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LONDON (Reuters) – Ryanair expects Boeing’s 737 MAX 10 jet to be certified by the fourth quarter of 2024, Group Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said on Tuesday.

The U.S. aviation regulator last year cleared Boeing to begin certification flight testing of the MAX 10, the largest version of its bestselling jet aimed at seizing the top of the narrowbody market. Ryanair has firm orders for 150 MAX 10.

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska; Writing by Conor Humphries, Editing by Louise Heavens)

By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – European Union lawmakers gave the nod on Tuesday to giving investors better access to stock and bond prices and helping the bloc’s capital market compete better with Wall Street in raising funds for companies to grow.

The European Parliament voted in favour of revising the bloc’s securities rules known as MiFID by mandating the creation of “consolidated tapes” or single real-time snapshots of bond prices by mid-2025, and for stocks and derivatives during 2026.

EU states have already given their nod.

Only large market participants with deep pockets can typically afford to get prices from the many trading platforms dotted across the EU.

“The new provisions should reduce information asymmetries between market participants and improve orderly trading in commodity derivatives concerning energy and food,” parliament’s economic affairs committee said in a statement.

AFME, which represents market participants in Europe, said tapes for stocks and bonds should now be a priority.

“These tapes are an initial step in making EU cross-border investments easier through the creation of a truly integrated pan-European market,” AFME said in a statement.

EuroCTP, a grouping of exchanges, including Deutsche Boerse and Euronext, that wants to set up tapes in shares and exchange-traded-funds, said Tuesday’s vote was a great start to 2024.

“At EuroCTP, we stand by the shared principle of increasing market data transparency and accessibility,” it said.

Three heavyweights in the bond trading sector said last month they had scrapped plans to provide a bond tape, citing complexity and costs.

Tapes, a feature of Wall Street for decades, have been mired in industry infighting in Europe over how exchanges should be paid for their price data, a key element of their earnings.

Tuesday’s revisions to MiFID also ban brokers from receiving payments from trading platforms to which they channel client stock orders, known as payment for order flow or PFOF.

Regulators were concerned that investors may not always get the best prices, but not all lawmakers agreed.

“Banning PFOF will do precisely one thing: make trading costs for retail investors go up. This is consumer protection done wrong,” said Markus Ferber, a German centre-right lawmaker on the economic committee.

Britain, no longer an EU member, is taking similar steps to set up price feeds.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Christina Fincher)

By Robert Harvey

(Reuters) -Oil prices rose by around 1% on Tuesday, as investors weighed the impact of tensions in the Middle East.

Brent crude futures gained 81 cents, or about 1.04%, to $78.96 a barrel at 1333 GMT. The contract had lost 14 cents on Monday.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 41 cents, or 0.56%, from Friday at $73.09 a barrel. U.S. markets were closed for a public holiday on Monday.

An escalating conflict in the Middle East, and consequently increased volatility in oil futures, focused attention on Tuesday.

“The brief spikes we’ve seen have highlighted the sensitivity in the market to events around the Red Sea,” said Craig Erlam of OANDA.

Yemen’s Houthi movement said on Monday it will expand its targets in the Red Sea region to include U.S. ships, and that it would keep up attacks after U.S.-led strikes in Yemen.

A Malta-flagged bulk carrier was struck by a missile off Yemen on Tuesday.

More oil tankers have sought to avoid the southern Red Sea. Japan’s largest shipper by sales NYK told Reuters it has instructed all vessels it operates not to use the Red Sea.

Oil major Shell said it had suspended all shipments through the Red Sea indefinitely after last week’s strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Tensions are flaring elsewhere in the region. Iran said on Tuesday it had launched ballistic missiles at targets in Iraq and Syria in defence of its sovereignty and to counter terrorism.

The geopolitical risk premium on oil prices may find a ceiling unless production is shut in, analysts said.

“In the absence of actual and palpable impact on oil output prices will remain well within the current $72-$82 range,” PVM analyst Tamas Varga said in a note.

Investors were also awaiting a speech by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Christopher Waller at 1600 GMT on Tuesday for clues about when the Fed might begin to cut interest rates.

European Central Bank interest rates are likely to come down this year but policymakers have avoided making firm statements on the timing of such cuts.

(Reporting by Robert Harvey, Arathy Somasekhar in Houston and Trixie Yap in Singapore; editing by Barbara Lewis and Jason Neely)

There’s a lot of chaos in the markets.

