Aurelia Butler

(Reuters) – Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) on Wednesday surpassed Wall Street estimates for first-quarter revenue, as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes boosted the online brokerage’s interest income. Shares of the company, which was at the center of 2021’s retail trading frenzy, pared gains and were last up 2% in volatile extended trading after Robinhood also said it will launch 24-hour trading for five days a week. Fed’s aggressive monetary tightening to curb stubborn inflation helped Robinhood partially offset a slump in its mainstay retail trading arm, which saw customer engagement dwindle over the past year amid market volatility.Loss in the first quarter ended March 31 was 57 cents per share, below analysts’ average estimate of a loss of 61 cents, per Refinitiv data. “The current rising interest rate environment has been a significant tailwind,” said Andrew McGee, analyst at global research firm Third Bridge.Net interest revenue nearly quadrupled to $208 million from a year earlier for Robinhood, which allows eligible customers to borrow money to purchase securities for a interest. Graphic: Higher rates support Robinhood’s revenue growth https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ROBINHOOD-RESULTS/xmpjkxlzevr/chart.png On a call with analysts, Robinhood executives said the company was “making some progress on discussions” to purchase most or all the shares, about 7.42%, that were acquired by Sam Bankman-Fried’s Emergent Fidelity Technology last year, using borrowed funds.Robinhood had announced plans to repurchase the shares, in February but ownership of the stock has remained in flux amid multiple legal hurdles.DECLINE IN USERSIn the face of a turbulent economy, first-quarter monthly active users for Robinhood decreased to 11.8 million from 15.9 million a year earlier. Transaction-based revenue also declined 5% to $207 million as trading volumes tempered. Chief Financial Officer Jason Warnick said that while active users declined from last year, the number has “stabilized a bit” compared to the previous quarter. The company reported revenue of $441 million, beating analysts’ average estimate of $424.53 million. More

HOUSTON (Reuters) -Occidental Petroleum Corp on Wednesday said it will distribute any excess cash from high oil prices to shareholders instead of funding direct air capture (DAC) plants.The U.S. oil producer has the most ambitious plan in the industry to bring to scale a decarbonization technology that removes carbon dioxide from the air and buries it underground. It is building its first large scale DAC plant in Texas. It is, however, lacking external funding to fulfill its plan to build more than 100 DAC units, starting with the second plant. “We intend to continue allocating excess free cash flow towards share repurchases,” CEO Vicki Hollub said in a webcast to discuss the company’s first-quarter results. The pace of the buyback program, including payments to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) Inc, a key stockholder, could be accelerated if annualized oil prices stay above $75 per barrel, the company said.Occidental (NYSE:OXY) will limit capital spending in low carbon initiatives this year to $600 million, the CEO said, and is in talks with a potential partner to fund DAC plants.”We are having some really good conversations with a preferred partner that could materialize maybe sometime this year” or next year, Hollub said. “So we do expect to get some funding”.In the first quarter, Occidental began retiring some of the $10 billion of preferred stock it sold Berkshire to help fund the acquisition of Anadarko operations four years ago.  The move saves Occidental some of the $800 million of annual dividends it had been paying Berkshire. Buffett’s company also owns 23.7% of Occidental’s common stock. The billionaire said on Saturday that Berkshire was not planning to seek control of Occidental.Oxy shares fell more than 3.6% on Wednesday to $56.65, trading close to a 52-week low, with the company anticipating that production should reach the lowest point for the year in the second quarter due to scheduled maintenances stoppages.Occidental on Tuesday reported adjusted income of $1.1 billion, missing analysts estimates amid a 20% decline in oil prices from a year ago. Results were primarily impacted by the timing of crude oil sales in the quarter, the company said. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. congressional leaders on Wednesday put off debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, an annual bill setting policy for the Pentagon, as the must-pass legislation got caught up in debate over raising the country’s borrowing limit.House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittees had been scheduled to begin debate this week on the closely watched NDAA, which determines how the military spends its nearly-trillion-dollar annual budget. But it was put off at least temporarily as lawmakers and the White House hold talks on raising the government’s $31.4 trillion debt.House Republicans passed a bill last month, with no support from Democrats, that would raise the debt ceiling only in exchange for sweeping spending cuts, including sharp reductions in “discretionary” spending on social programs.Democrats criticized the bill and said it would not be considered in the Senate, where their party controls a majority of seats.At the same time, Republicans have been pushing for an increase in defense spending, which exceeded $850 billion in the NDAA that passed last year, drawing criticism from Democrats.”You cannot increase the defense budget while refusing to take the steps necessary to actually raise the debt ceiling, and while proposing to make massive cuts to the discretionary budget,” Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services committee, said in a statement. Congress has passed the NDAA every year since 1961. Because it is one of the few major pieces of legislation that becomes law every year, the NDAA is closely watched because it determines everything from purchases of ships and aircraft to how to address geopolitical threats. More

