2024-09-16 20:31

Apple falls after analyst flags weak demand for new iPhones Intel rises after report chipmaker qualifies for federal grants Boeing dips after it freezes hiring, weighs temporary furloughs Indexes: Dow up 0.55%, S&P up 0.13%, Nasdaq off 0.52% NEW YORK, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eked out a slight gain in a subdued session while the Nasdaq fell on Monday, weighed down by a drop in technology stocks as investors assessed the likelihood of an upsized rate cut from the U.S. Federal Reserve this week. The S&P technology index (.SPLRCT) , opens new tab, the best performer of the 11 major S&P sectors this year, lost 0.95% as the session's biggest decliner. Apple (AAPL.O) , opens new tab dropped 2.78% as the biggest drag to both the benchmark S&P index and Nasdaq Composite, after an analyst at TF International Securities said demand for its latest iPhone 16 models was lower than expected. The demand concerns also weighed on chipmakers, with Nvidia (NVDA.O) , opens new tab, the best performer on the S&P 500 this year, down 1.95%, Broadcom (AVGO.O) , opens new tab off 2.19% and Micron Tech (MU.O) , opens new tab 4.43% lower to push the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX) , opens new tab down by 1.41%. "If people want to raise a lot of money quickly, how do they do it? They go sell the names that they can sell really quickly without necessarily destroying it. So you can sell Apple, you can sell Nvidia, you can sell Amazon, you can sell Microsoft very quickly and raise a lot of cash," said Ken Polcari, chief market strategist at SlateStone Wealth in Jupiter, Florida. "They want to do it in front of the Fed in case they're getting nervous or they want to raise cash to just have cash available to put to work." The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) , opens new tab rose 228.30 points, or 0.55%, to 41,622.08, the S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab gained 7.07 points, or 0.13%, to 5,633.09 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) , opens new tab lost 91.85 points, or 0.52%, to 17,592.13. Of the 11 S&P 500 sectors, only tech and consumer discretionary stocks (.SPLRCD) , opens new tab were lower on the day while financials (.SPSY) , opens new tab, up 1.22%, and energy (.SPNY) , opens new tab, up 1.2%, were the best performers. Markets have rallied since the start of this year on expectations the Fed would begin loosening its monetary policy, while data has suggested the economy could avoid entering a recession. The Dow closed at a record high on Monday and the S&P 500 is less than 1% from its closing record set in July. Market expectations on the size of the rate cut the Federal Reserve will announce on Wednesday have been volatile in recent days and are currently pricing in a 59% chance for a 50-basis-point cut, according to CME's FedWatch Tool , opens new tab. Intel Corp (INTC.O) , opens new tab jumped 6.36% after a report showed it qualified for as much as $3.5 billion in federal grants to make semiconductors for the U.S. Department of Defense. Boeing (BA.N) , opens new tab declined 0.78% after the planemaker said it was freezing hiring and weighing temporary furloughs in the coming weeks as its workers' strike stretched to its fourth day. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.74-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq, advancers outnumbered decliners by a 1.17-to-1 ratio. The S&P 500 posted 88 new 52-week highs and one new low while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 143 new highs and 83 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.74 billion shares, compared with the 10.75-billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/futures-kick-off-fed-meeting-week-cautious-note-2024-09-16/

2024-09-16 20:05

HAVANA, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Cuba's communist-run government on Monday slashed by a quarter the weight of its subsidized ration of daily bread, the latest shortage to strain a decades-old subsidies scheme created by the late Fidel Castro. The bread, one of a handful of still subsidized basic food products in Cuba, will be reduced from 80 grams to 60 grams (2.1 oz), or approximately the weight of an average cookie or a small bar of soap. Its price, too, was slightly reduced, to just under 1 peso, or 1/3 of a cent. Still, many Cubans, who earn around 4648 pesos a month, or around $15, can scarcely afford to shop for more expensive bread on the private market, leaving them with few alternatives. "We have to accept it, what else can we do?" Havana-resident Dolores Fernandez told Reuters while she stood outside a bakery on Monday. "There's no choice." Cuba last week said it had run short of the wheat flour it needs to produce the bread, a predicament the government blames on the U.S. trade embargo, a complex web of restrictions that complicates Cuba's global financial transactions. The Caribbean island nation is suffering from extreme shortages of food, fuel and medicine, shortfalls that have primed a record-breaking exodus of its citizens to the nearby United States. Cuba's ration book, or "libreta," as it is known among island residents, was once considered a hallmark of Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, providing a range of deeply-discounted products to all Cubans, including bread, fish, meat, milk, and cleaning and toiletry supplies. Today, the crisis-racked government offers just a fraction of those products, and often, they arrive late, in poor quality or not at all. Bernardo Matos, of Havana, said he had not detected a change in bread size on Monday, but said he was unhappy with the quality. "The quality is terrible," he said shortly after purchasing his ration. "The flour tastes like acid." Cuba's government has said it planned to reinforce inspections at state bakeries to assure quality does not suffer. Cuba earlier this year sought help from the World Food Programme to guarantee the supply of subsidized powdered milk for children, another key staple of the Cuban ration book that has recently grown scarce. Beyond the few remaining centrally planned economies like Cuba's and North Korea's, rationing is typically only used during war-time, natural disasters or specific contingencies. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-slashes-size-daily-bread-ration-ingredients-run-thin-2024-09-16/

