Aurelia Butler

BOSTON (Reuters) – After scoring a landmark win at Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) over climate concerns last year, activist investor Engine No. 1 is broadening its sights to press companies on diversity and workforce issues in 2022.Michael O’Leary, who oversees investment stewardship at the San Francisco-based firm, said it will want more explanation from portfolio companies this spring about their obligations to employees as stakeholders, their workforce demographics, and other matters.”You saw the way something can go from being seen as a gadfly proposal to being truly understood as a core value-driver. Just as with climate, we expect to see that spread to other issues like the workforce, and racial diversity,” O’Leary said in an interview.Once considered immaterial, shareholder resolutions on environmental and social topics have drawn more support lately as investors focus on higher global temperatures and the national conversation about race.When three directors nominated by Engine No. 1 won board seats at Exxon last year the unprecedented win came through a traditional activist campaign.Now some of the engagement O’Leary described will come on behalf of Engine No. 1’s new exchange traded fund, Transform 500, which has $285 million of client cash after launching over the summer and invests in the 500 largest U.S. companies. While the amount is still minor by the scale of the investment industry, the new fund’s approach is part of a trend as asset managers emphasize how they can use proxy votes to press companies on environmental, social or corporate governance (ESG) issues. Another small fund, the Index Funds S&P 500 Equal Weight Fund, will eventually tie its votes to investor polls, said the fund’s lead manager, Michael Willis, which will likely lead to frequent critical votes as investors pay more attention to ESG topics.”Our sense is that individual investors who take the time to vote want to be heard and want to see change,” he said.O’Leary, a onetime Bain Capital social-impact investing leader, declined to discuss specific companies with which his firm has spoken so far about ESG issues, or if it might launch another proxy contest for director seats soon.Among the roughly 35 companies where the Transform 500 ETF cast proxy ballots since its launch, O’Leary said it backed nearly all of 14 or so shareholder proposals on environmental or social matters. He said the 90% support rate for such measures would likely continue into 2022.For instance, he said the fund voted in favor of a proposal at Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc to report on its diversity & inclusion efforts, a measure that passed with 57% support of votes cast.Tesla representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. More

The country’s second-largest IT services firm by revenue said it expects revenue growth of 19.5%-20% on a constant currency basis for the financial year to March, compared with the 16.5%-17.5% growth predicted in October.”We expect the healthy technology spend to continue with large enterprises progressing on their digital transformations,” Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh said in a statement.India’s $194-billion IT industry has been a big beneficiary from the pandemic spurring global companies to bolster investments in services ranging from cloud-computing, digital payment infrastructure to cybersecurity.Large deal signings for the third quarter were at $2.53 billion, a near 18% rise from the second, the company said. Crosstown rival Wipro (NYSE:WIT) earlier on Wednesday reported a 30% rise in revenue for the December quarter and a near flat net profit, while the country’s largest IT services firm, Tata Consultancy Services, is set to announce results later in the day.Bengaluru-based Infosys said consolidated net profit climbed to 58.09 billion Indian rupees ($786.06 million), from 51.97 billion rupees a year earlier.Revenue rose to 318.67 billion rupees, with the banking, financial services and insurance unit, which accounts for over a third of the total, posting a 16.85% growth in the quarter.The company’s shares climbed over 50% in 2021, outperforming an about 31% jump for larger rival TCS.($1 = 73.9000 Indian rupees) More

Investing.com — U.S. inflation is expected to have hit a 40-year high in December, testing the market’s newfound confidence that the economy can cope with a stiff tightening of monetary policy. China’s producer price inflation eases, giving the country’s central bank more scope to protect its real estate and financial sectors. Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) stock slumps after a blow to the revenue prospects for its Alzheimer’s drug, and the U.S. posted a record high number of Covid hospital admissions on Tuesday. There are also weekly data on U.S. oil stockpiles due. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Wednesday, 12th January. 1. Inflation, inflation, inflationU.S. inflation figures for December at 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT) will provide a stern test for a market that has rose for a second straight day after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell chose not to drop any fresh bombshells in the Senate at his re-confirmation hearing on Tuesday.Analysts expect the headline rate of consumer price inflation to hit 7.0% on the year, while the core CPI is expected to jump to 5.4% from 4.9% in November. The month-on-month headline and core rates, which will show a better picture of current dynamics, are expected to rise 0.4% and 0.5% respectively.  The usual caveat will apply to the figures: the CPI is not the inflation measure that the Fed attaches most importance to, and pandemic-related distortions of spending patterns and seasonal adjustments also argue against reading too much into the figures. However, a 40-year high is still a 40-year high, whichever way it’s cut.The phenomenon is by no means restricted to the U.S. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that inflation across the world’s advanced economies in general hit 5.8% in November.2. China’s central bank gets some relief from price pressure Anyone looking for signs of global inflation pressures easing can take comfort from China’s latest data, which showed consumer prices falling 0.3% in December and the annual rate of inflation falling to 1.5%. More importantly for global businesses and consumers, Chinese producer price inflation also eased to 10.3% on the year, clearly below forecasts for a more modest drop to 11.1%.The figures suggest that the People’s Bank of China will have the leeway it needs in order to loosen monetary policy further to relieve the strain on a struggling real estate sector. Such hopes boosted everything from Hong Kong tech shares to Iron ore prices in China overnight, the latter also being helped by severe weather-related production outages in Brazil.3. Stocks set to open mixed; Biogen in focusU.S. stocks are set to open in a holding pattern later after two days of gains, with the overnight session in futures held in thrall by the CPI numbers.By 6:20 AM ET, Dow Jones futures were up 42 points, or 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures were also up 0.1% and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.2%.Stocks likely to be in focus later include Biogen, which slumped some 10% in premarket after regulators said that Medicare coverage of its Alzheimer’s drug aduhelm will be limited to patients enrolled in clinical trials. That’s the latest twist in a saga that exploded in controversy last year when the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug over the objections of some of its own senior experts.Also in focus will be Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) stock, after the Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) owner appointed DoorDash (NYSE:DASH) CEO Tony Xu to its board to help advise on its expansion into e-commerce.4. U.S. Covid deaths rise to 3-month high; hospital admissions hit record highThe federal government will distribute free Covid-19 tests to schools in an effort to help them stay open, as the current wave of Omicron-variant disease exacts a high toll on teachers and students alike.Hospitalizations due to Covid-19 in the U.S. leaped on Tuesday to their highest ever, a sharp setback for those who hoped that the reduced general severity of illness caused by Omicron would enable the economy to ride out the latest wave of infection smoothly. The number of Covid-related deaths in the U.S. also hit its highest since October.Elsewhere, Quebec unveiled arguably the most radical policy to coerce people into getting vaccinated yet, saying it would impose a new tax on unvaccinated people. China, meanwhile, continued to tighten mobility restrictions, chiefly on air routes in and out of the country.5. Oil pushes higher ahead of inventories dataCrude oil prices continued their ride higher after Jerome Powell’s comments at his confirmation hearing kept a soft tone on the dollar.The U.S. government will release its weekly data for crude and product inventories at 10:30 AM ET as usual, a day after the American Petroleum Institute reported a 10 million barrel build in gasoline inventories (belatedly corroborating the government’s data from the previous week).By 6:30 AM ET, U.S. crude futures were up 0.8% at $81.83 a barrel, while Brent futures were up 0.6% at $84.20 a barrel. More