Published on 13/05/2025 11:40 PM
US inflation rose by less than expected in April, helped by steep declines in prices for sporting events, eggs and other groceries.
Audio equipment costs, meanwhile, jumped by the most on record, according to Bureau of Labour Statistics data out Tuesday. Consumer prices for car rentals and computer software also climbed.
The Trump administration is weighing a deal that would allow the United Arab Emirates to import more than a million advanced Nvidia Corp. chips, people familiar with the matter said, a quantity that far exceeds limits under Biden-era AI chip regulations — and one that’s raised concerns that American hardware risks ending up in China’s hands.
The deal, which is still being negotiated and could change, would let the UAE import 500,000 of the most advanced chips on the market each year from now to 2027, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential conversations. One-fifth would be set aside for the Abu Dhabi AI firm G42, while the remainder would go to US companies building data centers in the Gulf nation, according to the people.
Owner.com Inc., a startup making software for restaurants and other small businesses, has raised a new funding round at a $1 billion valuation, quintuple its value a year ago.
The company raised $120 million in a funding round led by Meritech Capital and the VC firm Headline, with participation from other investors including Alt Capital and Day One Ventures.
The California-based startup helps restaurants improve their visibility in online search, and aims to help convert visitors into paying customers. Owner additionally helps restaurants with AI-powered website-building and automated marketing. The company says it’s used by more than 10,000 restaurants, and plans to expand to other types of businesses.
A US consumer watchdog looks poised to tear up a controversial rule on customer financial data sharing and start all over again — but with a depleted staff, a potentially drained budget and all of the same thorny issues.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is likely to scratch and rework its open-banking rule, which requires banks to share their customers’ deposit accounts and credit card information when they request it with fintech firms for free.
While such a move is ostensibly a win for large bank,s including JPMorgan Chase & Co., which lobbied against the measure, it could re-open the fight and risk expanding its scope at a time when the CFPB’s fate is in doubt.
Treasury debt slipped as gains for US stocks reinforced the broadening conviction on Wall Street that Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts are unlikely before December.
The US government bond market erased gains that were spurred by April inflation data that showed smaller increases in consumer prices than economists estimated. The two-year note’s yield, more sensitive than longer maturities to expected changes in the Fed’s rate, was little changed at about 4.01% after dipping to 3.95% in the rally.
OpenAI is considering building new data center capacity in the United Arab Emirates that could significantly expand its footprint in the Middle East, according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal, which is not yet finalized and could still change, may be announced as soon as this week, during President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump is slated to be in the UAE on Thursday. OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman is also in the region as part of a broader tour by tech leaders.
The US will remove all sanctions on Syria, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump told a packed auditorium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during the first appearance of his four-day visit to the Middle East.
“In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace. That’s what we want to see,” he said in a wide-ranging speech that focused on U.S. relations with the Middle East.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has held talks with regulators about an Irish launch of its retail bank Marcus, a move that could shake up the country’s heavily concentrated market and give the Wall Street giant access to tens of billions of euros in deposits.
The early-stage discussions took place in recent months and Ireland was one of the locations being considered for widening Marcus’ footprint, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Another potential geography is Germany, where Goldman had intended to launch in 2019, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. No decision has been taken yet, they added.
“We remain focused on that business in the US and UK and are exploring our options for future growth areas,” a representative for Goldman said. The Central Bank of Ireland said it won’t confirm or comment on individual applications.
L’Oreal SA is preparing to sell investment-grade notes on Tuesday, in what would be the makeup company’s first time borrowing in the US corporate bond market.
The cosmetics giant is looking to sell a benchmark-sized, 10-year deal, according to a person familiar with the matter. Initial pricing discussions for the fixed-rate notes are in the 0.9 percentage point area above Treasuries, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing private details.
The company has issued euro-denominated debt before, having last come to market in October with a €1.25 billion two-part deal.
Oil traders are continuing to ramp up long-shot options bets that Brent crude can rally toward $95 a barrel over the coming months.
