市场消息

Release of long-awaited Mueller report on Russia a watershed moment for Trump

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report on Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election will be released on Thursday, providing the first public look at the findings of an inquiry that has cast a shadow over Donald Trump’s presidency.

Attorney General William Barr’s planned release of the nearly 400-page report comes after Mueller wrapped up his 22-month investigation last month into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia and questions about obstruction of justice by the president.

Its disclosure, with portions expected to be blacked out by Barr to protect some sensitive information, is certain to launch a new political fight spilling into the halls of Congress and the 2020 presidential campaign trail, as Trump seeks re-election in a deeply divided country.

The release marks a watershed moment in Trump’s presidency, promising new details about some of the biggest questions in the probe, including the extent and nature of his campaign’s contacts with Russia and actions Trump may have taken to hinder the inquiry including his 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey.

It also may deepen an already bitter partisan rift between Trump’s fellow Republicans, most of whom have rallied around the president, and his Democratic critics, who will have to decide how hard to go after Trump as they prepare congressional investigations of his administration.

Barr said he would hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Thursday to discuss the report, along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017.

Copies of the report will be delivered to Capitol Hill more than an hour later, between 11 a.m. and noon (1500-1600 GMT), a senior Justice Department official said. The delay in seeing the report sparked Democratic complaints that Barr, a Trump appointee, wanted to shape the public’s views during his news conference before others had a chance to draw their own conclusions.

Mueller’s investigation, which Trump has called a “witch hunt,” raised questions about the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency and laid bare what the special counsel and U.S. intelligence agencies have described as a Russian operation to derail Democrat Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and elevate Trump, the Kremlin’s preferred candidate.

Some Democrats have spoken of launching impeachment proceedings against Trump in Congress, allowed under the U.S. Constitution to remove a president from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” but top Democrats have been notably cautious.

Mueller charged 34 people and three Russian companies. Those who were convicted or pleaded guilty included figures close to Trump such as his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, personal lawyer Michael Cohen and national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Mueller submitted the report to Barr on March 22. Two days later, Barr sent lawmakers a four-page letter saying the inquiry did not establish that Trump’s 2016 campaign team engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia and that Mueller had not exonerated Trump of committing the crime of obstruction of justice. Barr subsequently concluded that Trump had not committed obstruction of justice.

‘SMEARS AND SLANDER’
Since Barr released that letter, Trump has claimed “complete and total exoneration,” and condemned the inquiry as “an illegal takedown that failed.” At a March 28 rally in Michigan, Trump said that “after three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead.”

Citing people with knowledge of the discussions, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that White House lawyers held talks with U.S. Justice Department officials in recent days about the conclusions in Mueller’s report, aiding them in preparing for its release.

Justice Department regulations gave Barr broad authority to decide how much of Mueller’s report to make public, but Democrats have demanded the entire report as well as the underlying investigative files. Barr is due to testify to Congress in public about the report in early May.

The Justice Department has been working for weeks to prepare the redactions, which will be color coded to reflect the reason material is omitted.

Barr said he would redact parts to protect secret grand jury information, intelligence-gathering sources and methods, material that could affect ongoing investigations and information that unduly infringes on the privacy of “peripheral third parties” who were not charged.

Democrats are concerned that Barr, appointed by Trump after the president fired former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, could black out material to protect the president.

China goes all-in on home grown tech in push for nuclear dominance

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China plans to gamble on the bulk deployment of its untested “Hualong One” nuclear reactor, squeezing out foreign designs, as it resumes a long-delayed nuclear program aimed at meeting its clean energy goals, government and industry officials said.

China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, was once seen as a “shop window” for big nuclear developers to show off new technologies, with Beijing embarking on a program to build plants based on designs from France, the United States, Russia and Canada.

But after years of construction delays, overseas models such as Westinghouse’s AP1000 and France’s “Evolutionary Pressurised Reactor” (EPR) are now set to lose out in favor of new localized technologies, industry experts and officials said.

