Aurelia Butler

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Ingka Group, the owner of most IKEA stores, sees demand in Europe to continue rising in the current fiscal year, driven by strong demand for home furnishings that has outlasted coronavirus lockdowns, the company’s CEO said.”We are right now optimistic that this would be a good year for us … we predict growth for this year,” Jesper Brodin said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos.Interest in life-at-home products, a segment which saw an increased interest during the pandemic as people spent more time in their houses during lockdowns and working from home, has sustained, Brodin told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.”Interest continues to be high. We see that in the numbers of visitations in our web, in our stores and also in our sales number,” Brodin said.”It seems to me that there is a longer effect of the pandemic,” he said. “We see of course the continuous trend that people are investing in their home office.”Ingka Group, the main franchisee to brand owner Inter IKEA, which is in charge of supply, increased prices last year to offset higher input costs, counter soaring inflation and supply chain disruptions, and to compensate for its wind-down in Russia.”While prices were increased last year, IKEA has started investing in decreasing prices of certain products this fiscal year,” Brodin said.Brodin said the business faced multiple risks from geopolitical tension, technological disruptions and climate change.He said the company was investing in renewable energy and electric vehicles as well as looking at the raw materials it uses. “We want to make ourselves climate proof. We want our business to be long-term resilient,” he said. More

LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar was heading for its biggest one-day rally against the yen in two weeks on Friday, after the Bank of Japan governor reiterated there would be no change in the central bank’s handling of monetary policy.The dollar was already up on the day against a basket of currencies, as a slew of data this week from consumer spending to business activity and inflation across major economies highlighted an increasingly fragile outlook for growth.The U.S. currency has lost about 1.3% so far in January, having fallen nearly 8% in the final three months of 2022, when investors began factoring in a higher chance of the Federal Reserve slowing down the pace of interest-rate rises.The Japanese yen bore the brunt of the dollar’s strength. The dollar rose by as much as 1.21% to a high of 129.965 – its largest one-day gain since Jan. 4. The yen, which investors have long favoured as a safe-haven and a funding currency, has had a volatile few weeks.BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who was addressing the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos on Friday, said the central bank will continue its current “extremely accommodative” monetary policy to achieve its 2% inflation target in a stable, sustainable manner.Speculators are betting that the BOJ, the last major central bank to still employ loose monetary policy, is edging towards a shift to a tighter stance. That has driven a rally in the yen that has pushed the dollar/yen currency pair down by 14% in the past three months.Data on Friday showed Japan’s core consumer prices in December rose 4.0% from a year earlier, double the BOJ’s target. “Japan now has an inflation problem that it hasn’t had in nearly 40 years,” CMC Markets chief strategist Michael Hewson said.”For me, the die is cast – dollar/yen will go lower and it’s a question of how quickly,” he said.The BOJ on Wednesday maintained its ultra-loose monetary policy, though investors had thought it could signal a change.A flurry of U.S. data on Thursday indicated the world’s biggest economy was slowing down after multiple rate increases by the Fed. Money markets show traders are preparing for an end to rate rises by the middle of this year.However, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, pointing to another month of solid job growth and continued labour market tightness.”Looking at the way the markets are going so far this year, they got off to storming start and at some point there was always going to be a bit of a pullback and we’re certainly seeing that now,” CMC’s Hewson said. With much top-tier data out of the way now, investors are waiting for the first Fed meeting of the year in early February.The central bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points (bps) in December after four straight 75 bps increases, and the market is eagerly anticipating another stepdown. ING economists said the intense scrutiny of U.S. growth means that the dollar remains vulnerable to data releases as markets keep scaling back Fed rate expectations. “The fact that the ongoing dovish repricing is not only a consequence of slowing inflation but also of a worsening economic outlook in the United States has exacerbated the negative implications for the dollar,” according to ING economists.Meanwhile, the euro held steady at $1.0829, while sterling fell 0.3% to $1.2352, after UK data showed a surprise drop in retail sales in December, as British shoppers bought less, but spent more. More

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Holcim (SIX:HOLN) expects the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to provide strong momentum for its business in North America which is outperforming other regions, the company’s head of Europe said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos.The world’s biggest cement maker expects its North American sales to represent half its business in the next few years, from around 40% currently, Miljan Gutovic told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.”I expect that Europe will be softer in comparison to the U.S., but with the latest Inflation Reduction Act we have, we believe that in the U.S., especially in the second-half, we will have a strong momentum.””To us this (North America) is still the most attractive market,” said Gutovic, who is also Holcim’s global head of decarbonisation.IRA, seen as the biggest climate package in U.S. history, aims to benefit decarbonisation efforts, cut greenhouse gas emissions and create major tax incentives for clean energy.Holcim has set itself sustainabilty goals and two years ago launched a low carbon range of products including cement. “We have cements now where there is up to 90% lower CO2 content versus traditional segment. These products are making momentum in the market,” Gutovic said.In addition the company has several decarbonisation efforts through carbon capture utilisation and storage projects under development. The Swiss company reported stronger than expected third-quarter results in October last year, recording a bumper performance in North America that offset a slight downturn in Europe. Gutovic expects continued softer volumes in Europe, but sees a recovery in its German and French businesses in the second half of 2023.He was also optimistic about the company’s Eastern European business as order books looked “healthy”.”To our surprise, in the neighboring countries of Ukraine we have not seen any significant drop in the volumes. In fact, we have seen strong performance in volumes in countries like Romania,” Gutovic said.Gutovic expects a similar level of activity in the company’s mergers and acquisitions this year as it sees more opportunities for consolidation.”When it comes to emerging markets, we will stay in some of them while the others, depending on what we see in the future, there might be some additional divestments, especially in Africa and some other parts of the world,” he said. More