2024-09-14 09:01

BEIJING, Sept 14 (Reuters) - China's commerce ministry said on Saturday the country will begin an anti-dumping investigation into halogenated butyl rubber imported from Canada, Japan and India from Saturday. Halogenated butyl rubber is commonly used in the production of tires, pharmaceutical stoppers, sealants and other products. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-open-anti-dumping-probe-halogenated-butyl-rubber-imports-canada-japan-2024-09-14/

2024-09-14 08:45

Japan, US must unite against China's cheap steel, says PM hopeful Koizumi US security panel reviews Nippon Steel's bid for U.S. Steel, decision by Sept. 23 Koizumi and Takaichi defend steel deal, stress Japan-US alliance amid election TOKYO, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Japan and the United States should avoid confrontation about the steel industry and work together amid competition from China, the world's top steelmaker, leading prime ministerial candidate Shinjiro Koizumi said on Saturday. Sources told Reuters on Friday that a powerful U.S. national security panel reviewing Nippon Steel's (5401.T) , opens new tab $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel (X.N) , opens new tab faces a Sept. 23 deadline to recommend whether the White House should block the deal. Koizumi, Japan's former environment minister, said at a debate on Saturday that Japan and the U.S. should not confront each other when it comes to the steel industry but to face together the 'shared challenge' coming from China's steel industry. "If China, producing cheap steel without renewable or clean energy, floods the global market, it will most adversely affect us, the democratic countries playing by fair market rules," Koizumi said. Nippon Steel's key negotiator on the deal, Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori, said last month that his company and other Japanese steelmakers were urging Tokyo to consider curbing cheap steel imports coming from China to protect the local market. On Sunday, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden about their deal, as Biden, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have all opposed the merger. "We are also in the midst of elections, just like the U.S., and during elections, various ideas may arise. Overreacting to each of these would, in my view, call into question diplomatic judgment," Koizumi said when asked about the deal. Sanae Takaichi, Japan's minister in charge of economic security and another prime ministerial candidate, also defended the deal during the same debate attended by eight other Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) leadership contenders on Saturday. "It appears they are using (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) CFIUS to frame this as an economic security issue," she said. "However, Japan and the U.S. are allies, and the steel industry is about strengthening our combined resilience." The 43-year-old son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the junior Koizumi, is seen as a leading contender in the Sept. 27 race to pick the LDP's new leader, who will become the next prime minister due to the party's control of parliament. Koizumi said on Saturday that he would seek a dialogue with the North Korean leadership to resolve the issue over the abduction of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. "We want to explore new opportunities for dialogue between people of the same generation, without being bound by conventional approaches, and without preconditions," Koizumi said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is 40 years old. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/japan-us-face-shared-challenge-cheap-china-steel-japan-pm-hopeful-says-2024-09-14/

2024-09-14 06:58

Takaichi says BOJ's recent rate hikes were too early Takaichi calls on BOJ to keep rates low, wants more spending Kono calls for debate on restoring Japan's fiscal health Motegi says Japan can tap reserves to pay for spending TOKYO, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Sanae Takaichi, Japan's minister in charge of economic security and a leading candidate in the ruling party's leadership race, said on Saturday the central bank should maintain ultra-low interest rates to support the fragile economic recovery. "Frankly, it was too early," she told a news conference gathering the nine candidates running in the race, when asked about the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) interest rate hikes this year. "Interest rates ought to be kept low," said Takaichi, who is emerging as a strong candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Takaichi's remarks follow those she made on her personal YouTube channel on Friday stressing the need to maintain fiscal and monetary support for the economy. The BOJ ditched negative interest rates in March and raised short-term rates to 0.25% in July on the view the economy was making progress toward durably achieving its 2% inflation target. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has signalled the bank's readiness to raise rates further if inflation stays around 2% in coming years accompanied by solid wage gains, as it currently projects. The LDP will choose a new leader on Sept 27, with the winner due to take over as prime minister due to the party's majority in parliament. Incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced last month that he would step down as LDP chief in September, effectively ending a three-year term as leader of the world's fourth-largest economy. A majority of economists polled by Reuters expect the BOJ to raise rates again this year with more than three-quarters of them betting on a December hike. None in the poll projected a rate increase next week. Most of the LDP candidates have called for a spending package to cushion the blow of rising living costs, without elaborating on how to fund this additional cost. An outlier was Taro Kono, minister in charge of digitalisation, who said boosting expenditure or maintaining generous subsidies won't necessarily prop up economic growth. Japan must debate how to improve fiscal health, as rising interest rates will increase the cost of funding its huge public debt, Kono said on Saturday. Another candidate and ruling party official, Toshimitsu Motegi, said the government could pay for various spending by tapping the huge reserves set aside for currency intervention. While most of the reserves are currently invested in U.S. government bonds, Japan can consider investing part of the funds in other assets to reap better returns, Motegi said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/japans-pm-hopeful-takaichi-urges-boj-avoid-raising-rates-2024-09-14/