Consumer prices jumped more than expected, raising fears the Federal Reserve may not be able to aggressively cut rates this year. The U.S. just launched an attack on Iranian-backed Houthis, which could open another major front in the Middle East. Bitcoin-related trades are dropping on a sell-the-news reaction to Bitcoin ETFs. 

It’s enough to make any one nuts.

But remember, as it’s often said, “There’s always a bull market somewhere.”

One of those bull markets can be found in uranium stocks. Cameco (CCJ) is up about 10% on the day. Uranium Energy (UEC) is up 12% to $7.76. Energy Fuels (UUUU) is up 10%. Even NexGen (NXE) is up about 10% to $7.74 on the day thanks to major catalysts.

For one, “The world’s biggest miner of the nuclear fuel warned it may miss production targets for up to two years. The announcement by Kazatomprom is the latest sign uranium will be in short supply amid growing global demand for nuclear power,” as noted by Yahoo Finance.

Two, according to OilPrice.com: 

“The uranium market is only getting hotter, and continued tightness could push prices over $100, analysts from Bank of America and Berenberg Bank wrote in two separate notes.

BofA’s metals and mining team said tightness in uranium markets could extend well into 2025, indicating that prices could run higher through this year. The team of analysts has increased their uranium spot price price targets to $105 per pound in 2024 and $115 in 2025.”

Three, “Geopolitical uncertainty and concerns about the security of uranium supply continue to be the driving forces behind the ongoing uranium rally,” noted Jacob White, Sprott Asset Management ETF product manager, as quoted by ETFTrends.com. 

Four, “Miners are struggling to get enough uranium out of the ground. That is helping to push prices of the nuclear fuel to nearly 16-year highs,” they added. In addition, about 22 countries, including the U.S., Canada, the UK, and France just pledged to triple their nuclear capacity by 2050 at the 28th Annual UN Climate Change Conference. 

Those are all major catalysts that could send uranium stocks, like CCJ, UEC, UUU, and NXE to higher highs moving forward.

By Nathan Gomes and Joseph White

(Reuters) -Rental firm Hertz Global Holdings is selling about 20,000 electric vehicles, including Teslas, from its U.S. fleet about two years after a deal with the automaker to offer its vehicles for rent, in another sign that EV demand has cooled.

Hertz will instead opt for gas-powered vehicles, it said on Thursday, citing higher expenses related to collision and damage for EVs even though it had aimed to convert 25% of its fleet to electric by 2024 end.

CEO Stephen Scherr had last year at the JPMorgan Auto Conference flagged headwinds from higher expenses for its EVs, particularly Teslas.

Hertz even limited the torque and speed on the EVs and offered it to experienced users on the platform to make them easier to adapt after certain users had front-end collisions, he said.

Shares of the company, which also operates vehicles from Swedish EV maker Polestar among others, fell about 4%. Tesla’s stock was down about 3%.

Hertz also expects about $245 million in charges related to depreciation expenses from the EV sale in the fourth quarter of 2023.

BUMPY ROAD FOR EV GROWTH

Its decision underscores the bumpy road EVs have hit as their sales growth slows, causing carmakers like General Motors and Ford to scale back production plans.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note Hertz’s move was another sign that EV expectations need to be “reset downward”.

While consumers enjoy the driving experience and fuel savings (per mile) of an EV, Jonas said there are other “hidden costs to EV ownership”.

“Expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EVs, remained high in the quarter,” Hertz said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The company, which had earlier planned to order 100,000 Tesla vehicles by 2022 end and 65,000 units from Polestar over five years, said it would focus on improving profitability for the rest of its EV fleet.

German rental car company Sixt said in December it had not purchased Tesla vehicles since 2022 and was selling its fleet of Teslas “as part of our regular de-fleeting process”.

It still plans to offer a range of electrified vehicles and “stick to our goal to electrify 70-90 percent of our rental fleet in Europe by 2030”, it said on Thursday.

USED-EV PRICES DROP

Meanwhile, wholesale used-EV prices fell for most of 2023 as prices for new EVs fell and inventories of unsold electric vehicles rose, according to Cox Automotive data.

Cox forecast before Hertz’s decision that used-EV prices would decline more than overall used vehicle prices in 2024.

“While 20,000 cars isn’t a large number in the total used vehicle market, it does mean Hertz will be taking a major loss on each of these sales while further contributing to the trend of falling used EV values,” iSeeCars.com analyst Karl Brauer said.

