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☆ UK economy in growth 'doom loop' as business investment slumps versus G7 peers, think tank says
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Karen Gilchrist | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Decades of underinvestment by government and business have left Britain's economy in a growth "doom loop," according to center-left think tank IPPR. Decades of underinvestment by the government and businesses have left Britain's economy in a growth "doom loop," according to the U.K.'s Institute for Public Policy Research. New research from center-left think tank estimates that the U.K. has contributed $500 billion ($638 billion) less to business investments than did other comparable wealthy countries. The IPPR said that U.K. underinvestment in infrastructure, research and development, skills and training had spanned several decades and successive governments, dating back to 2005. "The U.K. is in an investment and growth doom loop.

Persons: Luke Murphy, —, IPPR, George Dibb, pare Organizations: for Public Policy Research, OECD, IMD, CNBC, Conservative Party, International Monetary, Biden, Labour Party —, Tories Locations: Poland, Luxembourg, Greece, IPPR

Amid "continued demand momentum" for the cruise industry, JPMorgan is bullish on Carnival . The bank upgraded the cruise liner's shares to overweight from neutral in a Monday note. Analyst Matthew Boss also raised his price target to $16 from $11, implying more than 22% upside from Friday's close. Boss underscored Weinstein's comments that Carnival is "no longer riding the coattails of a post-pause pent-up." "On the top-line, we came away confident in current trends with all three management teams," Boss said.

Persons: Matthew Boss, Boss, Josh Weinstein —, —, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: JPMorgan, CCL

☆ Here are Monday's biggest analyst calls: Oracle, Tesla, McDonald's, Amazon, Nio, Carnival, AMD and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

UBS reiterates McDonald's as buy UBS said McDonald's is "well positioned to drive further sales growth and market share gains." JPMorgan upgrades Carnival to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said it sees an "attractive risk/reward" for the cruise operator. Bank of America upgrades Carnival to buy from neutral Bank of America said it's getting bullish on cruise demand. Morgan Stanley upgrades Sentinel One to overweight from equal weight Morgan Stanley said the cybersecurity company has an attractive risk/reward. Morgan Stanley reiterates Home Depot as overweight Morgan Stanley said it's bullish on the company's long-term growth outlook.

Persons: McDonald's, it's, Morgan Stanley downgrades Bill.com, Morgan Stanley, Wolfe, Tesla, Nomura, Evercore, Wedbush, it's bullish, Argus, Abercrombie, Jefferies Organizations: UBS, JPMorgan, JPMorgan Chase, Petrobras, CCL, Bank of America, of America, Intuit, Oracle, Disney, Auto, Citi, U.S . Bancorp Citi, U.S . Bancorp, Sentinel, AMD, Abercrombie, Fitch

☆ An investment strategist at a $939 billion firm shares the 4 asset classes investors should buy for big gains as the market shifts to a new normal — and why last market's losers will become the bigges
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Lisa Kailai Han | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

And the implications don't just stop there — Armstrong believes that "virtually all assets" will feel the pain. Opportunities also exist within fixed income and commoditiesWith equities taking the spotlight in the prior regime, fixed income may have slipped under the radar for many investors. But now, Armstrong believes that the way in which investors think about fixed income needs to change. "So history would tell you that now is a decent time to be allocating to high-quality fixed income." In an environment with sticky inflation, commodities would serve investors well as a good inflation hedge and portfolio diversifier.

Persons: Schroder's Bob Armstrong, Bob Armstrong, Armstrong, — Armstrong Organizations: US, outperformance, Commodities

☆ How Much Can a Water Filter Do?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Dana G. Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act, though, other water-monitoring issues have arisen. He gave the example of nitrate, an agricultural pollutant that’s present in the water supply in Des Moines. While the local water treatment plant takes steps to remove the contaminant, there are questions about whether the allowable levels could still cause health harms. In several of the recent crises, contamination occurred when lead leached into the water as it traveled through the distribution pipes. National regulations about the amount of lead permitted in pipes have been strengthened over the years, but many old water distribution systems have not been updated and contain unsafe levels.