2024-09-14 05:08

NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Nvidia's (NVDA.O) , opens new tab huge stock rally is still exerting an outsized influence over the S&P 500 index (.SPX) , opens new tab, reinforcing concerns that broader markets could be hurt if the chipmaking giant's fortunes turn. This year's 140% surge in shares of Nvidia, whose chips are seen as the gold standard in artificial intelligence applications, has accounted for about a quarter of the S&P 500's 17% gain. Nvidia showed its powerful hold over Wall Street on Wednesday, when the stock's 8.2% rally helped drive the S&P 500 to its biggest intraday upswing in nearly two years. The index reversed a 1.6% loss to end the day up 1.1%. Nvidia jumped after CEO Jensen Huang flagged strong demand for the company's chips, boosting its market value by more than $200 billion and accounting for 44% of the S&P 500's surge that day, data from Nomura showed. Nvidia's rally "got the whole market moving," said Chris Murphy, co-head of derivative strategy at Susquehanna Financial Group. The S&P 500 has struggled to make headway this year on Nvidia's down days, eking out gains only 13% of the time when the chipmaker's shares have closed weaker, a Reuters analysis showed. This year, the index has failed to rise more than 1% on any day when Nvidia's shares ended lower. In 2020, there were 13 such instances. For many investors, the recent moves revived worries over a small cohort of stocks dictating the market's direction. Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia have a combined weighting of nearly 20% in the S&P 500, though shares of the first two have gained far less this year than Nvidia's. While recent strength in non-tech sectors has stirred hopes of a broadening rally, a sustained sell-off in any of the tech megacaps could still badly hurt broader markets, analysts said. "If Nvidia is weak because demand for their product goes down then that's going to tank the whole market," said Susquehanna's Murphy. OPTIONS BOOST Traders are keeping a close eye on Nvidia's options, which have played a major role in boosting recent moves. Nvidia recently accounted for about 22% of the overall volume of individual stock options traded daily, up from around 5% at the start of the year, making it the most actively traded stock in the options market on most days, Trade Alert data showed. Nvidia's gains are amplified when traders rush into upside call options. When buying of these options surges, market makers who sell these contracts are on the hook to buy and deliver more Nvidia shares at the agreed price, leaving them "short gamma," in options parlance. The additional purchases to cover risk lift the stock even higher. "You do see the market keen to buy upside calls when it's working," said Chris Weston, head of research at online broker Pepperstone. "When it's hot, these flows absolutely make a difference." Nvidia is not the first stock to have such a powerful sway over the rest of the market. Tesla, another favorite of nonprofessional traders, displayed similar characteristics a few years ago when the options market amplified the electric vehicle maker's stock swings, Nomura strategist Charlie McElligott said. But AI seems to have stirred the imagination of investors even more than EVs. "The mania that is the actual paradigm shift which AI represents across the corporate landscape, is just making it a magnitudes-larger theme," he said. "Tesla was never close to that." "AI is just its own animal," McElligott said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/nvidias-stock-market-dominance-fuels-big-swings-sp-500-2024-09-13/

2024-09-14 02:58

BEIJING, Sept 14 (Reuters) - China's coal output rose 2.8% in August from a year earlier, statistics bureau data showed on Saturday, on higher thermal power generation and robust chemical industry demand. The world's largest coal producer mined 396.55 million metric tons of the fuel last month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics data on Saturday. That was also up from July's 390.37 million tons. July was the hottest month on record for China, and the heat waves continued into August, driving up power demand as homes and businesses turned on their air conditioning. Along with moderating hydropower output, that pushed China's thermal power generation back to growth last month. Thermal power generation, which is mostly from coal in China, rose 3.7% from a year ago to 614.9 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh). Hydropower output rose 10.7%, compared with July's 36.2% growth. In addition to the power sector, demand from the coal-to-chemicals industry is robust according to analysts. Limited by safety inspections earlier in the year, output for the period from January to August fell 0.3% from the year earlier to 3.05 billion tons, the statistics bureau data showed. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-thermal-power-output-returns-growth-august-2024-09-14/

