Month: June 2020

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is expected to raise its official selling price (OSP) for all grades it sells to Asia in July, to track a jump in Middle East benchmarks although overall weak refining margins could cap price gains, industry sources said. Saudi Arabia is expected to increase the July OSP for Arab Light crude by $3.80 a barrel on average, a survey of five refinery sources showed. Forecasts ranged from an increase of $2-$3 a barrel to as much as $5 a barrel, as refiners’ margins weakened in May while a stronger DME Oman crude price, …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Every year, John Gregson sells his autumn and winter truffles, carefully sourced from places like Italy’s Sibillini mountains and Teruel in eastern Spain, to restaurants for as much as 6,000 pounds ($7,400) a kilo. Not this year.His biggest restaurant customers brought their shutters down during the coronavirus lockdown, and many may not be raising them anytime soon — if ever. The unprecedented disruption in the food chain, with worst-case estimates showing 80% of restaurants going bust in some parts of the world, is leaving people like Gregson grappling with an industry that may take years to untangle itself.“Those …read more […]

Jun.01 — South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago comments on inflation, monetary policy and the economy in an interview on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.” …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The Minneapolis Police Department’s website has shown signs of a cyber-attack since late Saturday, days after a video purported to be from the hacktivist group Anonymous promised retribution for the death of George Floyd during an arrest.Websites for the police department and the city of Minneapolis were temporarily inaccessible on Saturday as protesters in cities around the U.S. marched against police violence aimed at black Americans.By Sunday morning, the pages sometimes required visitors to submit “captchas” to verify they weren’t bots, a tool used to mitigate hacks that attempt to overwhelm pages with automated requests until they stop …read more […]

Jun.01 — Any expansion of U.K. fiscal stimulus implies an increase in Bank of England quantitative easing, according to Eimear Daly, EMEA FX strategist at Macquarie. This factor, combined with heightened political risk, will weigh on the pound, Daly said in an interview on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.” …read more […]

U.S. retail giants from Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) to Target Corp. (TGT) are temporarily closing some of their stores and curtailing operations amid the violent nationwide protests following last week’s death of George Floyd.Demonstrations in dozens of cities across the U.S., including New York and Chicago, have since turned violent leading in some places to looting and damage to a number of retail stores.Apple, which had just reopened about half of its U.S. stores after the coronavirus related shutdowns, said it has temporarily closed many of its stores to protect the safety of employees and customers. …read more […]

Shares in Pfizer Inc. (PFE) dropped 6% in after-market trading on Friday after the company reported a disappointing outcome for its Phase 3 PALLAS early breast cancer study.Following a preplanned efficacy and futility analysis, the independent Data Monitoring Committee determined that the trial of Ibrance (palbociclib) plus standard adjuvant endocrine therapy is unlikely to show a statistically significant improvement in the primary endpoint of invasive disease-free survival (iDFS).Patients receiving palbociclib in the study will be advised about next steps by their physicians and long-term follow up will proceed as planned, the company said, adding that no unexpected new safety signals …read more […]

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(Bloomberg Opinion) — Covid-19 became a pandemic because airplane passengers carried the new coronavirus with them around the world. As that became clear, airlines grounded nearly all of their fleets, governments issued travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines, and tourist attractions and conferences closed down. With no reason to fly, a quick recovery for air travel seemed unlikely. Warren Buffett even dumped his airline stocks, claiming that the “world has changed.”Passengers also wouldn’t feel safe packed inside a metal tube for hours, would they?Happily for the industry, if not for the climate, the seemingly insurmountable barriers to air travel have begun …read more […]