Bloomberg The world’s biggest corn exporters are preparing for a showdown. Brazilian farmers are in the midst of collecting their biggest corn harvest ever and American supplies are also plentiful — setting the stage for a stiff battle to win world buyers in the second half of the year. It’s a turnaround from just a year ago when US exporters ...

Bloomberg Spotify Ltd. is tiptoeing into new businesses again. The No. 1 paid music streaming service has agreed to promote podcasts in its app and via ads on buses. In return, the hosts of “Reply All,” “Pod Save America” and “The Bill Simmons Podcast” agreed to talk up Spotify on social media and during their shows that cover topics ranging ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is considering a flexible tax system for state-owned oil company Aramco that wo- uld increase royalty payments when crude prices rise, accor- ding to people familiar with the deliberations. Riyadh is mulling a proposal from Saudi Aramco to replace the current fixed royalty on revenues, the same people said, asking not to be named discussing government policies. ...

Bloomberg Oil traded near $50 a barrel in New York as efforts by Venezuela’s president to seize more power raised speculation the US could step up sanctions. Futures were little changed after surging 8.6 percent last week. The US is said to be considering increasing sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the ...

Bloomberg There’s a new model emerging for growth-starved utilities looking to profit from America’s solar and wind power boom. American Electric Power Co. is using it for a $4.5 billion deal that’ll land the US utility owner a massive wind farm in Oklahoma and a high-voltage transmission line to deliver the power. NextEra Energy Inc.’s Florida unit is using it ...

Bloomberg Three years into the biggest oil downturn in a generation, industry bosses see the recovery slipping further from view. It could easily take until the end of the decade for better times to return to an industry that’s already endured a longer slump than most people expected, according to Total SA Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne and Weatherford International ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s secretive X skunk works has another idea that could save the world. This one, code named Malta, involves vats of salt and antifreeze. The research lab, which hatched Google’s driverless car almost a decade ago, is developing a system for storing renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. It can be located almost anywhere, has the potential ...

If the ghosts who inhabit the walls of the CIA could talk, they would tell Director Mike Pompeo to be careful. The agency is entering a danger zone where a White House in turmoil wants the CIA to take aggressive action overseas, but hasn’t developed the clear strategy or political support needed to sustain it. Pompeo is an activist, an ...

The election of Emmanuel Macron in France vindicated euro optimists, boosted stock markets and paved the way for lenders like Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG to raise extra capital. What it didn’t do was unleash a wave of revenue growth for Europe’s top investment banks — at least judging by their latest quarterly earnings. The combination of ...

President Donald Trump says cutting corporate taxes is his No. 1 priority after repealing Obamacare. And House Republicans laid out recently what they would like to see done with the tax code. Investors, though, appear to have lost faith in their ability to follow through. The shares of the 100 S&P 500 companies that paid the highest effective tax rates ...