By Florence Tan (Reuters) – Oil prices bounced on Wednesday ahead of an announcement by the U.S. Federal Reserve and further sanctions on Russia by the European Union, offsetting demand worries in top importer China. Brent crude futures had risen $1.46, or 1.4%, to $106.43 a barrel by 0616 GMT amid thin trading volume, with…
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s accounting watchdog said on Wednesday it has opened four investigations into audits by King & King of steel and aluminium companies founded by metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta. The Financial Reporting Council said the investigations are into the financial statements of Liberty Speciality Steels Limited, Alvance British Aluminium Limited, Liberty Steel Newport…
BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets followed Wall Street higher on Thursday after the Federal Reserve chairman downplayed the likelihood of bigger rate hikes following the U.S. central bank’s biggest increase in two decades. Shanghai, Hong Kong, Australia and Southeast Asian markets advanced. Markets in Japan and South Korea were closed for holidays. Wall Street’s…
NEW DELHI (AP) — A much-awaited initial public offering for India’s state-run Life Insurance Corp. began this week with retail investors allowed to subscribe for its shares starting Wednesday. The IPO, expected to raise up to $2.74 billion, is India’s largest ever. Its partial listing is part of plans by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to…
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Danish jewellery maker Pandora reported better-than-expected sales for the first quarter on Wednesday and slightly raised its full-year sales guidance. Pandora now expects full-year organic growth to come in between 4% to 6%, versus a previous forecast of 3% to 6%, but said the forecast for 2022 was subject to “elevated uncertainty”….
By Florence Tan and Chen Aizhu SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The world’s largest independent oil trader, Vitol, loaded a cargo of Russian ESPO Blend crude for the United Arab Emirates this week, the first such voyage for the grade, data from several analytics firms showed. Suezmax tanker Kriti Breeze, chartered for $2.3 million, loaded the 740,000-barrel…
OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s Equinor posted record pretax profits for the first quarter on Wednesday as the war in Ukraine triggered an energy supply crunch that sent the price of natural gas soaring to all-time highs. Adjusted earnings before tax rose to $18 billion in the January-March quarter, up from $5.5 billion a year earlier,…
By Byron Kaye and Sameer Manekar (Reuters) -Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, the country’s No. 4 lender, beat estimates for first-half profit as it set aside less money for COVID-19 related loan defaults and flagged an end to shrinking margins as interest rates start to rise. The Melbourne-based retail lender set an upbeat tone…
By Elizabeth Culliford (Reuters) – Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc is opening up access to a large language model for artificial intelligence research, the social media company said on Tuesday. Meta said its model was the first 175-billion-parameter language model to be made available to the broader AI research community. “Large language models” are natural language…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New orders for U.S.-made goods increased more than expected in March and shipments rose solidly, but supply constraints following new COVID-19 lockdowns in China could slow manufacturing activity in the months ahead. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday that factory orders rose 2.2% in March after edging up 0.1% in February. Economists…