2024-09-14 00:13

Adobe tumbles after forecasting Q4 earnings below estimates Boeing sells off as workers go on strike Russell 2000 small cap index outperforms, up 2.5% Indexes up: Dow 0.72%, S&P 500 0.54%, Nasdaq 0.65% Sept 13 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes closed higher on Friday as investors honed in on the chance of a bigger interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week, with rate-sensitive small cap stocks outperforming. Bets on the size of the Fed's cut have been volatile and were roughly even by late Friday. Expectations for a 50 basis point cut jumped to 49% from 28% on Thursday, according to CME's FedWatch Tool , opens new tab, which showed a 51% probability for a 25 basis point cut. Former New York Fed President Bill Dudley said late Thursday there was a strong case for a 50-bps interest rate cut. Reports in the Wall Street Journal , opens new tab and other media early Thursday said the Fed faced a difficult decision on how much to ease on Sept. 18. "There's just rumblings that have started to bubble up again that the discussion in the Fed is leaving 50 basis points on the table," said Jim Baird, chief investment officer with Plante Moran Financial Advisors, Southfield, Michigan. In contrast, bets on Thursday that the Fed would opt for a smaller 25-bps cut firmed after news of slightly higher producer prices and Wednesday's consumer prices data. While the renewed hopes for a bigger cut were boosting large cap indexes on Friday the optimism seemed most evident in the Russell 2000 small cap index <.RUT>, which rose 2.5% on the day and 4.4% for the week. Smaller companies are more sensitive to rate changes as they depend more on borrowed money and floating rate loans. Baird argued that stocks appeared to show investor optimism that a 50 basis point cut would not indicate a coming recession. "If investors were looking at this and saying they have to move quicker because they're behind the curve you wouldn't see risk assets like small caps rally," said Baird. "You're seeing some of the riskier areas of the equity market advance pretty strongly today." Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy and research at Glenmede in Philadelphia, said Friday's gains likely stemmed from Dudley's comment about the case for a 50 basis point cut. Also on Friday, a survey showed U.S. consumer sentiment improved in September as inflation subsided, though Americans remained cautious ahead of the November presidential election. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab rose 297.01 points, or 0.72%, to 41,393.78, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab gained 30.26 points, or 0.54%, to 5,626.02 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab gained 114.30 points, or 0.65%, to 17,683.98. All three major U.S. benchmark indexes ended close to roughly two-week highs and logged solid weekly gains. For the week the S&P 500 rose 4.02% and the Nasdaq climbed 5.95%, with both marking their biggest weekly percentage gains since early November. The Dow added 2.60% for the week. Adobe (ADBE.O) , opens new tab finished down 8.5% after the Photoshop maker forecast fourth-quarter earnings below estimates. And Boeing (BA.N) , opens new tab shares sank 3.7% after its U.S. West Coast factory workers walked off the job early on Friday as they overwhelmingly rejected a contract deal. Chinese e-commerce firm PDD Holdings (PDD.O) , opens new tab fell 2.4% after the Biden administration said it was moving to curb low-value shipments entering the U.S. duty-free under the $800 "de minimis" threshold. Uber (UBER.N) , opens new tab shares rallied 6.4% after the ride-hailing platform said it would bring autonomous ride hailing to Austin, Texas, and Atlanta in partnership with Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) , opens new tab Waymo. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 5.54-to-1 ratio on the NYSE where there were 653 new highs and 27 new lows. On the Nasdaq, 3,275 stocks rose and 1,026 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.19-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted 60 new 52-week highs and one new low while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 116 new highs and 54 new lows. On U.S. exchanges 10.15 billion shares changed hands compared with the 10.78 billion average for the last 20 sessions. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/futures-muted-uncertainty-about-fed-rate-cut-size-2024-09-13/