2024-09-16 19:55

Sept 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Interior Department on Monday announced an offshore wind energy lease sale on Oct. 29 for eight areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT? If fully developed, these areas have a potential capacity of about 13 gigawatts of clean offshore wind energy, which could power more than 4.5 million homes. CONTEXT Earlier this month, Interior announced final approval of a wind project off the coast of Maryland, bringing the U.S. halfway to its goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of the clean energy technology by 2030. The Department has held five offshore wind lease sales, including a sale offshore New York and sales offshore the Pacific, Central Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, and approved 10 commercial-scale offshore wind projects. WHAT'S NEXT? The Final Sale Notice will publish in the Federal Register on Sept. 17. The issuance of a lease does not authorize the construction and operations of an offshore wind facility. It simply provides the right to submit project-specific plans. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-sets-date-gulf-maine-offshore-wind-auction-2024-09-16/

2024-09-16 19:41

BOGOTA, Sept 16 (Reuters) - A ruling from a Colombian court that ordered the suspension of work at a major offshore natural gas well is a threat to the country's energy security, industry groups the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP) and Naturgas said on Monday. In a court order dated Sept. 11, a judge said activities at well Uchuva-2, on the Tayrona block in Colombia's Caribbean, must stop after the companies failed to properly consult a local Indigenous community about the operation. "We cannot allow them to turn the country off with arbitrary decisions," ACP president Frank Pearl said in a press conference alongside Naturgas president Luz Stella Murgas. The Uchuva-2 well is an important hope for Colombia's dwindling gas reserves, which have sparked fears over the country's long-term energy self-sufficiency. In May, the government's National Hydrocarbons Association reported Colombia's gas reserves closed 2023 at 2.4 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to 6.1 years' consumption. The potential reserves at Uchuva-2 are equivalent to 2.5 times Colombia's current reserves, Murgas said. The Tayrona block is owned by Colombia's majority state-owned energy company Ecopetrol (ECO.CN) , opens new tab, which has a 55.6% stake, and Brazil's Petrobras (PETR4.SA) , opens new tab, which is the block operator and holds the remaining 44.4%. The ruling represents the latest chapter in Colombia's long history of tensions between successive governments and Indigenous groups over energy projects, which the communities often say infringe on their rights or threaten their way of life. Both Pearl and Murgas said the well was found to not infringe on communities' rights after "competent authorities" previously confirmed the block's area of influence did not clash with Indigenous groups' lands. "Delaying this project will mean that we will have to be forced to import natural gas subject to the volatility of international markets for longer," Murgas said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/colombia-court-suspension-uchuva-2-well-threatens-energy-security-say-industry-2024-09-16/

2024-09-16 19:35

Sept 16 (Reuters) - More than 12% of crude production and 16% of natural gas output in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico were offline in the aftermath of Hurricane Francine, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said on Monday. There were 213,204 barrels per day of oil and 298 million cubic feet of natural gas still offline after Francine hit the coast last week. The hurricane caused U.S. offshore oil and gas producers to lose 2.37 million barrels of oil and 4.93 billion cubic feet of gas due to shut-ins that began last week, according to a Reuters tally of BSEE daily estimates. Oil and gas producers began shutting in offshore production a week ago, as Francine moved through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. There were 24 oil and gas platforms still evacuated on Monday, about 6.5% of the Gulf of Mexico total, down from 171 evacuated offshore platforms at peak last week, the offshore regulator said citing reports from producers. Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) , opens new tab said on Monday it was working to safely restart operations at its Hoover offshore platform in the Gulf. Meanwhile, Chevron also redeployed all personnel to their Gulf facilities and resumed production. The U.S. Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 15% of all domestic oil production and 2% of natural gas output, according to federal data. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/more-than-12-us-gulf-mexico-oil-output-still-shut-after-hurricane-francine-2024-09-16/

2024-09-16 19:34

Sept 16 (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures rose 3% on Monday, buoyed by forecasts for higher demand over the next week, while the market also factored in production cuts due to last week's storm. Front-month gas futures for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 6.8 cents or 3% to settle at $2.373 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). "We believe that the market is really going to be focused on the inventory this week as well as the weather going forward. If this market is going to find support, it's gonna need help from Mother Nature and you usually don't get a lot of that support in the shoulder season," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group. Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said utilities added 40 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended Sept. 6. That was lower compared with an injection of 50 bcf during the same week a year ago and a five-year average (2019-2023) increase of 67 bcf for this time of year. EIA/GASNGAS/POLL "After Hurricane Francine, the productions been off for a while, but because it's shoulder season the market isn't as concerned, but it definitely should cut into our supply surplus," Flynn added. More than 12% of crude production and 16% of natural gas output in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico were still offline in the aftermath of Hurricane Francine, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said on Monday. The U.S. Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 15% of all domestic oil production and 2% of natural gas output, according to federal data. Dutch and British wholesale gas prices declined on higher forecast temperatures this week and supply outages easing. Meanwhile, the fifth cargo of liquefied natural gas from Russia's Arctic LNG 2 was picked up by a vessel managed by a company under U.S. sanctions, according to ship tracking data. Financial firm LSEG said gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states slid to an average of 102.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in September, down from 103.2 bcfd in August. Meanwhile, LSEG forecast average gas demand in the Lower 48, including exports, rose from 99.6 bcfd last week to 100.2 bcfd this week and is seen rising to 100.9 bcfd next week. LSEG forecast average gas supply in the Lower 48, including exports, unchanged this and next week at 101.9 bcfd. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-natgas-rises-3-higher-demand-outlook-output-cut-2024-09-16/