Wednesday , 21 January 2026

Big oil, utilities lining up for an electric-vehicle war

Bloomberg A red-hot electric vehicle market has triggered a face-off between Big Oil and utilities. Oil majors, who’ve sold fossil fuels to cars for a century, are now moving into an electricity sector that’s preparing for exponential growth. The problem is that utilities, the primary power suppliers for a century, have the same idea. BP Plc predicts electric vehicle sales …

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Global solar market could contract for the first time ever

Bloomberg The global solar market could do something this year that it’s never done before: shrink. Solar installations in 2018 may total 95 gigawatts, down 3 percent from a year earlier, based on the most conservative of three scenarios modelled by Bloomberg NEF in a report on Monday. For comparison’s sake, the typical nuclear reactor has about a gigawatt of …

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Libya’s NOC declares force majeure on two more oil ports

Bloomberg Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC) declared force majeure on another two oil ports, removing thousands more barrels from the market just as global supply concerns put pressure on OPEC to ramp up production. Oil loadings at the Zueitina and Hariga export terminals in eastern Libya have stopped, the Tripoli-based NOC said on Monday. The halt comes just a week …

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Oil prices to cost a US household $440 in ’18

Bloomberg The average American household will have $440 less to spend this year due to rising pump prices, putting at risk one-third of the windfall they got from tax cuts. Strong oil prices drove the cost of US gasoline to the highest level in more than three years last month, according to AAA, and pump prices are now 27 percent …

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US stocks pare losses as investors gauge trade risks

Bloomberg US stocks were lower but regained some of their early losses, as investors assessed fears of increasing trade tensions around the world. The dollar climbed, roiling emerging markets, while oil retreated from its highest level since 2014 following President Donald Trump’s call for Saudi Arabia to increase production. The S&P 500 Index was down roughly 0.3 percent after falling …

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Bitcoin rebounds from 2018 low to buoy Ether, Litecoin

Bloomberg Bitcoin jumped on Monday, giving a positive jolt to a digital-coin market that had lost about half of its value since early May. The largest cryptocurrency climbed 7.3 percent to $6,328 from June 28, heading to its biggest one-day increase since April, according to composite prices compiled by Bloomberg in New York. The token’s largest peers — Ripple, Ethereum …

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Europe banks exploit loophole in key rule to cut $145bn in trades

Bloomberg Some of Europe’s biggest banks may have found a perfectly legal way to exploit a weakness in one of the finance industry’s most loathed rules. Euro-area and Swiss lenders cut their short-term borrowings by tens of billions of dollars just before the end of each quarter, improving their reported financial health, only to build them up again in the …

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Indonesia favours rupiah stability above growth in rate move

Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank is showing its willingness to sacrifice economic growth for currency stability in its latest aggressive move on interest rates. Bank Indonesia surprised economists with a bigger-than-forecast 50 basis-point hike, on top of two rate increases in May aimed at halting a currency rout. That takes the benchmark rate to 5.25 percent, with analysts betting there’s more …

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Deutsche Bank targets Indian market

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG, which is in the throes of a global restructuring involving thousands of job cuts, is zeroing in on an Asian market where an unprecedented bad-loan clean-up offers the potential for a credit bonanza. In India, where bankruptcy law changes have injected urgency into efforts to restructure $210 billion of stressed assets, Deutsche Bank sees an opportunity …

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UniCredit to sell $3.5bn of loans in cleanup

Bloomberg UniCredit SpA is selling at least 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) of non-performing loans in different deals, while extending a partnership to manage troubled corporate debt as part of its cleanup strategy, according to people with knowledge of matter. The Italian bank is reviewing final offers for 700 million euros of unsecured loans in a disposal project dubbed Narciso …

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