Aurelia Butler

X had challenged the fine but the Federal Court of Australia ruled it was obliged to respond to a notice from the eSafety Commissioner, an internet safety regulator, seeking information about steps to address child sexual exploitation material on the platform.Musk took X, then called Twitter, private in 2022. But the company had argued it was not bound to respond to the notice in early 2023 because it was folded into a new Musk-controlled corporate entity, removing liability.”Had X Corp’s argument been accepted by the Court it could have set the concerning precedent that a foreign company’s merger with another foreign company might enable it to avoid regulatory obligations in Australia,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement following the verdict.eSafety has also started civil proceedings against X because of its noncompliance.X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.This is not the first conflict between Musk and the Australian internet safety regulator. The eSafety Commissioner earlier this year ordered X to remove posts showing a bishop in Australia being stabbed during a sermon.X challenged the order in court on the grounds that a regulator in one country should not decide what internet users viewed around the world, and ultimately kept the posts up after the Australian regulator withdrew its case.Musk said at the time the order was censorship and shared posts describing the order, which would have applied globally, as a plot by the World Economic Forum to impose eSafety rules on the world.($1 = 1.4609 Australian dollars) More

Investors are also on edge as Middle East tensions escalate, while Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is in the spotlight.Here’s all you need to know about the week ahead in global markets from Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Yoruk Bahceli in Amsterdam, Karin Strohecker and Amanda Cooper in London and Kevin Buckland in Tokyo.1/ ONE YEAR OF WAROne year on from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the region looks on the brink of a sprawling war that could potentially reshape the oil-rich Middle East. The conflict, which has killed more than 42,000 people, the vast majority in Gaza, is spreading. Israeli troops are now in neighbouring Lebanon, home to Iran-backed Hezbollah; Iran launched a large scale missile attack on Israel earlier this week. Global markets have remained broadly unfazed. Oil prices, the main conduit for tremors further afield, have jumped about 8% this week, but soft demand and ample supply globally have kept a lid on gains. A further escalation between Iran and Israel could change that, especially if Israel strikes Iran’s oil facilities, an option that U.S. President Joe Biden said was under discussion.The scars of the conflict are visible on Israel’s economy, which has suffered a number of sovereign downgrades and seen its default insurance spike and bonds slide. 2/ BUSY TIMESU.S. third-quarter earnings season is about to kick into gear, posing a test for a stock market near record highs and trading at elevated valuations.    JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) report on Friday. Other results earlier in the week include PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) and Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL). S&P 500 companies overall are expected to have increased Q3 earnings by 5.3% from a year earlier, according to LSEG IBES.    Thursday’s September U.S. consumer price index, meanwhile, will be closely watched for signs that inflation is moderating. Investors are already anticipating hefty rate cuts, after the Federal Reserve kicked off its easing cycle last month.    Elsewhere, investors will seek to gauge the economic fallout from a dockworker strike as U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports reopened on Thursday.3/ A RECKONING France’s new government presents its long-awaited budget to parliament on Thursday. It’s planning a 60-billion-euro belt-tightening drive, around 2% of GDP, next year.It reckons spending cuts and tax hikes should bring the deficit, seen rising to 6.1% this year in the latest upward revision, to 5% by end-2025. The target date for reaching the euro zone’s 3% deficit limit is also being pushed back to 2029 from 2027.That’s bad news just ahead of rating reviews kicking off with Fitch next Friday.Markets are not impressed. Having eased slightly, the extra premium France pays for its 10-year debt over Germany’s widened back to just under 80 bps, near its highest since August.Ultimately, what may matter more is whether Prime Minister Michel Barnier can pass the budget, given a divided parliament that has investors questioning how long his government will last.4/ FEELING SHEEPISHA reluctant joiner to global easing, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is catching up fast. It meets on Oct. 9 and traders reckon the central bank could follow the Fed’s example and cut rates by half a point. The RBNZ cut rates by 25 bps to 5.25% in August, a year ahead of its own projections. Markets price in a drop below 3% by end-2025. This will still be above where traders think U.S. and euro area rates will be. Shorter-term investors are neutral towards the kiwi, but hedge funds have lapped it up this year. Positioning and potentially higher rates than others might insulate New Zealand’s currency. So could the return of so-called carry trades and in this case, essentially a bearish bet on the yen in favour of bullish ones on high-yielders such as the kiwi. 5/ POLL POSITIONING    When Shigeru Ishiba surprised markets by winning the contest to become Japan’s prime minister, investors rushed to re-position themselves for higher interest rates.    A week on and the landscape looks different, as Ishiba back-flipped not just on monetary policy, but on prior market-unfriendly support for higher corporate and capital gains taxes.    It’s perhaps not surprising for a hawk to hide his talons with a snap election looming on Oct. 27.    Even so, Ishiba was unabashedly blunt, saying after a meeting with the Bank of Japan – whose independence Ishiba has pledged to honour – that the economy is not ready for further rate hikes.    The yen, which had been surging, slid past 147 to a six-week trough by Thursday. Japanese stocks rebounded from their steepest slide since early August.    Check back in a month from now for any further policy flip-flops. (Graphics by Kripa Jayaram, Pasit Kongkunakornkul, Vineet Sachdev; Compiled by Dhara Ranasinghe; Editing by Sonali Paul) More