Hertz is selling some Tesla Model 3 for as low as about $20,000, nearly half the purchase price for the cheapest variant of the compact sedan, its used car website showed.

It lists more than 700 EVs on sale, including BMW’s i3, Chevrolet’s Bolt and Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y SUVs.

(Reporting by Nathan Gomes and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru, Joe White in Detroit; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Sriraj Kalluvila and Arun Koyyur)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is launching a formal investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX 9 after a cabin panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight last week in mid-air, forcing an emergency landing, the regulator said on Thursday.

The FAA on Saturday grounded 171 Boeing MAX jets with the same panel pending safety inspections. Most are operated by U.S. carriers Alaska Airlines and United Airlines.

The incident was the latest in a series of events that have shaken confidence in the aircraft manufacturer.

Talks between Boeing, the FAA and airlines on revised inspection and maintenance instructions from Boeing that the regulator must approve before airlines can resume flying the planes ended for the day on Thursday without agreement, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

The FAA said the Alaska Airlines incident “should have never happened and it cannot happen again.”

The agency told Boeing in a letter dated Wednesday that the investigation was to determine if the planemaker had failed to ensure completed products conformed to its approved design and were in a condition for safe operation under FAA rules. The agency cited “additional discrepancies” in other 737 MAX 9 planes.

“We will cooperate fully and transparently with the FAA and the NTSB on their investigations,” Boeing said in a statement.

Boeing shares closed down 2.3% on Thursday and have fallen more than 10% since the incident.

BOEING ‘MISTAKE’

Alaska Airlines and United said on Monday they had found loose parts on multiple grounded aircraft during preliminary checks, raising new concerns about how Boeing’s best-selling jet family is manufactured.

The two carriers have canceled hundreds of flights since Saturday with the MAX 9 planes grounded, including another 230 by United and 152 by Alaska Airlines for Friday.

A growing number of U.S. lawmakers expressed broader concerns about the FAA and Boeing and questions about the planemaker’s manufacturing quality control.

“Given the previous tragic crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, we are deeply concerned that the loose bolts represent a systemic issue with Boeing’s capabilities to manufacture safe airplanes,” Senators Ed Markey, JD Vance and Peter Welch wrote to Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell in a letter to the FAA questioned Boeing’s quality control and said it appeared the FAA’s oversight processes “have not been effective” in ensuring Boeing produces airplanes in safe operating conditions.

Reuters reported on Tuesday the planemaker told staff the findings were being treated as a “quality control issue” and checks were under way at Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems.

Calhoun told CNBC on Wednesday that a “quality escape” was at issue that led to the MAX 9 being in the air that suffered the cabin blowout.

In an internal speech to staff on Tuesday, Calhoun said: “We’re going to approach this number one acknowledging our mistake.”

The Stritmatter law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Boeing on Thursday in King County, Washington on behalf of passengers on the Alaska Airlines flight, citing Calhoun’s admission of Boeing’s “mistake” in connection with the MAX 9.

Daniel Laurence, an attorney for the passengers, said the flight “has caused economic, physical and ongoing emotional consequences.” Boeing declined to comment.

More travelers are checking the model of an aircraft before booking flights after the Alaska Airlines incident, several travel operators said.

PROCESSES UNDER SCRUTINY

The Alaska Airlines aircraft, which had been in service for just eight weeks, took off from Portland, Oregon last Friday and was flying at 16,000 feet(4,900 m) when the panel tore off the plane, blowing open the cockpit door. Pilots returned the jet to Portland, with only minor injuries suffered by passengers.

Boeing’s manufacturing practices “need to comply with the high safety standards they’re legally accountable to meet,” the FAA said. The NTSB is looking at whether bolts attaching the panel were properly tightened or missing.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday declined to say when the FAA may allow the planes to resume flights but said Boeing must ensure its planes are “100% safe.”.

In 2019, global authorities grounded all MAX planes for 20 months after 346 people died in crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia linked to poorly designed cockpit software..

The crisis eroded Boeing’s 50% share of the passenger jet market and the company ended 2023 in second place behind rival Airbus in aircraft deliveries for the fifth year running.

Airbus on Thursday posted record annual jet orders, booking nearly 2,100 net new orders in 2023 while Boeing booked 1,314 net new orders. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury told reporters it was closely monitoring the investigation of its rival.

“We will be taking each and every learning and we would expect Spirit to do exactly the same,” he added.

Brazilian airline Gol said quality issues across the aviation industry must be assessed and risk mitigation plans put in place.

