ET is cutting around 6% of its workforceThe shares of Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) are up 1.2% at $8.26, after announcing that it's cutting around 6% of its workforce next week to combat the impact of coronavirus. With the energy sector hit particularly hard by the pandemic, especially in regard to oil and gas, Energy Transfer executives said in early May that it would cut operational and capital...Read More
Calls are more popular overall, but options traders have been unusually put-heavy of lateOver the last 10 trading days, the 20 stocks below have attracted the highest weekly options volume, thanks to data courtesy of Schaeffer's Senior Quantitative Analyst Rocky White. Stocks highlighted in yellow are new to the list. Standing out this week is Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), a company that recently made...Read More
This weekend's protests are holding stocks level midday The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) is hovering above breakeven at midday, as Wall Street attempts to break down the economic implications of this weekend's protests, especially amid the gradual economic reopening. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) and Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) are also trading flat at the halfway point, inching higher after a mo...Read More
"Now is not the time to celebrate," Google said in a message on its websiteThe shares of Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) are up 0.5% at $1,441.58 this morning, after the company postponed this week's unveiling of its latest Android 11 mobile operating system, in light of protests and civil unrest over the killing of George Floyd last Monday. "We are excited to tell you more about Android 11, but now is n...Read More
ZNGA is planning to buy Peak for $1.8 billionThe shares of Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) are up over 3.2% at $9.44 this morning, marking a fresh eight-year high after announcing its acquisition of mobile-game maker Peak for $1.8 billion. This deal will mark the largest purchase of a Turkish startup on record, and will include about $900 million in cash and $900 million in stock. On Zynga's end, the comp...Read More
United Airlines will cut 13 officer positions, even as its international flight activity picks upUnited Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:UAL) is on some traders' radars this morning. The flight concern announced on Friday evening that it plans on eliminating 13 officer positions in an attempt to restructure its business, even as it begins adding international flights back into its network in July, in...Read More
Coty just announced its fourth CEO in less than four yearsThe shares of Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) are up 18.2% to trade at $4.29 this morning, after the cosmetics company named its fourth CEO in less than four years. Current chairman Peter Harf is set to be named as the latest chief executive, according to the Wall Street Journal. The appointment runs counter to Coty's initial plan back in February...Read More
U.S.-China relations will be a focal point this weekDow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) futures are set to start the month flat, as civil unrest stews at home and abroad. Investors are unpacking a weekend's worth of civil protests in states across the U.S. in response to the deathof George Floyd. Elsewhere, U.S.-China tensions continue to bubble, after U.S. President Donald Trump's speech on Frida...Read More
By: Ira EpsteinGold monthly is favorable, momentum and bias is up. For the week, gold had a higher weekly close. It was a strange week..Read More
Brazilian flat and long steel producer Companhia Sider??rgica Nacional (CSN) has halted the No2 blast furnace at its Usina Presidente Vargas (UPV) unit, aiming to adapt its steel production to weak demand conditions, the company said late on Friday May 29.The affected equipment has capacity for 1.50 million tonnes of crude steel per year. CSN did not say how long the stoppage will last. In mid-May...Read More
Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday June 1 that are worth another look.Mining company Rio Tinto has apologized for destroying one of Australia's oldest Aboriginal heritage sites in order to expand an iron ore project and said that it was urgently reviewing plans at other sites in the Juukan Gorge area.Aluminium producer Norsk Hydro and battery cell maker Northvolt hav...Read More
StrengthsThe best performing precious metal for the week was silver, up 3.78 percent on stronger industrial demand. After a slow start to the week, gold and silver were moderately higher in midday U.S. trading Thursday as haven demand returned due to China's security law imposition on Hong Kong. The move by China ratcheted up tensions with the U.S. Gold rose Friday morning as investors awaited P...Read More
Clint Siegner, Money MetalsProtests egged on by the legacy media quickly devolved into large-scale riots and looting over the weekend in more than a dozen U.S. cities.Some important institutions have betrayed the public trust, and Americans facing quarantine and staggering unemployment have arrived at the boiling point.Meanwhile, the ranks of people buying gold and silver as a hedge against econ...Read More
Index futures have done a tentative alley-oop Sunday night, feinting lower before moving as though to challenge Friday's nutty highs. They occurred, apparently, because Trump was not as hard on China as he could have been when he addressed the nation ahead of the closing bell. Anyone mystified by the stock market's exuberance hasn't been paying attention to the steep rally that has occurred with...Read More
By: Ira EpsteinGold monthly is favorable, momentum and bias is up. For the week, gold had a higher weekly close. It was a strange week..Read More
Fireside ChatRapid FireFireworks ShowSome Final ThoughtsScars from the Great DepressionThe history of humanity, at least as taught in most schools, is really about two seemingly opposite forces: human innovation and human conflict. The same intelligence that lets us accomplish great things also sets us against each other. But sometimes, we rise above it.Last week I saw on Twitter (where you shou...Read More
The premium for direct-reduced (DR) iron ore pellet for the second quarter of 2020 remained provisional, and suppliers were unlikely to revise it downward retrospectively in the way that had been expected, Fastmarkets has heard.Fastmarkets' assessment of the iron ore DR-grade pellet premium to 65% Fe fines index, Middle East reference, was $31 per tonne on Friday May 29, up by $1 per tonne month o...Read More
The European Commission (EC) plans to replace general annual quotas for hot-rolled coil with quarterly country-specific quotas and introduce some other strict measures to existing safeguard restrictions against imported steel, Fastmarkets understands.The EC sent a notice listing the changes to the World Trade Organization on May 29. The EC initiated a second review of the existing safeguard measur...Read More
Fastmarkets is proposing to extend the delivery window for its aluminium P1020A (MJP) spot premium, cif Japan. The current methodology reflects cargoes sold on a cif basis for delivery to the main Japanese ports of Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka within four weeks from the date of the transaction. Fastmarkets invites comment from market participants to determine whether extending the delivery window to...Read More