☆ Nigeria's Tinubu gets his turn as president, familiar problems await
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Macdonald Dzirutwe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Buhari, a taciturn former military ruler, leaves Africa's biggest economy and most populous nation deeply divided. But what authorities promised would be the country's freest and fairest election yet ended in frustration for many. Buhari defends his record, saying new infrastructure such as roads, bridges and airports, and the protectionist policies have laid the foundations for future growth. Separatist and gang violence plague the southeast, and clashes between farmers and herders persist in hinterland states known as Nigeria's Middle Belt. A former Lagos state governor, Tinubu has promised to be a better steward of the economy.

SummarySummary Companies Tinubu succeeds former military leader BuhariNigeria divided after disputed electionAfrica's biggest economy faces headwindsInsecurity spread under BuhariABUJA, May 29 (Reuters) - Bola Tinubu was sworn in as Nigeria's president on Monday, facing mounting calls to improve economic and security conditions which many complain worsened under his predecessor Muhammadu Buhari. Tinubu, the former Lagos state governor and a member of Buhari's party, has promised to be a better steward of Africa's biggest economy and most populous nation. A raft of protectionist economic policies and foreign currency interventions have also spooked investors. Buhari defended his record on Sunday, saying new infrastructure such as roads, bridges and airports, and the protectionist policies have laid the foundations for future growth. Separatist and gang violence plague the southeast, and clashes between farmers and herders persist in hinterland states known as Nigeria's Middle Belt.

☆ Nigeria to commission Dangote refinery, crude supply a concern
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Macdonald Dzirutwe | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Despite being Africa's biggest oil producer, Nigeria imports petrol, diesel and processed petroleum products because its refineries were run down over the years. The refinery needs a constant supply of crude but Nigeria's oil production has been declining due to oil theft, vandalism of pipelines and underinvestment. Lower production would affect state-owned oil company NNPC Ltd's ability to fulfil an agreement to supply Dangote refinery with 300,000 bpd of crude, said economist Kelvin Emmanuel, who authored a report on oil theft last year. "There are risks with supply of crude oil feedstock. Energy Aspects, however, said in the long run, the Dangote refinery could end Nigeria's gasoline deficit, reshape the Atlantic basin gasoline market and export diesel that meets European Union specifications.

☆ Sick of sewage, Britons protest at water companies' pollution
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

To the beat of a drumming band and waving placards, the protestors called on Britain’s water companies to do more to prevent sewage discharges. "We are sick of this sewage and they need to take action," Izzy Ross, Surfers Against Sewage's campaign manager told Reuters. Public anger has been fuelled by the payment of dividends to investors and large salaries and bonuses to water industry executives. Campaigners say water companies are discharging much more often than they should, including when there has been no rain. On Thursday, Water UK, the trade body representing the UK water industry, apologised, said the public was right to be upset, and said more should have been done to address the issue of spillages sooner.

☆ Elon Musk's Tesla tunnels are a 'fake alternative' to solve traffic but if he made them for subways we'd all be better off, expert says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A journalist argues that Musk could use The Boring Company to make public transportation cheaper. This includes solving traffic by moving transportation underground through car tunnels or building a successful hyperloop. And Musk has often been explicit that traditional public transportation options, like subways, would not be a part of his vision. The Boring Company has also put its controversial hyperloop plans to the side. The Boring Company did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

☆ The Green Revolution Is Here. Which Big Miners Are Prepared?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Megha Mandavia | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Money is a sticking point in climate-change negotiations around the world. Illustration: Preston Jessee/WSJA decade of underinvestment and a dense thicket of permits are challenges that the world’s top miners need to tackle head on. Over the last six months mining firms have begun jostling to acquire copper assets. One major reason: The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, essentially a massive green industry policy bill, which passed last August. Copper supply now looks likely to fall far short of demand over the next decade—unless big new greenfield projects are brought online.

☆ Halliburton's first-quarter results validate our reasons for owning the stock
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

In addition to its top-and-bottom line beats, Halliburton also posted better-than-anticipated operating margin and operating cash flow. Halliburton's free cash flow disappointed. As a reminder, in January, Halliburton announced a new framework to return at least 50% of annual free cash flow via dividends and buybacks going forward. Halliburton's free cash flow came in at negative $105 million in three months ended March 31, compared with estimates of positive $134 million. It's important to remember the weakness is largely due to normal seasonal trends, a dynamic also impacting Halliburton rival SLB, which last week reported negative first-quarter free cash flow, too.