Call options at that strike price which expire in late July have traded more than 100,000 lots since the middle of April, with open interest growing by about the same amount. It’s the equivalent of 100 million barrels, and another 5,000 contracts were bought Monday.
Hertz Global Holdings Inc. shares plunged after the car-rental company posted a larger-than-expected loss in the first quarter, pressured by a slowdown in customer bookings.
Revenue fell 13% in the period, contributing to an adjusted loss of $1.12 per share, the company said in a statement late Monday. Analysts had expected a 99-cent deficit on average, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The company showed declines on multiple key metrics. While forward bookings from leisure customers were up from a year ago, demand from corporate and government customers has moderated.
It may only be a 90-day reprieve from the steepest of Trump’s China tariffs, but it’s enough time to entice companies to restart factory operations and start shipping.
Therabody, a Los Angeles-based maker of wellness products such as Theragun massagers, is ramping up production again in China, Chief Executive Officer Monty Sharma said.
He added that “in my 40 years of work,” he’s never been happier “about a 30% increase in our costs.”
Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia has approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use in the region speaking at an event during a White House-led trip to the kingdom on Tuesday. Starlink is the satellite internet service owned and operated by Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor, SpaceX.
European leaders are ready to wait until after a possible meeting between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Turkey before pushing the US to announce fresh sanctions on Moscow, people familiar with the matter said.
Following conversations between US and European officials on Monday, it was clear the American side wanted to allow an opportunity for talks between Russia and Ukraine to take place on Thursday before increasing pressure on Putin, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
Microsoft Corp. said it will cut thousands of workers with a focus on reducing layers of management. Planned reductions across the company amount to less than 3% of total headcount, a spokesperson said.
“We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the spokesperson said.
UnitedHealth Group shares tumbled 13% to trade at lows not seen since February 2021. The sell-off came after the company said CEO Andrew Witty is stepping down for “personal reasons” and suspended its 2025 forecast.
Witty will act as a senior advisor to his successor, Stephen Hemsley, who served as UnitedHealth Group’s CEO from 2006 to 2017. The company said its decision to pull its guidance was partly due to higher medical costs, which dragged down other insurance stocks.
EToro Group Ltd. is likely to price its US initial public offering above its marketed range, according to a person familiar with the matter, in one of the first deals to resume after the tariff-driven pause.
The trading and investment platform and a group of its investors are offering 10 million shares for $46 to $50 each, according to an earlier filing. The IPO has received orders for multiple times the number of shares available, Bloomberg News has reported.
The IPO is set to price late on Tuesday, the person said. Deliberations are ongoing and the final price could still change, they said. A representative for EToro didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bank of America Corp. plans to open more than 150 new financial centers by the end of 2027 as the second-largest US bank pushes further into growing markets.
The lender will open 40 new branches — what it calls financial centers — this year and an additional 70 in 2026, according to a statement Tuesday. Bank of America has invested more than $5 billion in its financial centers, both opening new branches and renovating existing locations, since 2016, according to the statement.
Wall Street got a degree of encouragement as data showed limited inflationary pressures from President Donald Trump’s trade war, with stocks rising and bond yields falling amid bets on at least two Federal Reserve rate cuts this year.
The S&P 500 rose toward its highest level since February, the month marking its latest all-time high. Treasury yields dropped across the curve, with the move led by policy-sensitive shorter maturities. Swap traders, who sharply lowered their expectations for Fed rate reductions on easing US-China trade tensions, priced in about 55 basis points of easing for the year, with the first cut still projected for September.
Citigroup Inc. agreed to sell a unit that advises its global alternative investment fund platform, which represents more than 180 funds, to technology provider Capital.
Terms of iCapital’s deal to buy the Citi Global Alternatives business weren’t disclosed, according to a statement Tuesday. ICapital will manage and operate the fund platform, while Citi remains the distributor, offering guidance to its clients on the role of alternative investments.
Egg prices pulled back 18% from a record high last month, offering some relief as supplies recovered from bird flu shock.
Shoppers paid $5.122 per dozen for large eggs on average in April, falling from two straight months of record highs that brought prices above $6, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics said Tuesday. The monthly drop in a broader index for eggs was the biggest since 1984, helping to drive a softer-than-forecast increase in US consumer prices in April.
