Aurelia Butler

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MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) -OPEC stuck to its forecast for relatively strong growth in global oil demand in 2024 and next year, saying on Wednesday that resilient economic growth and strong air travel would support fuel use in the summer months.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, in a monthly report, said world oil demand would rise by 2.25 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024 and by 1.85 million bpd in 2025. Both forecasts were unchanged from last month.”Expected strong mobility and air travel in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer driving/holiday season is anticipated to bolster demand for transportation fuels and drive growth in the United States,” OPEC said in the report. Forecasters have been split more widely than usual on the strength of oil demand growth, partly due to differences over the pace of the world’s transition to cleaner fuels. Earlier on Wednesday, BP (NYSE:BP) said oil demand would peak next year.OPEC+, which groups OPEC and allies such as Russia, has implemented a series of output cuts since late 2022 to support the market. The group agreed on June 2 to extend the latest cut of 2.2 million bpd until the end of September and gradually phase it out from October.OPEC also raised its forecast for world economic growth this year to 2.9% from 2.8%, and said there was potential upside to that number, citing momentum seen this year outside developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”Economic growth momentum in major economies remained resilient in the first half. This trend supports an overall positive growth trajectory in the near term,” OPEC said.Oil was steady after the OPEC report was released, with Brent crude trading below $85 a barrel. More

(Reuters) – Wall Street looked set to open higher on Wednesday as strength in shares of its biggest companies fuels a record rally, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks and crucial inflation data expected to offer more direction this week.AI-chip favorite Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) jumped 2.1% in premarket trading after hitting a nearly three-week high in the previous session. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), too, gained 0.3% after HSBC hiked its price target on the EV maker’s stock, which clocked its longest winning streak of 10 sessions this year on Tuesday.The rest of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” stocks, including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), rose between 0.3% and 0.5%, as U.S. Treasury yields slipped. A handful of large-cap stocks has been the main force behind Wall Street’s banner rally this year, raising questions about when other sections of the market could catch up and leading some market watchers to call for greater diversification. Other chip stocks including Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) and Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) gained over 1.1% each, with the U.S. listing of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, climbing 2.5% after its second-quarter revenue handily beat estimates.The benchmark S&P 500 closed at an all-time high for the fifth straight session on Tuesday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq notched its sixth record closing high, after hopes for an interest-rate cut in September received a boost from Jerome Powell, who said the U.S. was “no longer an overheated economy”. However, as expected, Powell refrained from committing to a timeline for cuts in his testimony to Congress. He is slated to appear before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m. ET for further questioning from lawmakers. “Powell came in a little bit more dovish than we expected… he’s purposely trying to signal to markets that if there is a good inflation print this week, that September is back on the table as a possibility for a rate cut,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. Bets on a 25-basis-point rate cut by September ticked up to 74% on Wednesday, up from around 70% yesterday and 45% a month ago, according to CME’s FedWatch. Comments from Fed officials Austan Goolsbee, Michelle Bowman and Lisa Cook are also expected through the day.Attention will now shift to U.S. inflation data this week, with the Consumer Price Index due on Thursday and the Producer Price Index report on Friday. The second-quarter earnings season, which kicks off this week with major banks due to report on Friday, will be a key test for whether high-flying megacaps can justify expensive valuations and continue their strong runs. At 8:40 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 20 points, or 0.05%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 14.25 points, or 0.25%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 83 points, or 0.40%.Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company gained 1.6% after a report that Japan’s Yokohama Rubber was in talks to buy its off-road tire business for at least $1 billion.Gene-sequencing equipment maker Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) jumped 3.6% on plans to acquire privately held Fluent (NASDAQ:FLNT) BioSciences. More