Panama’s civil aviation authority said it had temporarily prohibited operations of 21 of Copa Airlines’ MAX 9s.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Marguerita Choy, David Gregorio and Jamie Freed)

By Jack Queen and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Donald Trump on Thursday accused the New York judge in his civil fraud trial of “having your own agenda” – and the judge told his lawyer to control his client – as a months-long case that could hobble the former U.S. president’s business empire came to an end.

During a contentious final day of the trial in Manhattan, Trump once again tangled with Justice Arthur Engoron, who is considering what penalties to impose after earlier finding that Trump’s company inflated his net worth to win better financing terms. The judge, deciding the case without a jury, said he hoped to issue a ruling by Jan. 31.

“You have your own agenda. I understand that you can’t listen for more than one minute,” Trump told Engoron in court, as he denied wrongdoing and repeated claims of political persecution.

Trump’s legal team and the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James delivered closing arguments in a case accusing him of inflating his net worth to dupe banks. Kevin Wallace, a lawyer from her office, said Trump’s company issued false financial statements every year between 2011 and 2021.

“Fraud was central to the operation of the Trump Organization’s activities,” Wallace told the judge.

James is seeking nearly $370 million and a lifetime ban on Trump from the state’s real-estate industry.

Andrew Amer, an attorney for the state, said Trump’s financial statements from before he became president clearly showed he was responsible for their contents.

“The buck stopped with him,” Amer said.

Trump, who served as president from 2017-2021, is now the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the November U.S. election. Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will be the first to decide their preferred party nominee this month.

The closing arguments took place in an atmosphere of heightened security after media outlets reported a bomb threat at Engoron’s suburban home. The judge has been a frequent target of Trump’s criticism, and the two clashed repeatedly on Thursday.

“Please control your client,” the judge at one point told Trump’s lawyer, Christopher Kise.

Engoron earlier reacted skeptically to Kise’s argument that Trump should not be penalized for allegedly manipulating the value of his properties because lenders and insurers that did business with him still turned a profit.

“There does not have to be any evidence of harm,” Engoron said.

Trump separately has pleaded not guilty in four criminal prosecutions, including two charging him with unlawfully trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. All could go to trial before the election.

‘A MANUFACTURED CLAIM’

The judge found Trump liable for fraud in September, leaving the trial to focus largely on how much money he should surrender as ill-gotten gains. Trump has appealed that order and is almost certain to appeal any verdict against him.

Throughout the trial that began with opening statements on Oct. 2, the state’s lawyers sought to show that Trump consistently overstated the value of many of the towers, golf clubs and other assets that burnished his reputation as a business mogul before he entered politics.

“This entire case is a manufactured claim to pursue a political agenda,” Kise argued on Thursday as Trump watched from the defense table. “It has always been press releases and posturing, but no proof at all.”

Trump admitted to providing inaccurate property valuations during testimony in November. But Kise on Thursday said any alleged manipulation was harmless. Kise said banks and insurers would have been eager to do business with Trump even if his net worth was far lower.

“He’s a whale client,” Kise said.

Clifford Robert, a lawyer for Trump’s adult children Donald Jr. and Eric, who are also defendants in the case, told the judge there was no evidence they were significantly involved in the financial statements.

“This is a press release wrapped up in a lawsuit,” Robert said of the attorney general’s case.

Security has been an issue throughout the months-long trial. Engoron’s top staffer faced threats after Trump criticized her as politically biased, prompting the judge to issue a gag order barring him from disparaging court staff. The judge has fined Trump $15,000 for twice violating the order.

As James arrived at the courthouse, onlookers cheered and chanted, “Thank you, James.” Police stood guard and tightly controlled entrances to the building.

Trump held a news conference at one of the buildings he owns, accusing Biden, without offering evidence, of orchestrating the lawsuits and criminal cases against him.

“I’m going to go to all of my trials,” Trump said. “This is their new form of cheating.” Supporters chanted his name as he left.

(Reporting by Jack Queen and Luc Cohen; additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien and Susan Heavey; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Will Dunham and Daniel Wallis and Chizu Nomiyama)

(Reuters) -Walt Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios is set to cut jobs as the studio has completed production on some shows and now has more staff than it needs, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Thursday.

TechCrunch reported earlier that Pixar was set to undergo layoffs as high as 20% this year, with the studio’s team of 1,300 people reduced to under 1,000 over the coming months.

