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By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stock indexes rose sharply while benchmark 10-year Treasury yields fell to two-week lows on Wednesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates steady and Fed Chair Jerome Powell nodded to the tighter financial conditions faced by businesses and households.

The U.S. central bank in a policy statement also left the door open to a further increase in borrowing costs, and it acknowledged the American economy’s surprising strength.

The Fed announced that it had decided to hold the policy rate steady in its current 5.25% to 5.50% range for now.

Powell in a press conference said that market borrowing costs would need to be sustainably higher for that to bear on future central bank monetary policy choices.

“In the press conference, Powell notes that the risks are becoming increasingly balanced; that’s a tick for slightly dovish,” said Amo Sahota, director at Klarity FX in San Francisco.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 221.71 points, or 0.67%, to 33,274.58, the S&P 500 gained 44.06 points, or 1.05%, to 4,237.86 and the Nasdaq Composite added 210.23 points, or 1.64%, to 13,061.47.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.67% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.94%.

Benchmark 10-year note yields fell to 4.766%, the lowest since Oct. 17. Two-year yields dropped to 4.942%, the lowest since Oct. 10.

Earlier, Treasury yields slipped on Treasury Department plans to “gradually” boost the size of its debt auctions to meet financing needs.

The Treasury Department said the size of most auctions from November to January 2024 will increase and that it will need one additional quarter of increases to meet its funding plans.

The U.S. dollar index was firmer following the Fed statement but was last nearly flat. Against the yen, the dollar dropped 0.4% to 151.09.

The Japanese yen fell sharply on Tuesday, when the Bank of Japan tweaked its bond yield control policy, loosening its grip on long-term rates and pushing the currency to a one-year low against the dollar.

That was followed by a fresh and sterner warning from Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda on Wednesday that authorities stood ready to respond to recent “one-sided, sharp” moves in the currency.

Oil prices fell to a three-week low after the Fed decision. Brent futures fell 39 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $84.63 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 58 cents, or 0.7%, to $80.44.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Laura Matthews, Lawrence White in London, Ankur Banerjee in Singapore and Amruta Khandekar and Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Alison Williams, Will Dunham and Mark Potter)

By Chibuike Oguh and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Shares of Douglas Elliman, Compass and eXp World Holdings closed lower on Wednesday after the companies were sued for allegedly conspiring to artificially inflate their commissions from home sales.

The proposed class action was filed on Tuesday in Kansas City, Missouri, just hours after a jury there found the National Association of Realtors and other brokerages, including Berkshire Hathaway’s HomeServices of America, liable to pay $1.78 billion in damages for similar commission practices.

Damages in that first case could be tripled under federal antitrust law to more than $5.3 billion.

The verdict could upend decades-old practices that have allowed real estate agents to boost commissions by forcing sellers to pay commissions to buyers’ real estate brokers. Home sellers complained that this model suppressed competition.

Shares of the new defendants fell between 0.3% and 7.3% on Wednesday. Redfin, also a defendant in the lawsuit, rebounded from earlier losses and finished up 0.7%.

Both lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court in Western Missouri by the same lawyer. The first action was brought on behalf of sellers of more than 260,000 homes in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois between 2015 and 2022. Tuesday’s lawsuit is on behalf of sellers nationwide.

A spokesperson for eXp said the company was still studying the complaint, adding: “We are committed to upholding fair and transparent practices compliant with law and we already have mechanisms and a plan in place that enables buyers and sellers to negotiate commissions.”

Representatives of Compass and Douglas Elliman declined to comment. A Redfin spokesperson declined to comment, referring questions to a previously published statement by CEO Glenn Kelman saying that the lawsuit will “ensure major change” to the industry given the size of the award even though “years of appeal” lay ahead.

BTIG analyst Soham Bhonsle in an investor note said the fact that Douglas Elliman, Redfin, Compass and eXp were being sued by the same lawyers was a negative for their stocks.

Shares of Re/Max and Anywhere Real Estate, two other brokerages that had initially been defendants in the first lawsuit but settled prior to trial, finished up 5.4% and down 3.9%, respectively, on Wednesday. Both had fallen on Tuesday despite their earlier settlements.