☆ Biden to sign executive order on 'environmental justice'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order on Friday directing federal agencies to put more focus on environmental polices that do harm to communities, according to the White House. The order will establish a new Office of Environmental Justice within the White House aimed at coordinating efforts across the government. It would also require federal agencies to notify communities if toxic substances are released from a federal facility. Biden will announce the initiative during an event at the White House Rose Garden on Friday. His vice president, Kamala Harris, plans to visit Miami on Friday, a White House official said, to announce a $562 million investment in helping communities become more resilient to climate change.

☆ UK growth hinges on more than a new pension giant
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Francesco Guerrera | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Politicians and financiers think a consolidation of the country’s pension funds would breathe new life into its stocks, startups and infrastructure. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that UK defined-benefit pension funds, company-sponsored plans that promise a specific payment upon retirement, have moved away from UK equities. The proposals also entail creating a 100 billion pound pension fund, modelled on the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, a retirement giant with $536 billion assets under management. Overall, some 19% of these funds’ assets are in UK stocks, according to the Pensions Policy Institute. If UK assets can yield the risk-adjusted returns offered by other assets, pension funds will join in too.

☆ South Africa targets $111 billion investment goal in tough investor climate
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa looks on as he delivers the opening address at the 5th Investment Conference to showcase opportunities available in the country to local and international companies, in Sandton, South Africa, April 13, 2023. Jairus Mmutle/Government Communication Information System (GCIS)/Handout via REUTERSJOHANNESBURG, April 13 (Reuters) - South Africa needs to urgently fix energy, transport and security challenges if it is to reverse souring investor sentiment, executives said on Thursday as President Cyril Ramaphosa targets 2 trillion rand ($111 billion) in new investments over the next five years. "The way we see it for the future of South Africa, international investment is so important and these challenges make it difficult for us to position the potential of South Africa as an attractive investment destination while there is uncertainty on when reforms will be implemented," Brown said. South Africa has experienced its worst power cuts on record, leaving businesses and households in the dark for up to 10 hours daily. The South African Reserve Bank estimates these blackouts have shaved off at least 2 percentage points from growth.

☆ Here are the 6 stocks we traded at the start of the second quarter — and why
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Paulina Likos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

But the first week of trading of the second quarter got off to a rocky start, forcing us to recalibrate our approach to the market. But as the week progressed, stocks came under pressure amid signs the labor market is softening, fueling fresh investor fears of a recession. That prompted many investors to dump technology stocks in favor of defensive sectors like health care and consumer staples. We plan to stick with these three oil stocks, given energy prices are likely to move even higher amid ongoing geopolitical turmoil. Thursday We ended the trading week by purchasing this automation-focused industrial giant on weakness.

☆ BHP's exploration accelerator to open to uranium, lithium finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SINGAPORE, April 5 (Reuters) - BHP Group's (BHP.AX) programme to support promising minerals explorers will expand beyond copper and nickel to prospective uranium and lithium projects from September, the head of its Xplor program said on Wednesday. For its second year, the programme wants to receive double the number of applications at 500 from the first year as it opens up to more commodities, said Sonia Scarselli, vice president of BHP Xplor. "We will be looking not just at copper and nickel, but at uranium and lithium and so on," Scarselli told a commodities conference in Singapore. Scarselli told Reuters last month BHP saw lithium's demand-supply equation as not as fundamentally stretched as that for copper and nickel. The miner, which produces uranium as a byproduct at its Olympic Dam copper operations in South Australia, has become more vocal about the role of uranium in a new energy world.

☆ Germany's military gaps cannot be fully bridged by 2030, defence minister
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BERLIN, April 1 (Reuters) - Germany's military cannot completely fill its existing gaps by 2030, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was quoted as saying, as Berlin seeks to revamp its armed forces after Russia's invasion of Ukraine following decades of neglect. "We all know that the existing gaps cannot be completely closed by 2030... Everyone is aware of that," Pistorius said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper published on Saturday. As federal defence minister, I cannot give everything away," he said. "If that is then set in motion at the end of the (legislative) period, then I would be satisfied," he added.