China signed a technology transfer deal with the United States in 2006 that put the AP1000 at the “core” of its atomic energy program. It also pledged to use advanced third-generation technology in its safety review after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.

But by the time the world’s first AP1000 and EPR made their debuts in China last year, Chinese designs had become just as viable.

Though China has yet to complete its first Hualong One, officials are confident it will not encounter the delays suffered by rivals, and say it can compete on safety and cost.

Beijing has already decided to use the Hualong One for its first newly commissioned nuclear project in three years, set to begin construction later this year at Zhangzhou, a site originally earmarked for the AP1000.

“The problem with AP1000 – the delays, the design changes, the supply chain issues and then the trade problems – has forced their hand, and it has become Hualong,” said Li Ning, a nuclear scientist and dean of the College of Energy at Xiamen University.

He added that China’s licensing procedures would also be an advantage for the home grown tech. “For the Hualong, there are four reactors already under construction and one of them is near completion already. It is a Chinese design so it wouldn’t be very hard to license the next four,” he said.

EDF, France’s state-run utility, which helped build the EPR project at Taishan in Guangdong province, declined to comment. Westinghouse, now owned by Brookfield after entering bankruptcy restructuring, also did not respond to a request for comment.

INTERNATIONAL AMBITIONS
China’s ambitions for the Hualong One extend overseas as well. The first foreign project using the reactor is under construction in Pakistan and the model is in the running for projects in Argentina and Britain.

“(Hualong One) is competitive,” said Li Xiaoming, assistant general manager of the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). “The technologies are now just about the same as those of the United States, France and Russia.”

“This is the foundation that we will rely on for our future survival and our international competitiveness,” Li said.

China already has four Hualong Ones under construction, with the first, in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, set to go into operation late next year, ahead of schedule, said Huang Feng, a member of the expert committee of the China Nuclear Energy Association.

“China has already become one of the small number of countries that has independently mastered third-generation nuclear power technology, and it has the conditions and comparative advantages to scale up and go into mass production,” he told an industry conference.

As Beijing gets ready to commission eight reactors a year in order to meet its 2030 clean energy and emissions targets, construction speed will be a crucial consideration, benefiting local developers.

Huang said the estimated costs of Hualong One and the AP1000 were now roughly the same, and much now depended on scaling up production to cut costs and allow the Chinese design to compete not only with other reactors, but also with coal-fired power.

Li of CNNC said while foreign-designed projects would still be built, it would “make no sense” to rely on foreign technology if China’s own domestic reactors were equally safe and reliable.

“There are probably some technologies where we will continue to cooperate, but overall we will gradually turn to our own,” he said.

Satellite images may show reprocessing activity at North Korea nuclear site: U.S. researchers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Satellite images from last week show movement at North Korea’s main nuclear site that could be associated with the reprocessing of radioactive material into bomb fuel, a U.S. think tank said on Tuesday.

Any new reprocessing activity would underscore the failure of a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi in late February to make progress toward North Korea’s denuclearization.

Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report that satellite imagery of North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear site from April 12 showed five specialized railcars near its Uranium Enrichment Facility and Radiochemistry Laboratory.

It said their movement could indicate the transfer of radioactive material.

“In the past, these specialized railcars appear to have been associated with the movement of radioactive material or reprocessing campaigns.” the report said. “The current activity, along with their configurations, does not rule out their possible involvement in such activity, either before or after a reprocessing campaign.”

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on intelligence matters, but a source familiar with U.S. government assessments said that while U.S. experts thought the movements could possibly be related to reprocessing, they were doubtful it was significant nuclear activity.

Jenny Town, a North Korea expert at the Stimson Center think tank, said that if reprocessing was taking place, it would be a significant given U.S.-North Korean talks in the past year and the failure to reach an agreement on the future of Yongbyon in Hanoi.

“Because there wasn’t an agreement with North Korea on Yongbyon, it would be interesting timing if they were to have started something so quickly after Hanoi,” she said.

Trump has met Kim twice in the past year to try to persuade him to abandon a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States, but progress so far has been scant.

