市场消息

LONDON (Reuters) – Brent oil prices rose on Wednesday, after top exporter Saudi Arabia said it would cut crude exports and deliver an even deeper cut to its production, while U.S. futures gained on a decline in domestic oil inventories.

Brent crude futures rose 88 cents to $63.30 a barrel by 0950 GMT, while U.S. crude oil futures gained 66 cents to trade at $53.76 a barrel.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on Tuesday that it had cut its output by almost 800,000 bpd in January to 30.81 million bpd.

Most of that reduction has been thanks to Saudi Arabia. Energy minister Khalid al-Falih on Tuesday told the Financial Times production would fall below 10 million bpd in March, more than half a million bpd below the target it agreed to as part of a global deal to limit supply.

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday he hopes for “productive” trade meetings in China this week, as the two countries seek to hammer out an agreement amid a festering dispute that has seen both level tariffs at each other.

U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China are scheduled to rise to 25 percent from 10 percent if the two sides cannot reach a deal by a March 1 deadline, increasing pain and costs in sectors from consumer electronics to agriculture.

Mnuchin, asked by reporters as he left his Beijing hotel what his hopes were for the visit, said “productive meetings”. He did not elaborate.

Mnuchin, along with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, arrived in the Chinese capital on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he could let the deadline for a trade agreement “slide for a little while,” but that he would prefer not to and expects to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to close the deal at some point.

Trump’s advisers have previously described March 1 as a “hard deadline,” but Trump told reporters for the first time that a delay was now possible.

LONDON (Reuters) – The head of Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service is expected to stay on beyond his retirement date this year to guide the intelligence agency through the post-Brexit period, The Times newspaper reported.

Alex Younger, 55, is due to retire in November after five years in the role. But officials want him to extend his appointment to cover the 12 to 24 months after Britain has left the EU, The Times said.

If Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirm the extension, he will become the longest-serving MI6 chief since the 1960s. MI6 chiefs, known as “C”, traditionally serve for five years at most.

Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, has agreed to remain as director-general of the security service until 2020. He was appointed in 2013.

MI6 operates overseas and is tasked with defending Britain and its interests.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was unhappy with a deal struck by congressional negotiators on border security that denied him funds for his promised U.S.-Mexican border wall, but did not reject it outright as fellow Republicans urged his support.

Trump’s demand in December for $5.7 billion from Congress to help build a wall on the southern border triggered a 35-day closure of about a quarter of the federal government. But he remains undecided about whether he will support the agreement reached on Monday night that includes $1.37 billion for border fencing.

Nevertheless, Trump said he did not expect another shutdown, while continuing to insist he could find a way to bypass Congress and build a wall without lawmakers.

The Republican president repeated his insistence that if Congress did not provide the funding, he would press forward with building a wall, writing: “Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak!”

LONDON (Reuters) – European shares opened higher on Tuesday as investors cheered signs of a compromise in the standoff over the U.S. government funding and positive signals around U.S.-China trade talks, while Michelin’s results pumped up tire stocks.

The pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.6 percent at 0940 GMT, with Germany’s trade-sensitive DAX up 1.1 percent and Paris’ CAC 40 up 0.8 percent.

Automakers and their suppliers were the biggest gainers, up 2 percent after Michelin delivered better-than-expected results and pledged further gains in operating profit this year despite challenging conditions.

The French tire maker’s shares rallied more than 10 percent and were on track for their best day in nearly a decade.

Italy’s Pirelli and Germany’s Continental were among the top gainers in their domestic markets and on the STOXX 600.

London indices underperformed their euro-zone peers amid caution ahead of a parliamentary address by British Prime Minister Theresa May later in the day as she struggles to secure a Brexit deal.

(Reuters) – Walmart Inc and logistics firm Deliv pulled the plug on a key same-day grocery delivery partnership, dealing a setback in the retailer’s race against rival Amazon.com Inc to deliver groceries to customers’ homes.

The world’s largest retailer began bolstering its partnerships with third-party courier firms to reach consumers in 100 U.S. cities last year, after failing to use Uber and Lyft to deliver groceries, and struggling in its attempt to use its own employees to deliver goods.

Deliv, which was one of Walmart’s earliest partners with pilot programs in Miami and San Jose, served the retailer with a 90-day termination notice, and the two companies stopped working with each other in late January, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Walmart confirmed the previously unreported decision, and said it still partners with seven delivery firms, including DoorDash and Postmates, four of which it signed up in January.

People familiar with the Walmart partnership with Deliv said the Deliv drivers had to frequently wait 40 minutes or more to collect grocery orders when they showed up at the store. One reason for that, they said, is because Walmart gives a priority to customers over delivery drivers during regular hours, which complicated the partnership.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition supporters will take to the streets nationwide on Tuesday to keep up the heat on embattled President Nicolas Maduro and to call on him to let humanitarian aid into the country where food and medicine shortages are rife.

The rallies will take place nearly three weeks to the day that opposition chief Juan Guaido invoked a constitutional provision to declare himself Venezuela’s legitimate president, arguing that Maduro’s re-election last year was a sham.

Most Western counties including the United States have recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s president, but Maduro retains the backing of powerful nations like Russia and China as well as control of state institutions including the military.

The two sides are now at loggerheads over the issue of humanitarian aid, which the opposition says has become necessary due to Maduro’s mishandling of the once-buoyant OPEC nation’s economy.

The 35-year-old Guaido is coordinating Western relief efforts. Maduro, who denies there is a crisis, denounces the aid as a U.S.-orchestrated show and is blocking the entry of supplies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. congressional negotiators on Monday reached a tentative deal to try to avert another partial government shutdown on Saturday, but congressional aides said it did not contain the $5.7 billion President Donald Trump wants for a border wall.

“We reached an agreement in principle” on funding border security programs through Sept. 30, Republican Senator Richard Shelby told reporters.

“Our staffs are going to be working feverishly to put all the particulars together,” Shelby said. Neither he nor three other senior lawmakers flanking him provided any details of the tentative pact.

But it was far from clear if the Republican president would embrace the agreement. His December demand for $5.7 billion this year to help pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border – rejected by congressional Democrats – triggered a 35-day partial government shutdown that ended last month without him getting wall funding.

A congressional aide, who asked not to be identified, said the outline of the deal included $1.37 billion for erecting new fencing along the southern border. That is about the same amount Congress allocated last year and far below what Trump has demanded.