Zillow shares initially fell 0.33% after brokerage Jefferies cut its price target, citing the impact of Tuesday’s verdict. Zillow stock ended 0.7% higher on Wednesday following a 7% drop the previous day. While Zillow is not a defendant in either lawsuit, Jefferies said Tuesday’s verdict “increases the chances of a ban on commission sharing and Zillow having to pivot the business model.” Zillow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, representatives of NAR and HomeServices said they planned to appeal.

(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Michelle Price, Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis)

(Reuters) – Cleaning supplies company Clorox on Wednesday cut its annual profit and revenue forecasts, reeling from an August cyberattack that threw its order fulfillment facilities out of gear for more than a month.

The Pine-Sol manufacturer was among several companies including gambling giants MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment to be hit by cyber attacks since August.

Clorox had anticipated its first-quarter results to be impacted by the shipping delays caused by the incident.

“We were expecting to grow gross margins this year and build on that nice progress we made last year. Our intent now is to hold margins,” CFO Kevin Jacobsen told Reuters on the impact of the attack on fiscal 2024.

The cyber incident has led the company’s net sales to drop 23% in its household and health and wellness segments, while its food and personal care segment net sales dropped 28% in the first quarter.

With Clorox’s products off the shelves for a short period in September due to the attack, Jacobsen added that private label brands made some inroads into the company’s market share.

“Consumers will be under more pressure as we get to the back half of our fiscal year,” Jacobsen added citing factors such as rising interest rates and a return to student loan payments crimping purchasing power.

The company now expects an annual adjusted profit between $4.30 and $4.80 per share, compared with its previous forecast of $5.60 and $5.90 per share.

Clorox expects net sales to be down mid-to-high single digits, as against its previous forecast of flat to 2% up.

For the first quarter ended Sept. 30, the company posted a profit of 49 cents, while analysts had expected it to post a loss of 22 cents.

(Reporting by Juveria Tabassum; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Latin America’s e-commerce behemoth MercadoLibre reported on Wednesday a better-than-expected 178.2% surge in third-quarter net profit, compared with the previous year, after revenue grew across markets, especially in Brazil.

The company posted a profit of $359.0 million for the July-September period, while analysts polled by LSEG expected $298.1 million.

“We had another super solid quarter,” Andre Chaves, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development, told journalists, highlighting the acceleration of revenue growth in e-commerce and the firm’s fintech arm in its major markets.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) grew 108.7% to $820 million. Its operating margin stood at 18.2% in the period, compared to 16.3% in the second quarter and 11% a year earlier.

Total net revenue was around $3.8 billion in the quarter ended in September, up 39.8% year-on-year.

Analysts had expected adjusted EBITDA of $636.5 million and revenue of $3.6 billion.

Margin growth was driven by the marketplace, said Chaves, attributing the movement to the increase in revenue and efficiency gains in logistics and expenses.

“All cost lines are growing, but the business is growing much faster and costs are growing in a disciplined manner.”

Within the e-commerce operation, net revenue rose to $2.1 billion, up 45.2%.

“Brazil was the star of the quarter,” said Chaves.

The country’s share of marketplace revenues rose from around 53% to almost 57% from the year-ago period, but revenue from Mexico and Argentina also grew.

In its financial services arm, Mercado Pago, net revenue grew 33.2% to $1.6 billion, as the company increased the pace of lending, while its total volume of payments processed also jumped.

(Reporting by Andre Romani; Writing by Peter Frontini; Editing by Kylie Madry)

By Sourasis Bose

(Reuters) -Chesapeake Energy beat Wall Street estimates for third-quarter profit on Tuesday, as lower overall costs helped offset the impact of falling natural gas prices, sending its shares 3.4% higher in extended trading.

The company’s production expenses fell to 23 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas equivalent (mcfe) for the third quarter, below its 2023 expectations.

That helped it against falling natural gas prices, which were down 60% in the third quarter, compared with a year earlier, as U.S. production continued to rise and concerns eased over energy security in Europe.

“Results beat expectations driven by lower cash costs and better revenue,” RBC Capital Markets analysts said.