(Reuters) -Rivian slashed its full-year production forecast on Friday and missed third-quarter deliveries expectations due to a parts shortage and slowing growth in electric-vehicle demand, sending shares of the startup down nearly 9%.The company said the shortage of the part, used in its R1 SUV and R1T pickups as well as its delivery vans, began in the third quarter and has become more acute in recent weeks. Rivian did not identify the part or the supplier for the component. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).com-backed Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) now expects full-year production to be between 47,000 and 49,000 vehicles, down from its earlier forecast of 57,000 vehicles. The forecast cut means the company now expects to make fewer vehicles than it did last year.Slowing growth in electric-vehicle demand has affected the entire industry, as Americans dealing with high interest rates turn to cheaper hybrids. U.S. market leader Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) also missed quarterly deliveries estimates earlier this week.”The cut to its production guidance was substantial and it is likely to raise a variety of questions surrounding RIVN’s ability to turn the corner towards generating a gross profit,” said Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research.The company said it plans to turn its first profit in the last three months of the year. To aid that effort, Rivian had closed its only manufacturing facility, in Normal, Illinois, for three weeks earlier this year to simplify its manufacturing processes and cut the cost of building its vehicles. Lowering costs is crucial for Rivian as it looks to weather the demand slowdown and increase production of its R1 models, while gearing up to manufacture its smaller R2 models in 2026.The company said it handed over 10,018 vehicles in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with estimates of 12,078, according to 15 analysts polled by Visible Alpha.Rivian reaffirmed its annual deliveries forecast of 50,500 to 52,000 vehicles. Analysts were expecting 53,491, according to Visible Alpha.German automaker Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) said earlier this year it will invest up to $5 billion in Rivian as part of a joint venture which could help it boost its cash reserves and turn cash flow positive.  More

(Reuters) -The resolution of a U.S. port strike is likely to keep global supply chain pressures on a calm footing, allowing for a continued slowdown in inflation, an index tracked by the New York Federal Reserve showed on Friday.The regional Fed bank’s global supply chain pressure index, which measures how readings deviate from historical averages, eased to a reading of 0.13 in September. That ended an upward trend which saw the index move from -0.96 in April to 0.2 in August. Global supply chain pressures have hovered right around normal or less than normal since early 2023, and their relative softness has played a key role in an ebbing of inflation that allowed the Fed to kick off its interest rate-cutting cycle last month. Supply chain disruptions during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its early stage played a key role in driving U.S. inflation to 40-year highs in 2022.Progress in lowering inflation pressures had been threatened by the now-suspended port strike on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast. Speaking on Friday after the U.S. government reported that job growth last month surged, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told Bloomberg Television that “you really couldn’t ask realistically for a better report for the economy, coupled with finding out that the port strike is not going to be an extended matter … those are two pieces of very good news for the economy.” There had been fears in financial markets that an extended strike could reignite inflation by disrupting trade, which in turn could raise doubts about the Fed’s ability to continue on the rate-cut path that it’s policymakers have outlined. The deal struck between the alliance of port operators and the union representing thousands of dockworkers late on Thursday removes a risk to the economy and eases the threat of “a potential near-term resurgence in supply chain disruptions and inflation,” Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP, said in a note to clients. The U.S. economy, however, is not fully out of the woods because of the tentative nature of the agreement, which calls for the two sides to fully hash out the details of a new contract by Jan. 15, 2025.That deadline “threatens to exacerbate supply chain bottlenecks as it coincides with critical shipping cycles, including replenishment of inventories post-holiday, spring season product positioning and preparations for the Chinese New Year,” said John Donigian, senior director of supply chain strategy at Moody’s (NYSE:MCO).”If an agreement isn’t reached by January, we could see a repeat of delays and cost surges, impacting consumer prices and market stability,” he added. More