Aurelia Butler

Price caps on Russian seaborne crude as well as refined petroleum products were set by G7 countries to curb Moscow’s revenues from oil trade and in this way limit the country’s ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine.”Measures that target revenues from the export of oil are crucial since they reduce Russia’s single most important income source,” Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia said in a letter to the EU executive arm.”We believe now is the time to further increase the impact of our sanctions by lowering the G7 oil price cap,” it said. The G7 price cap was set at $60 per barrel of Russian crude and for petroleum products at a maximum of $100 per barrel of premium-to-crude products and $45 per barrel for discount-to-crude products. Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, said imposing and enforcing price caps were a critical factor in dealing with Russia.”There is a clear correlation between the price of energy carriers and the level of Russian belligerence,” Yermak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “The export of energy is the main source of war financing for the Kremlin. The higher the price of oil, the greater the number of weapons and aggressive intentions in Russia. The lower the price of oil is, the closer peace will be.”The price cap maximum prices have not changed since December 2022 and February 2023 when they were introduced while Russian crude prices on the market were below that level on average in 2023 and 2024.”The international oil market is better supplied today than in 2022, reducing the risk a lower price cap will cause a supply shock,” the letter of the six countries said.”In view of limited storage capacity and its outsized dependence on energy exports for revenue Russia has no alternative to continue oil exports even at a substantially lower price,” the letter said. More

DUBAI (Reuters) -Cryptocurrency firm Tether plans to move its headquarters to El Salvador, its chief executive said, as the founders of the world’s biggest stablecoin look to capitalize on the Central American country’s bid to become a hub for crypto trading.Tether has emerged as a dominant force in the booming market for stablecoins, which are designed to maintain a constant value by being pegged to traditional currencies and offer users a way to move money between cryptocurrencies without exposure to price swings.CEO Paolo Ardoino told Reuters that Tether would relocate to El Salvador after the cryptocurrency recently obtained a license there as a digital asset service provider. Ardoino and his fellow managers and cofounders of Tether will also move their residences to El Salvador, he said. Previously, the company was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.”This move to El Salvador will be the first time we’re going to have also a physical headquarters,” he said. But not all of the company’s 100-plus employees will move there, he said, adding that many of the staff work remotely.The company plans to hire 100 Salvadorans over the next several years, he said.The booming market for stablecoins has worried regulators concerned that growing stablecoin reserves expose the broader financial system to bigger risks, because they act as a bridge between the crypto universe and mainstream financial markets.Tether has faced questions around its reserves and does not fully disclose where they are held or in what form. The firm says the vast majority of its stablecoin is backed by traditional currency reserves held with Wall Street brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald, whose CEO, Howard Lutnick, has been nominated to head the U.S. Commerce Department under President-elect Donald Trump. “So we have some liquidity on other banks, but the vast, vast majority of the T-Bills are in Cantor,” Ardoino said. BOOSTING MONITORING OF TOKENSThe company said last year it was increasing monitoring of how its tokens are used to combat illicit finance.Asked whether Tether had considered alternative locations for its headquarters, Ardoino said it lacked a license to operate in the European Union and had ruled out the United States for now. It was “quite premature” to predict possible changes that might be implemented under Trump, he said. Trump’s victory in the November U.S. election sparked a record rise in cryptocurrency prices. The Republican has vowed to introduce a friendlier regulatory environment for crypto and said he planned to create a U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve.El Salvador is seeking to become a hub for digital currency trading, and three years ago President Nayib Bukele made it the first country to establish bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the dollar.”Welcome home,” Bukele wrote on social media platform X in response to Tether’s announcement. In a separate post on Monday, Bukele asked the CEO of Rumble, Chris Pavlovski, to consider moving the headquarters of the video-sharing platform to El Salvador. Days earlier, the company announced a cloud services agreement with Bukele’s government.Tether’s eponymous dollar-pegged token (USDT) accounts for roughly two-thirds of the $212 billion worth of stablecoins in circulation, according to CoinGecko data. The overall market has grown around 45% over the last year, the data shows. More

