of roughly 40 billion pesos ($27.68 million), traders said. Investor appetite for Argentine assets has strengthened since Milei's party scored a decisive victory in midterm legislative elections in October, when voters handed him a mandate to press ahead with sweeping economic reforms. In a statement on social media on Friday, the Economy Ministry said the country was launching a "new strategy aimed at refinancing its dollar capital maturities without affecting the process of strengthening the central bank's balance sheet." Argentina's treasury is "seeking to expand its financial objectives to cover dollar debt maturities without affecting the central bank's net reserves," it added. The ministry cited a "strong compression of dollar bond interest rates" resulting from Milei's economic program and the outcome of the October election. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-unveils-tender-local-us-dollar-bond-milei-seeks-market-return-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 14:48

Poland's government fails to overturn presidential veto on cryptocurrency bill Tusk claims Russian intelligence exploits cryptocurrency market Opponents argue bill would burden crypto firms WARSAW, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Poland's government failed to overturn a presidential veto of a bill regulating cryptocurrencies on Friday, hampering its bid to increase oversight of a market it says is plagued by money laundering and open to exploitation by Russian intelligence. The clash over the cryptocurrency bill is the latest chapter in a bitter feud between liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk and nationalist President Karol Nawrocki at a time when Warsaw faces what it says is a growing threat from Moscow. Sign up here. "There's no doubt that this market is highly susceptible to exploitation by foreign services, intelligence agencies, and mafias," Tusk told parliament. "The challenge is for the state to provide the tools to ensure it's not helpless." Tusk addressed lawmakers in a closed session before the open debate to present "urgent information concerning national security". In a post on X he portrayed the vote as "Russian money and services versus the security of the state and citizens". RIGHT-WING PARTIES SAY REGULATIONS EXCESSIVE The bill would have implemented the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), giving Poland's financial regulator supervisory powers over the cryptocurrency market and introducing criminal liability for offences concerning the issuing of tokens or the provision of crypto-asset services. Nawrocki and right-wing parties in parliament say the bill would drive crypto firms away due to excessive burdens and that other EU member states have implemented MiCA with much simpler and less restrictive legislation. "To stand on this podium and say, 'Either you vote for the Russian mafia or you vote for my bill' is to give a false choice and you know it perfectly well," the chief of the president's chancellery Zbigniew Bogucki said. He called on the government to work together with the presidential palace on drafting new legislation. The government would have needed a three-fifths majority with at least half of lawmakers voting to overturn the veto. While lawmakers remained tight-lipped over the content of the closed session, state news agency PAP cited sources as saying Tusk spoke about Russia's involvement in cryptocurrency scandals. Poland's security services have said in the past that Moscow has used cryptocurrencies to pay people to carry out sabotage, allegations that Russia has repeatedly denied. Officials in many European Union countries have reported a growing number of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and drone incursions this year. https://www.reuters.com/business/polish-parliament-upholds-crypto-veto-brushing-aside-pms-russia-warning-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 13:07

LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Sterling edged up against the dollar and was set for its second consecutive week on the rise as budget worries receded and a revision of UK business activity this week offered some support. The pound has jumped in the last week after British finance minister Rachel Reeves' long-awaited budget passed the bond market's test without too much fuss. Sign up here. On Wednesday, November's S&P Global UK Composite Purchasing Managers' Index, which incorporates both services and manufacturing activity, was revised upwards. That all left the pound up 0.13% at $1.3344 on Friday, marching towards Thursday's more than five-week high of $1.3385. Against the euro, sterling also edged 0.1% higher at 87.28 pence, having hit an almost five-week high on Thursday. It is set for the third consecutive weekly increase against the single currency . Chris Turner, Global Head of Markets at ING, attributed the sterling rally to short squeeze positions, in which traders, who were betting against the currency, are now buying it back. ING were "a little bearish on the dollar and have a year-end GBP/USD target at $1.34," he said. "But we also favour some sterling underperformance against the euro as the Bank of England restarts its easing cycle this December." The BoE is widely expected to reduce borrowing costs by 25 basis points to 3.75% in December, after keeping them on hold in November. Britain's housing market slowed in November in both annual and monthly terms, figures from mortgage lender Halifax showed on Friday. Some other measures of Britain's housing market have suggested a slowing in house price growth, attributed to caution among homebuyers before the November 26 budget. Also supporting the sterling rally, there were expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut rates when it meets next week. Those bets have weakened the U.S. dollar, which is set for weekly declines. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/post-budget-rally-keeps-sterling-hovering-around-five-week-high-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 12:15