The Hanoi talks collapsed after Trump proposed a “big deal” in which sanctions on North Korea would be lifted if it handed over all its nuclear weapons and fissile material to the United States. He rejected partial denuclearization steps offered by Kim, which included an offer to dismantle Yongbyon.

Although Kim has maintained a freeze in missile and nuclear tests since 2017, U.S. officials say North Korea has continued to produce fissile material that can be processed for use in bombs.

Last month, a senior North Korean official warned that Kim might rethink the test freeze unless Washington made concessions.

Last week, Kim said the Hanoi breakdown raised the risks of reviving tensions, adding that he was only interested in meeting Trump again if the United States came with the right attitude.

Kim said he would wait “till the end of this year” for the United States to decide to be more flexible. On Monday, Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brushed aside this demand with Pompeo saying Kim should keep his promise to give up his nuclear weapons before then.

Town said any new reprocessing work at Yongbyon would emphasize the importance of the facility in North Korea’s nuclear program.

“It would underscore that it is an active facility that does increase North Korea’s fissile material stocks to increase its arsenal.”

A study by Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation released ahead of the Hanoi summit said North Korea had continued to produce bomb fuel in 2018 and may have produced enough in the past year to add as many as seven nuclear weapons to its arsenal.

Experts have estimated the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal at anywhere between 20 and 60 warheads.

U.S. businesses no longer ‘positive anchor’ for U.S.-China relations: chamber

BEIJING (Reuters) – Frustrated U.S. businesses can no longer be counted on as a “positive anchor” in U.S.-China relations, a top U.S. business lobby said on Wednesday, arguing any deal to end trade tensions must address structural problems in China’s economic system.

Long considered the ballast in a relationship fraught with geopolitical frictions, the U.S. business community in China in recent years has advocated a harder line on Beijing’s trade policies.

“Crucially, the mood has shifted,” the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a statement accompanying its annual report on China’s business climate.

“The U.S. business community in China, so long an advocate of good bilateral relations, can no longer be relied upon to be a positive anchor. U.S. companies continue to face an uncertain operating environment in China amid decreasing optimism about their investment outlook,” it said.

The world’s two biggest economies are nine months into a trade war that has cost billions of dollars, roiled financial markets and upended supply chains.

U.S. President Donald Trump has slapped tariffs on $250 billion of goods imported from China to press demands for an end to policies – including industrial subsidies, forced technology transfers, and market access barriers – that Washington says hurt U.S. companies.

China has responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods.

The chamber said tariffs had negatively impacted many of its members who “are not necessarily supportive” of their use, but earlier attempts at dialogue had failed to balance economic relations.

“We understand that any true resolution of the current dispute requires addressing the structural issues … that have long hindered importation of U.S. goods and services and operations of U.S. businesses in China,” the chamber’s chairman, Timothy Stratford, said in the report.

A chamber survey in February showed a majority of its members favored the United States retaining tariffs on Chinese goods while Washington and Beijing try to hammer out a deal to end the trade war.

It noted then that 19 percent of its companies were adjusting supply chains or seeking to source components and organize assembly outside of China as a result of tariffs.

Many in the business community have expressed concern that Trump could settle for a deal that increases commodity sales to China, while doing little to change China’s underlying trade practices and industrial policies.

Reuters reported on Monday that U.S. negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a deal after strong resistance from Beijing.

But Trump and U.S. negotiators have repeatedly said talks with China were going well.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday that he hoped the two sides were close to a final round of negotiations, and that a deal – if reached – would go “way beyond” previous efforts to open China’s markets to U.S. companies.

Trump vetoes congressional resolution to end U.S. involvement in Yemen war

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has vetoed a congressional resolution that sought to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, the White House said on Tuesday.

“This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future,” Trump said in the veto message.

The resolution passed the House of Representatives in April and the Senate in March, marking the first time both chambers of Congress had supported a War Powers resolution, which limits the president’s ability to send troops into action.

Neither the 247-175 tally in the Democratic-majority House nor the 54-46 vote in the Republican-led Senate would be enough to override the veto, which would require two-thirds majorities in both chambers.