☆ Another cultish cost-saving formula gets off-track
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

Despite its multiple interpretations and approaches, success is widely gauged by a railway’s operating ratio, a simple measure of how much it spends to make a buck. Union Pacific’s peers improved similarly, indicative of the antiquated ways the industry had been deploying resources. Union Pacific also found itself unable to bring back enough furloughed workers in areas where they were most needed. “In a significant departure from the railroad industry's recent past, we deliberately moved away from a singular focus on operating ratio,” he told lawmakers. “If we wanted to drive [operating ratio] lower over time, we could,” the board wrote in a letter to shareholders in late 2021.

☆ Big Oil Eyes New Deals in North Africa Amid Rising Energy Demand
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Chao Deng | Benoit Faucon | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

North Africa’s massive oil-and-gas reserves and its proximity to Europe make it an attractive alternative energy supplier to Russia. CAIRO—After years of underinvestment in North Africa’s energy infrastructure, global oil-and-gas giants from Halliburton Co. and Chevron Corp. to Eni SpA are ramping up their presence in the region as demand from Europe grows. Executives in the industry are betting it is worth drilling again in some of the hardest places to do business in the world as Europe increasingly turns to other sources for its energy needs after shunning its main supplier, Russia, over the invasion of Ukraine. In recent months, a string of European officials have visited the region to help advance talks over potential supply deals.

☆ This could be Big Oil's last surge
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The era of Big Oil could end sooner than its massive profits suggest, analysts told Insider. But the worst-case scenario for the environment — that oil and gas companies reinvest all their extra money to keep growing — isn't happening, Logan said. The role of oil and gas companies in the energy transition is an ongoing debate, analysts told Insider. The UK company cited the need for an "orderly" energy transition. And while Big Oil's finances may begin to show some cracks over the next decade, he doesn't expect them to "suffer financially" for another 25 to 35 years.

We're buying 50 shares of Emerson Electric (EMR) at roughly $80.54 and 130 shares of Halliburton (HAL) at roughly $30.20. In essence, the Oscillator measures the buying or selling pressure in the market at the current point in time. EMR YTD mountain Emerson Electric (EMR) YTD performance Emerson's stock decline has made its valuation favorable too. HAL YTD mountain Halliburton (HAL) YTD performance We understand the narrative, but the industry is still catching up from years of underinvestment and if producers want to be capital efficient, then they need to use Halliburton's technology. With HAL shares down about 28% since we sold 375 shares in mid-January, we are upgrading our rating back to a 1.

☆ Oil plunge is bad for energy stocks but actually good for other areas of our portfolio
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The extent of the decline in West Texas Intermediate crude — down 5.5% to under $67 per barrel — seems overdone in an energy market that remains structurally undersupplied. Bad for energy stocks For now, we're holding onto our three oil exploration and production (E & P) stocks — Coterra Energy (CTRA), Devon Energy (DVN) and Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) — because their breakeven levels are around $40 per barrel. The big question is whether the federal government will make good on its signals to replenish the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) at WTI prices below $70 per barrel. In turn, higher energy costs eat into discretionary spending budgets. Now, with energy costs coming down, we would expect these input costs to subside a bit.

Since the crash, rail workers have staged rolling strikes demanding that the government takes action to revamp the sector. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov 1 2 3 4 5PUBLIC OUTRAGEPeople laid flowers and candles at the Athens central train station. "We want safe railways that operate," the head of a railway workers union Nikos Tsikalakis told state television. "We will not allow a lack of transparency, a cover-up, a renunciation of responsibilities and any delays to lead to oblivion," private sector union GSEE said in a statement. "The culprits must pay regardless of their rank," read a poster by public sector union ADEDY.

The profits follow similar reports in February from international peers BP, Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron which have mostly posted record profits for last year. Aramco's capital expenditure rose 18% to $37.6 billion in 2022 and the company said it expects this year's spending to be around $45.0 billion to $55.0 billion including external investments. Aramco declared a dividend of $19.5 billion for the fourth quarter, an increase of 4% from the previous quarter. Free cash flow reached a record of $148.5 billion in 2022, compared to $107.5 billion in 2021. Prices cooled rapidly in the second half of 2022 as central banks hiked interest rates and fanned worries of recession.

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