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Women hold 10 of the 24 leadership positions at Fed bank boards, the same number as last year, a Reuters review of those named this year shows. Eleven of the chairs and deputy chairs appointed this year identify as Black, Hispanic, or otherwise non-white, down from 14 last year. More broadly, however, of the 108 spots on the 12 Fed bank boards, 43% are filled by women, up from 39% last year. Some 39% are held by people of color, up from 37% last year.The Washington-based Fed Board, which picks chairs and deputy chairs and has at least some influence over the majority of the other choices, has spent years trying to bring in more women and people of color to be Fed bank directors, a group that as recently as 2018 were majority white and male. Directors do not set monetary policy themselves but they regularly share their perspectives on the economy and credit conditions with Fed bank presidents, who say that diversity of views leads to better policymaking in part because it makes them less likely to overlook key corners of the $23 trillion U.S. economy. A report published by the Manhattan Institute last year argued that the Fed has tried to “overcorrect” for its previous lack of racial and gender diversity, and should pay more attention to other forms of representation, including more balance along the partisan political divide. U.S. central bankers say politics do not and should not enter their monetary policymaking process.  More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. A sea of red across most equity markets and no end in sight to the rise in the dollar and U.S. bond yields is the backdrop to what is likely to be another nervy session in Asia on Tuesday. As if that wasn’t reason enough for investors to keep their guard up, U.S. CPI inflation data will be released the following day, when the fourth quarter U.S. earnings season kicks off too. The S&P 500’s fall on Monday at one point wiped out all the index’s post-U.S. election gains. Although it managed to close off those lows, there is no doubt that high and rising U.S. bond yields continue to weigh heavily on wider equity market sentiment. The global backdrop isn’t helping either, amid swirling trade tensions and uncertainty surrounding the new incoming U.S. administration ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration next week.On that front, the Biden administration’s announcement on Monday of new U.S. export restrictions on artificial intelligence chips will only deepen the unease. The new regulations, among the toughest yet from Washington and designed to limit the global distribution of these coveted processors, could deal a significant blow to the earnings of AI and tech firms, including Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA). The dollar on Monday rose to a fresh 26-month high, a further tightening of financial conditions that will be felt in domestic U.S. markets but especially in overseas asset prices.Analysts at Goldman Sachs on Friday raised their dollar forecasts to include the euro falling below parity with the dollar within the next three to six months. With the euro slipping below $1.02 on Monday it wouldn’t be a shock if the parity break comes in the next six weeks. The dollar has started the week on a strong footing. It has risen 14 out of the last 15 weeks, a remarkable run that has seen it appreciate 10% against its major G10 rivals. Emerging and Asian economies continue to feel the squeeze from dollar and Treasury yields. Tuesday’s calendar in Asia is light, with Australian consumer confidence, Indian factory gate inflation figures and the latest Japanese trade and current account numbers the main events. Japan’s yen remains under heavy selling pressure around 158 per dollar, close to the 160/dollar area that has previously prompted yen-buying intervention from Japanese authorities. Policy decisions in Indonesia and South Korea, and a raft of Chinese economic indicators, should be the local catalysts for more market fireworks later in the week.The annual Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong continues. Speakers on Tuesday include the chairman of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), the managing director of China International Capital Corporation Limited, and CIOs at several major global investment funds.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Tuesday:- Japan trade, current account (November)- India wholesale price inflation (December)- Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Himino Ryozo speaks More

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top Republicans in the U.S. Congress are considering imposing conditions on disaster aid to Los Angeles communities devastated by wildfires, after President-elect Donald Trump claimed that state and local officials had mishandled the situation. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Monday that leading officials in the Democratic-led state mismanaged water resources and forests in the Los Angeles area before six simultaneous blazes tore across the second-largest U.S. city, claiming the lives of at least 24 people.    “It appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects. So that’s something that has to be factored in,” Johnson told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. “There should probably be conditions on that aid. That’s my personal view. We’ll see what the consensus is,” he said.House Republicans have not yet discussed disaster aid to sections of California stricken by fire, Johnson said. The lawmakers were due to meet behind closed doors early on Tuesday.With Trump due to take office in less than a week, Republican control of both the House and Senate gives the party full control over spending, including the form and volume of disaster relief.  The president-elect took aim at the largely Democratic leaders of California and Los Angeles as “incompetent pols” over the weekend in a social media post about the wildfires that claimed “they have no idea out to put them out.”  No. 2 Senate Republican John Barrasso on Sunday told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he expected to see “strings attached to money that is ultimately approved, and it has to do with being ready the next time, because this was a gross failure this time.”Johnson said House Republicans are also discussing the possibility of tying California aid to efforts to raise the limit on more than $36 trillion in U.S. debt. One hurdle facing disaster aid in Congress is an energized hardline conservative bloc that seeks offsets for any new spending.Last month, the Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-led Senate approved more than $100 billion in new emergency funding to help states including North Carolina and Florida recover from devastating hurricanes.Though many of the aid recipients live in Republican areas, some party members in both chambers pressed unsuccessfully to limit the aid as little as $40 billion.While California is heavily Democratic, with the party holding both the governorship and two U.S. Senate seats, it was the site of several closely contested U.S. House, where Democrats succeeded in holding onto closely-fought seats. The state could play a critical role in determining House control once more in the 2026 midterm elections. More