Backers of the measure said the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen had made the humanitarian crisis worse, harshly criticizing Riyadh for killing civilians.

They also argued that U.S. involvement in Yemen violated the constitutional requirement that Congress, not the president, should determine when the country goes to war.

The four-year-long civil war in Yemen, which pits the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels backed by Iran, has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the world’s most dire humanitarian crisis, with the country on the brink of famine.

House panels issue subpoenas to Deutsche Bank, others in Trump probe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. House of Representatives committees have issued subpoenas to multiple financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank AG, for information on President Donald Trump’s finances, the panels’ Democratic leaders said on Monday.

“The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern. The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the president and his associates, as thoroughly as possible,” the committee’s chair, Maxine Waters, said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement the subpoenas issued included a “friendly subpoena to Deutsche Bank.”

A 2018 financial disclosure form showed liabilities for Trump of at least $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, a unit of the German bank. They are for properties including the Trump International Hotel in a former post office in Washington.

Deutsche Bank said in January, shortly after Democrats took control of the House following the November elections, that it had received an inquiry from the two committees on its ties to the Republican president.

Schiff said Deutsche bank had been cooperative. “We look forward to their continued cooperation and compliance,” he said.

Kerrie McHugh, a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman, said the bank was engaged in a “productive dialogue” with the two committees. “We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations in a manner consistent with our legal obligations,” she said in an emailed statement.

The New York Times, which first reported the committees’ actions on Monday, said Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp had also received subpoenas.

Trump lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Stocks Climb as Earnings Boost Outlook; Bonds Slip: Markets Wrap

Bloomberg – Global stocks climbed on Tuesday as investors showed confidence that the equity rally will find fresh support in the deluge of corporate earnings due this week. The dollar edged up while Treasuries slipped.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced for a fifth day, driven higher by banks and retail shares, while S&P 500 futures pointed to a positive open as the earnings season kicks into high gear, with Bank of America Corp. and BlackRock Inc. results due Tuesday. In Asia, shares in China and Hong Kong outperformed markets in Japan and South Korea. Emerging-market stocks climbed, though the currencies weakened. The yen inched higher.

Investors are spending the holiday-shortened week assessing the chances that stocks will sustain their rally even as similar gains in investment-grade bonds have ebbed since late March. Optimism over earnings appears to be boosting bullish sentiment in equities, though volumes this week have been muted.

Central banks are also in the frame, with Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who currently sees rates on hold until the fall of 2020, saying that the nation’s central bank may need to cut them if inflation falls.

Elsewhere, West Texas oil slipped on concerns over rising U.S. crude inventories. The Aussie dollar declined after minutes from Australia’s central bank showed that officials concluded there was no near-term need to adjust rates.

Here are some notable events coming up:

Earnings season rolls on this week, with reports due from: Bank of America, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, Netflix, IBM, United Continental, PepsiCo, Honeywell, Alcoa and Taiwan Semiconductor.
Wednesday brings China GDP, industrial production and retail sales data.
Stock markets will be closed for Easter holidays in countries including the U.S., U.K. and Germany on Friday.

These are the main moves in markets:

Stocks
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index gained 0.3 percent as of 9:49 a.m. London time.
Futures on the S&P 500 Index gained 0.4 percent to the highest in more than six months.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index rose 0.3 percent to the highest in more than six months on the largest advance in more than a week.
Germany’s DAX Index gained 0.7 percent, reaching the highest in more than six months on its fifth consecutive advance and the biggest rise in almost two weeks.
The MSCI Emerging Market Index gained 0.5 percent, the largest rise in almost two weeks.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.3 percent to the highest in more than six months.

Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained 0.1 percent.
The euro rose less than 0.05 percent to $1.1307, the strongest in more than three weeks.
The British pound decreased 0.1 percent to $1.3093.
The Japanese yen increased 0.1 percent to 111.94 per dollar.

Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries climbed one basis point to 2.57 percent, the highest in four weeks.
Germany’s 10-year yield increased one basis point to 0.07 percent, the highest in almost four weeks.
Britain’s 10-year yield rose one basis point to 1.229 percent, the highest in six weeks.
Italy’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 2.561 percent.

Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.2 percent to $63.27 a barrel, the lowest in more than a week.
Gold decreased 0.2 percent to $1,284.95 an ounce, the weakest in almost 12 weeks.

Trump on China trade spat: ‘We’re going to win either way’

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Monday he believed the United States would emerge from its trade dispute with China as a winner, no matter what happened.

“We’re going to win either way. We either win by getting a deal or we win by not getting a deal,” Trump said during a visit to a business roundtable in Burnsville, Minnesota.

The world’s two biggest economies are nine months into a trade war that has cost billions of dollars, roiled financial markets and upended supply chains.

Trump’s administration has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of imports of Chinese goods to press demands for an end to policies that Washington says hurt U.S. companies competing with Chinese firms. China responded with its own tit-for-tat tariffs on U.S. goods.

Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said earlier on Monday that trade negotiators are making a lot of progress. He told Fox Business Network there is more work to do, however, including enforcement.

Citigroup profit beats on investment banking boost

(Reuters) – Citigroup Inc reported higher-than-expected earnings on Monday despite declining revenue as the New York-based lender cut costs, grew its investment-banking business and expanded net-interest margin.

Still, Citi improved its results in ways, including expense cutting, that may be tough to replicate in future quarters. A lower tax rate also played a big role in Citi’s improvement from a year ago.

The bank’s income from continuing operations declined slightly. On a call with reporters, Chief Financial Officer Mark Mason said the decline was due in part to a divestiture last year. But net income rose because the bank’s effective tax rate declined to 21 percent from 24 percent a year earlier.

Citi has been investing in digital capability to try to win deposits domestically despite its light U.S. branch network. Chief Executive Mike Corbat said in a statement its efforts are showing positive early results.

But the bank is still growing deposits faster abroad than in the United States: International consumer deposits rose 3 percent during the quarter, while retail North American deposits edged up 1 percent.

JPMorgan Chase & Co on Friday reported that its U.S. consumer deposits were up 3 percent from a year earlier.

Corbat also pointed to the bank’s improved 11.9-percent return on average tangible common shareholder’s equity and the $5.1 billion it returned in capital to shareholders during the quarter.

“Both our consumer and institutional businesses performed well and we saw good momentum in those areas where we have been investing,” he said.

Investment banking revenue rose 20 percent to $1.4 billion, as strong growth in advisory and investment-grade debt underwriting more than offset a drop in equity underwriting.

Bond trading rose 1 percent in sharp contrast to Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, both of which reported double-digit declines.

But a 24-percent drop in equities trading pressured Citi’s overall revenue, which fell 2 percent to $18.58 billion, slightly below analysts’ estimates.

Revenue from consumer banking, the bank’s largest business, was flat at $8.5 billion, due to weakness in Asia.

North American branded cards revenue jumped 5 percent during the quarter, including the impact of a one-time gain the year before.

In 2018, Citigroup ranked third in the United States for outstanding credit-card loans, with an 11.4 percent market share, behind first-place JPMorgan Chase and second-place American Express, according to The Nilson Report.

Earlier this year, the bank said it would earn $2 billion more in revenue from lending activities than it did in 2018.

Total loans at the third-largest U.S. bank by assets rose 3 percent to $682.3 billion, while deposits grew 5 percent to $1.03 trillion, excluding foreign exchange fluctuations.

Citi’s net-interest margin, a closely watched metric, expanded 8 basis points to 2.72 percent in the quarter. Total operating expenses fell 3 percent to $10.58 billion

Leading into the reporting season some analysts feared that net interest margin would peak since the Federal Reserve signaled it would not raise interest rates this year. On a call with analysts, Mason said that a rate cut or the absence of a rate hike would not have a material impact on results for the year.

Net income rose to $4.71 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter ended March 31 from $4.62 billion, or $1.68 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts were looking for a profit of $1.80 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.