The source disputed that number and said Pixar was yet to determine how many employees would lose their jobs, and that the layoffs were not imminent. The person did not provide an estimate of how many job cuts the studio expected but said they would not impact Pixar’s theatrical output.

Pixar’s Emeryville studio in California had hired staff to complete streaming series and as those shows complete production it has more staff than it needs, the source added.

Disney did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was brought back in 2022 to turn the company around, has signaled the company will reduce streaming content it makes itself in a bid to keep a lid on costs, and will license shows and movies from third parties.

In June last year, Pixar eliminated 75 positions including those of two executives behind box office disappointment “Lightyear”, Reuters reported, in what was at the time the studio’s first significant job cuts in a decade.

Pixar is famous for cinematic franchises including “Toy Story”, “The Incredibles” and “Finding Nemo”. Opening of its movie “Elemental” last year was slow, but the romantic comedy where the four classical elements – fire, water, earth and air – coexist, went on to bring in nearly $500 million in worldwide ticket sales.

Disney acquired Pixar in 2006 to revitalize its struggling Disney Animation.

(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski Los Angeles, and Savyata Mishra and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel, Sayantani Ghosh and Rashmi Aich)

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks closed little changed on Thursday as news of hotter-than-expected inflation and signs of labor market strength dampened hopes for early interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year, but a fall in Treasury yields kept declines in check.

In a choppy session, equities opened higher and the benchmark S&P 500 briefly surpassed its record closing high of 4,796.56, hit in January 2022, before erasing initial gains.

After ending 2023 with a strong rally, stocks have struggled to find upward momentum, with the S&P 500 up only 0.21% on the year, as mixed economic data and Fed officials’ comments have led investors to scale back expectations for the timing and size of any rate cuts from the U.S. central bank this year.

The U.S. Labor Department reported that consumer prices rose more than expected in December, with Americans paying more for shelter and healthcare. A separate report showed the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to 202,000.

“They’re just understanding it for what it was. The thing that pushed it up was primarily shelter,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Nobody believes that is going to be a persistent go-forward problem apart from inflation, so the thing that drove the ‘hot print’ was something that everybody’s kind of discounting.”

Comments from some Fed officials have pushed back on potential rate cuts. On Thursday, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said consumer price data for December did little to assure them inflation is now on a steady track back to the central bank’s 2% target, with more information needed before any decision to begin reducing rates.

At 4:11 p.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15.29 points, or 0.04%, to 37,711.02. The S&P 500 lost 3.21 points, or 0.07%, at 4,780.24 and the Nasdaq Composite gained just 0.54 points, at 14,970.19.

A fall in Treasury yields helped keep losses for equities in check, after an auction of $21 billion in 30-year bonds was well received.

“People are still worried about supply in the Treasury market. … Is there going to be sufficient demand to soak that all up? And especially at the long end, the real fear is at the long end and the auction today, it was just perfect,” said Ladner.

Microsoft briefly overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable company, after the iPhone maker’s shares dropped nearly 4% since the year began due to concerns over falling demand. Microsoft’s shares rose 0.49%, while Apple shed 0.32%.

Nearly all of the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors declined, with only energy and technology in positive territory, up 0.16% and 0.44%, respectively.

Crypto stocks reversed early gains and tumbled, with names such as Coinbase off 6.7%, Bitfarms down 13.33% and Riot Platforms 15.82% lower. The U.S. securities regulator approved the first U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds (ETF) to track spot bitcoin late on Wednesday.

Citigroup fell 1.77% after a filing showed the lender booked about $3.8 billion in combined charges and reserves that will erode its fourth-quarter earnings, due to be reported on Friday.

Other banks including fell, with JPMorgan Chase, down 0.42%, Bank of America, down 1.33% and Wells Fargo off 0.08% ahead of their earnings reports on Friday.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.3-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.8-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 40 new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 109 new highs and 138 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.41 billion shares, compared with the 12.27 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Richard Chang)

(Reuters) -Walt Disney-owned animation studio Pixar is set to undergo layoffs as high as 20% this year, TechCrunch reported on Thursday, citing the company.

The job cuts would see Pixar’s team of 1,300 reduced to under 1,000 over the coming months, TechCrunch reported, citing sources at the company. According to the online newspaper, Pixar said those employee numbers were too high.

The studio said the number of impacted employees were still being determined due to factors like production schedules and staffing for future greenlit films, the report added.

Layoffs were not imminent, but will take place later this year as Pixar focuses on making less content, TechCrunch added.

(Reporting by Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)