Dec 5 (Reuters) - Cloudflare (NET.N) , opens new tab has restored impacted software services after a minor outage on Friday hampered access to crypto trading exchange Coinbase (COIN.O) , opens new tab and Anthropic's artificial intelligence chatbot Claude AI. The web-infrastructure company's shares fell as much as 4.5% in premarket trading, as the disruption came less than a month after a widespread outage prevented thousands from accessing major internet platforms, including X and ChatGPT. Sign up here. Cloudflare's outage between 0847 GMT and about 0913 GMT on Friday was not an attack, but caused by a change made to how its firewall handles requests, the company said. "The change was deployed by our team to help mitigate the industry-wide vulnerability disclosed this week in React Server Components." Both Coinbase and Claude AI confirmed that the outage was resolved. React, a tool used to build user interfaces, had disclosed a vulnerability in its application on Wednesday that could potentially allow unauthenticated, malicious code to be run on a system. Reports about issues with Cloudflare dropped to about 120 by 06:10 a.m. ET (1110 GMT) from a peak of nearly 2,000, outage-tracking tool Downdetector showed. Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources, and the actual number of affected users may vary. A rise in outages has raised concerns about organizations' dependence on a few vendors for wide-ranging security and web solutions, and whether they have contingency plans when issues emerge from a single point of failure. In October, an outage at Amazon's cloud service made thousands of popular websites and apps, including Snapchat (SNAP.N) , opens new tab and Reddit (RDDT.N) , opens new tab, inaccessible. Last year, a global tech outage related to issues at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O) , opens new tab and Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab hit various sectors. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cloudflare-restores-services-after-minor-dashboard-outage-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 12:13

OGDC triples tight-gas study area to 4,500 sq km Shale pilot to expand to five-six wells by 2026-27 OGDC's five-year plan to significantly change production profile Deepal offshore well spud planned for Q4 2026 in Indus Basin ISLAMABAD, Dec 5 - Pakistan's state-run Oil & Gas Development Company is planning a major expansion of unconventional gas developments from early next year, aiming to boost production and reduce reliance on imported liquefied natural gas. Pakistan has long been viewed as having potential in both tight and shale gas, which are trapped in rock and can only be released with specialised drilling, but commercial output has yet to be proved. Sign up here. Managing Director Ahmed Lak told Reuters that OGDC had tripled its tight-gas study area to 4,500 square kilometres (1,737 square miles) after new seismic and reservoir analysis indicated larger potential. Phase two of a technical evaluation will finish by end-January, followed by full development plans. The renewed push comes after U.S. President Donald Trump said Pakistan held "massive" oil reserves in July, a statement analysts said lacked credible geological evidence, but which prompted Islamabad to underscore that it is pursuing its own efforts to unlock unconventional resources. "We started with 85 wells, but the footprint has expanded massively," Lak said, adding that OGDC's next five-year plan would look "drastically different". Early results point to a "significant" resource across parts of Sindh and Balochistan, where multiple reservoirs show tight-gas characteristics, he said. SHALE PILOT RAMPS UP OGDC is also fast-tracking its shale programme, shifting from a single test well to a five- to six-well plan in 2026–27, with expected flows of 3–4 million standard cubic feet per day (mmcfd) per well. If successful, the development could scale to hundreds or even more than 1,000 wells, Lak said. He said shale alone could eventually add 600 mmcfd to 1 billion standard cubic feet per day of incremental supply, though partners would be needed if the pilot proves viable. The company is open to partners "on a reciprocal basis", potentially exchanging acreage abroad for participation in Pakistan, he said. A 2015 U.S. Energy Information Administration study estimated Pakistan had 9.1 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil, the largest such resource outside China and the United States. A 2022 assessment found parts of the Indus Basin geologically comparable to North American shale plays, though analysts say commercial viability still hinges on better geomechanical data, expanded fracking capacity and water availability. OGDC plans to begin drilling a deep-water offshore well in the Indus Basin, known as the Deepal prospect, in the fourth quarter of 2026, Lak said. In October, Turkey's TPAO with PPL and its consortium partners, including OGDC, were awarded a block for offshore exploration. A combination of weak gas demand, rising solar uptake and a rigid LNG import schedule has created a surplus of gas that forced OGDC to curb output and pushed Pakistan to divert cargoes from Italy's ENI and seek revised terms with Qatar. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/pakistans-ogdc-ramps-up-unconventional-gas-plans-2025-12-05/

2025-12-05 11:40

TOKYO, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Japan's economic revitalisation minister, Minoru Kiuchi, called on the central bank to closely communicate with the government in setting monetary policy on Friday, but did not voice opposition to a near-term interest rate hike. Asked about growing prospects of an interest rate hike by the central bank in December, Kiuchi said that specific policy means was for the Bank of Japan to decide. Sign up here. The remarks by Kiuchi, who is known to be an advocate of loose monetary policy, reinforces the market view that the government will not push back against any decision to raise interest rates to 0.75% from 0.5% this month. "I hope the BOJ continues to guide monetary policy appropriately to stably achieve its 2% inflation target working closely with the government," he told a news conference on Friday. Kiuchi also said he hoped the central bank sets policy mindful of BOJ rules that require the central bank to closely communicate with the government. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Monday the bank will consider the "pros and cons" of raising rates at its December 18-19 meeting. Sources have told Reuters the BOJ is likely to raise rates in December and the government is likely to accept the decision. Kiuchi oversees the Cabinet Office which, along with the Ministry of Finance, has the authority to send representatives to attend the BOJ's policy meetings. The representatives cannot vote but can request a delay in the board's vote on rates. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japans-economy-minister-says-up-boj-decide-specific-monetary-policy-means-2025-12-05/