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will testify in front of a House committee on Wednesday for the second day of his semi-annual monetary policy report.In his Tuesday remarks, while wanting to avoid sending rate timing signals, Powell stated that it is “no longer an overheated economy,” and the job market has cooled, suggesting the case for interest rate cuts is strengthening. Powell said the labor market is “not a source of broad inflationary pressures for the economy now.” However, he highlighted that “if the labor market weakens unexpectedly, that could be a case for loosening policy.””Labor market conditions have cooled considerably compared to where they were two years ago,” and the labor market appears to be fully back in balance, accordng to Powell.Overall, when assessing potential rate cuts, the Federal Reserve Chair said they want to see “more good inflation data” but noted the “two-sided risk.” Powell said that if they loosen policy too late or too little, it could hurt economic activity. On the other hand, if they loosen policy too much or too soon, then it could undermine the progress on inflation.Ahead of the second day of testimony, investors will again be closely watching his answers for any further clues on the policy outlook and any further details on the answers provided on day one. More

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Germany’s real estate industry, already in its third year of turmoil, faces more pain ahead as further companies go bust, the CEO of Germany’s largest landlord warned. The bleak assessment from Rolf Buch, the CEO of Vonovia and one of the nation’s property titans, defies hopes for an imminent turnaround as the sector goes through its worst crisis in a generation.”We’re going to see an extreme number of bankruptcies over the next few months, maybe over the next few years. We’re already seeing them today,” Buch told journalists on Tuesday.”It is going to be bitter.” For years, low interest rates and a strong economy sustained a boom across the German property sector, which broadly contributes 730 billion euros ($789.64 billion) a year to the nation’s economy, or roughly a fifth of Germany’s output. That boom ended when rampant inflation forced the European Central Bank to swiftly raise borrowing costs. Real-estate financing dried up, deals fizzled, projects stalled, major developers went bust, and some banks teetered. The industry has called on Berlin to intervene.Buch built Vonovia through a series of multi-billion-euro takeovers, building up a debt mountain as the property crisis struck, forcing it to sell swathes of homes. In its wake, Vonovia, which has roughly 550,000 apartments, slashed the value of its properties by almost 11 billion euros in 2023, taking the group to a 6.7-billion-euro loss, its worst ever. It has cut the value of its property by more than one fifth, stripping out rent increases, since 2022, when interest rates started to climb, knocking prices.Buch said Vonovia was now finished with big writedowns, although said there could be further small adjustments.ECB RATE CUTA recent rate cut by the ECB has sparked hopes of a revival of the sector, but some executives are still cautious.”Whether or not the ECB changes interest rates marginally will not reverse the trend for property,” said Matthias Danne, board member at Deka, one of Germany’s largest asset managers with 55 billion euros in property investments. Elevated rates will keep financing expensive, and a rebound in building sales has been “slower coming than expected”, Danne told Reuters.Germany is the largest real estate investment market on the European continent. The turnover of buildings through sales that often characterises a healthy market slowed to a halt and is only gradually picking up.Jones Lang LaSalle, the global real estate consultant, this week disclosed that transaction volumes across Europe’s largest economy rose 10% during the first half of 2024 from last year’s low level.Offices have been particularly hard hit, and the German bank LBBW said in a report on Wednesday that low turnover in transactions points to a risk that “distressed sales are on the back burner and could flood the market later”.The spectacular collapse of Signa, the real estate empire of Rene Benko, has been one of the most dramatic episodes underscoring the industry’s troubles. But weakness in commercial real estate in the United States, with offices still empty after the pandemic, and the struggles of major property developers in China have focused global attention on the sector.The drumbeat of bad news is continuing in Europe. Last month, a Frankfurt skyscraper that is home to Germany’s central bank and asset manager Deka filed for insolvency. The Apollo-owned property company Demire has revealed it is in talks with investors about restructuring 500 million euros in bonds. It has also said it has been struggling to agree with a bank on a loan. Demire and the bank, DZ HYP, declined to comment.Rents have been climbing steeply as immigrants flock to Germany, foreigners seek work there and house building ground to a virtual halt, squeezing the supply of homes.Vonovia targets mid- and low-income earners with affordable rents, and Buch said there was fierce competition for flats.”The market for apartments is going to get worse,” he said.($1 = 0.9245 euros) More