Good morning. Today we’re kicking off with a big scoop: more than $1bn of EU exports targeted by sanctions have disappeared in transit to Russia’s economic partners. Western officials believe the flow of “ghost trade” has helped prop up Vladimir Putin’s wartime economy. Public data analysed by the Financial Times found that only about half of a $2bn sample of controlled “dual use” items shipped from the EU actually reached their stated destinations in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. These goods, which are deemed by the EU to have potential uses for military or intelligence services and are subject to export controls, may have entered Russia directly from the EU under the pretence that they were only passing through. The items were dispatched in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when sensitive EU trade with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia — three ex-Soviet states now in an economic union with Russia — surged to unprecedented levels.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:G7 meeting: Finance ministers and central bank governors will gather in Niigata, Japan.China inflation: April consumer price index and producer price index rate is set to be released. Bank of England: The central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee holds its rate-setting meeting Join us today for our final day at the Future of the Car summit to get an objective analysis of the industry’s toughest challenges from visionary CEOs and thinkers. Register here.Five more top stories1. Audits carried out by the Chinese arms of KPMG and PwC contained an “unacceptable” number of flaws, US inspectors said yesterday, following the first examinations by an accountancy watchdog established under new agreement with Beijing. Here are the issues that were identified.Related read: Volkswagen investors demanded an independent audit into the German carmaker’s plant in Xinjiang territory as executives faced human rights and climate protesters at a turbulent annual meeting.2. Google has launched a revamped, AI-powered search engine, as it rushes to make up lost ground in the race to bring powerful new language models to the internet search business. Read more on the capabilities of the latest AI launches.3. Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala is nearing a deal to buy SoftBank Group-owned asset manager Fortress Investment Group. Months-long talks have reached a late stage, with the parties close to a deal for as much as $3bn, sources say. Here’s what else we know about the discussions.4. Singapore banks have reported falling wealth management fees despite posting record inflows of money and earnings, as a recent influx of wealthy individuals including Chinese family offices hold back from investing in capital markets. While wealth management fees have fallen, the banks have posted higher than expected profits.5. Imran Khan can be held by an anti-corruption agency for eight days, a court ruled yesterday, as two Pakistan provinces called in the military to maintain order a day after his arrest sparked violent protests. Khan’s party is the favourite to win October’s elections, but the former prime minister faces a barrage of legal challenges.The Big Read

Workers cut and polish diamonds at workshops in Surat City in Gujarat, India © Karen Dias/FT

Russia’s rough diamond exports were worth just $4bn in 2021, a fraction of its crude oil exports. But this month, G7 officials are expected to target Russian diamond sales in their nations in a bid to squeeze Moscow’s access to finance and — they hope — impede the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.We’re also reading . . . Preventing turmoil: While conditions have stabilised, more must be done to stop a third phase of bank tremors, writes Mohamed El-Erian.Defence start-ups: The war in Ukraine has triggered a shake-up of the arms trade as smaller, tech-led companies encroach on established incumbents. The future of law: Students and early-career attorneys are increasingly looking past the biggest global law firms. The results of a new survey explain why.Chart of the day

Airlines are betting on a new era of luxury travel as high-spending holidaymakers spearhead a boom in first-class and business-class flight bookings. Travel in first and business-class cabins has recovered faster than total passenger traffic, according to global airlines body Iata.Take a break from the news

© Patricia Niven

A chicken and freekeh tray bake is absolutely delicious and hard to get wrong. The celebratory spring dish is the perfect way to bridge the gap between the end of winter and the start of summer. It is also the perfect grainy side, with a grassy, smoky taste and knobbly bite. Get the recipe.Additional contributions by Gordon Smith and Tee Zhuo More