The S&P 500 was little changed flat early Tuesday following a big rally, as investors digested a softer-than-expected inflation report.
The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, increased 2.3% on an annualised basis in April. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected inflation to remain at a 2.4% rate last month on a year-over-year basis.
Excluding food and energy, so-called core inflation ran at a 2.8% annual rate, which matched consensus estimates and was also unchanged from the prior month.
Hinge Health said in a filing on Tuesday that it plans to raise up to $437 million in its upcoming initial public offering.
The digital physical therapy startup filed its initial prospectus in March, and it updated the document with an expected pricing range for its Class A common stock of $28.00 to $32.00 per share. Hinge said it plans to sell about 13.7 million shares in the offering.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the European Union suffers from a “collective action problem” that’s hampering trade negotiations, downplaying the possibility of a quick agreement with the US’s largest trading relationship.
“I think the US and Europe may be a bit slower,” Bessent said when asked at a Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh about progress on tariff talks.
“My personal belief is Europe may have a collective action problem; that the Italians want something that’s different than the French. But I’m sure at the end of the day, we will reach a satisfactory conclusion,” he continued.
US Treasuries gained after a closely watched inflation report came in below expectations, offering support for wagers on at least two Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts this year.
The advances on Tuesday pushed the policy-sensitive two-year yield lower by as much as six basis points to 3.95%, while the benchmark 10-year rate slid about three basis points to 4.44%.
Swaps traders, who sharply lowered their expectations for Fed rate reductions on Monday on easing US-China trade tensions, priced in about 55 basis points of easing for the year — implying at least two cuts, with the first fully priced in for September.
Stock futures rose and bond yields fell after US inflation rose at a slower-than-anticipated pace April, showing a modest pass-through from President Donald Trump’s tariffs implemented last month.
S&P 500 contracts added 0.2%. The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined three basis points to 4.44%. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2%.
Inflation was slightly lower than expected in April as President Donald Trump’s tariffs just began hitting the slowing US economy, according to a Labor Department report Tuesday.
The consumer price index, which measures the costs for a broad range of goods and services, rose 0.2% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.3%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus estimate and slightly below the annual forecast for 2.4%.
The Trump administration’s temporary trade deal with China didn’t arrive in time to prevent a slowdown in the US economy, forecasters say, even if it reduces the risk of a full-blown recession later this year.
Labour-market data could start to show the hit to employment by the end of May, they expect, while accelerating inflation should become evident in reports due next month.
That combination leaves the economy on track to grow significantly less this year than in 2024, even after accounting for Monday’s truce. While the current US levy on Chinese imports of 30% is well below the 145% duty put in place over the last month, it still represents a sharp increase from before President Donald Trump took office in January.
Robinhood Markets Inc. agreed to acquire WonderFi Technologies Inc., the operator of two Canadian cryptocurrency platforms, for about C$250 million ($179 million) in cash.
The fintech will purchase all of WonderFi’s issued and outstanding common shares for 36 Canadian cents apiece, 41% higher than the closing price on Monday, according to a statement Tuesday. WonderFi has more than C$2.1 billion in assets under custody.
WonderFi’s crypto offerings will help Robinhood bring Canadians greater access to crypto trading, the companies said in the statement. Menlo Park, California-based Robinhood, best known for its retail investing services, has been expanding globally, and said late last year that it was starting operations in Asia.
The Wall Street stocks rally headed for a pause as optimism around the temporary tariff cuts agreed between the US and China gave way to lingering concern about inflation and economic growth.
Futures pointed to a drop of 0.3% for the S&P 500 and a 0.2% decline for the Nasdaq 100. UnitedHealth Group Inc. sank 10% in premarket trading after suspending its 2025 outlook. Appetite for safer assets picked up again, with Treasury yields falling and gold prices on the rise. The dollar slipped.NewsLive TVMarketPopular CategoriesCalculatorsTrending NowLet's Connect with CNBCTV 18Network 18 Group :©TV18 Broadcast Limited. All rights reserved.