French PM Michel Barnier ousted by no-confidence vote. Three...
French PM Michel Barnier ousted by no-confidence vote. Three months after being appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron, the conservative Prime Minister Barnier got booted by members of left- and right-wing parties after he bypassed the lawmakers to force a budget bill through Parliament. Macron has asked Barnier to stay in a caretaker role while the president finds a replacement PM, which will be tricky since no party in the lower house has a working majority. The BBC reports that Macron will be acting quickly because President-elect Trump will be in Paris this weekend for the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, and it would be kinda embarrassing for him to discover the nation got a new golden rooster but…doesn’t have a functioning government.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he isn’t concerned about the central bank losing its independence under a Trump presidency while speaking at the DealBook Summit.
Coca-Cola drastically scaled back its plastic-reduction goal.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who became the first private astronaut to complete a spacewalk earlier this year, has been chosen by President-elect Trump to head NASA.
Mercedes gave Pope Francis the first all-electric Popemobile.
Oil prices rise with all eyes on OPEC+ supply decision
TOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Thursday...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Thursday ahead of an OPEC+ meeting later in the day, with investors waiting to see what the producer group would do next on supply cuts while also monitoring tension in the Middle East.
Brent crude futures climbed 12 cents, or 0.2%, to $72.43 a barrel by 0103 GMT while U.S. crude futures were at $68.70 a barrel, up 16 cents, or 0.2%. Both benchmarks fell nearly 2% on Wednesday.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies in OPEC+ are likely to extend their latest round of oil production cuts by at least three months from January when it meets online at 1100 GMT on Thursday, OPEC+ sources told Reuters, to provide additional support for the oil market.
Dow closes above 45,000 for first time — prompting rethink of market milestones
(Wednesday market close) The stock market experienced...
(Wednesday market close) The stock market experienced another record-breaking session driven by technology stocks, with mega-cap tech companies like Apple, Meta Platforms, and Amazon hitting all-time highs. Despite an uneven market performance beneath the surface, bullish technicals, positive seasonality, and optimism about the economy continued to propel large stocks upward, supported by an accommodative Federal Reserve and solid earnings from companies like Salesforce.
The market's momentum persisted even after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell cautioned against hasty interest rate cuts, citing the strong economy. Upcoming economic indicators, particularly the November nonfarm payrolls report expected to show around 200,000 jobs added, could further influence market sentiment. Meanwhile, Treasury yields declined following softer-than-expected data on the U.S. services sector and private industry job growth.
Here's where the major benchmarks ended:
The S&P 500® index (SPX) rose 36.61 points (0.61%) to 6,086.49; the Dow Jones Industrial Average®($DJI) added 308.51 points (0.69%) to 45,014.04; and the Nasdaq Composite® ($COMP) gained 254.20 points (1.30%) to 19,735.12.
The 10-year Treasury note yield fell four basis points to 4.18%.
The CBOE Volatility Index®(VIX)inched up to 13.47.
US gas storage at 8-year high despite injection drop
Lower 48 natural gas inventories...
Lower 48 natural gas inventories hit 3.92 Bcf at the end of the 2024 injection season, the highest pre-winter levels since 2016, even as net injections fell 21% below the five-year average, according to the Energy Information Administration. Elevated starting inventories allowed operators to meet storage targets despite reduced gas availability due to production cuts.
A Wall Street juggernaut just caught its white whale. Investment giant...
A Wall Street juggernaut just caught its white whale. Investment giant BlackRock inked a $12 billion all-stock deal to buy private credit investor HPS Investment Partners, cementing private credit as the hottest thing on Wall Street since the invention of the stock ticker.
Huge get: BlackRock acquiring HPS is like if the Buffalo Bills got Derrick Henry. Already one of the biggest investment firms in the business, BlackRock will now take on HPS’s nearly $150 billion of assets under management, boosting its pile of alternative assets by 25%.
The deal cements BlackRock, which was slow to invest in alternative assets, as a major player in the market, setting itself up for success as private credit grows at supersonic speed. Moody’s expects the market to double to $3 trillion in the next three years, up from $250 billion in 2010.