On an adjusted basis, the company reported a profit of $1.09 per share, beating analysts’ estimates of 60 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Chesapeake’s total production fell about 15% to 3,495 million cubic feet equivalent (mmcfe) per day, as it completed its exit from the Eagle Ford basin earlier this year following pressure from activist investment firm Kimmeridge Energy Management to shift toward solely producing natural gas.

It, however, lifted its forecast for 2023 gas production in the range of 3,425 to 3,525 mmcfe per day from the earlier forecast of 3,400 to 3,500 mmcfe per day, boosted by higher volumes in Haynesville.

The company also announced an agreement with energy trader Vitol, under which Chesapeake would supply up to 1 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per annum for 15 years starting 2028.

Once the agreement is executed, the companies would jointly select the liquefaction facility in the U.S. to produce the contracted LNG, the company said.

(Reporting by Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Krishna Chandra Eluri)

By Aida Pelaez-Fernandez

(Reuters) – Steelmaker Ternium reported on Tuesday a third-quarter adjusted net income of $271 million, up more than 77% from the $153 million net income posted during the same period last year.

In a statement, the company said steel shipments during this year’s third quarter shot up nearly 40% to total 4.1 million metric tons.

The company also disclosed a non-monetary loss of $1.1 billion from the cost of its expanded stake in Brazil’s Usiminas, which when factored in yields a net loss of $739 million for the quarter.

Ternium’s revenue, meanwhile, rose by about a quarter to reach $5.2 billion during the July-to-September period.

The quarter’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) stood at $698 million, up 2% from the $679 million reported in the year-ago period.

A leading regional producer of flat steel products for a range of industries, Ternium is controlled by Argentina’s Techint Group.

The company operates in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, the United States and Central America.

Ternium added that it anticipates steel revenue per metric ton to decrease in the fourth quarter, which it said reflects lower prices in Mexico and Brazil.

Mexico’s steel prices are expected to drop on delayed impact of lower contract prices, while prices for local finished products of the key industrial metal are expected to fall in Brazil.

Shipments to Argentina are also seen falling in the fourth quarter, due to expected seasonal factors but also to government-imposed restrictions on imports.

Uncertainty in Argentina ahead of next month’s decisive run-off presidential election makes the market hard to predict given questions over how the country’s next government will approach macroeconomic policies, the company added.

Ternium reported a breakthrough at the start of the third quarter in July when it restarted operations at an iron ore mine in western Mexico following a more than five-month hiatus sparked by the disappearance of two environmental activists.

(Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Isabel Woodford in Mexico City; Editing by Kylie Madry and Matthew Lewis)

By Chavi Mehta and Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) -Chip designer Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday forecast $2 billion in sales in 2024 from a chip that aims to compete with Nvidia in the artificial intelligence (AI) market, helping shares recover after a quarterly outlook missed expectations.

AMD forecast fourth-quarter revenue and gross margins below Wall Street estimates, hurt by a weak gaming market as well as a decline in demand from some industries for its programmable chips.

Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company fell as much as 4.6% in after-market trading but turned roughly flat after executives disclosed on a conference call the outlook for its chip to compete with Nvidia. AMD is readying a chip called the MI300X it hopes will loosen Nvidia’s grip on the market for data center AI chips used to create technologies similar to ChatGPT.

During a call with investors, AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su said that “multiple, large hyperscale customers” had committed to using MI300 chips, using a term that commonly refers to large tech and cloud computing companies.

The company said it expects $400 million in revenue from the chip in the fourth quarter, up from the $300 million forecast the company had given in August. Su gave investors a 2024 sales forecast for the first time for the MI300 chip, of $2 billion.

But weakness in other segments left the company short of Wall Street expectations for the fourth quarter.

While the PC market is in recovery mode, demand for programmable chips used by industries such as wireless communications, healthcare and automotive has slowed down.

Intel last week said it expects demand from that segment to decline and stay down for the “next few” quarters. That same slowdown appears to be hitting AMD’s Xilinx business for programmable chips, which is known for its high margins.

Analysts said the recent expansion of U.S. sanctions on chip exports to Beijing will require AMD to seek licenses to sell its most high-end artificial intelligence chips to China, which it plans to launch and ramp only in the fourth quarter.

Moreover, capital spending cuts by key customer Meta Platforms could also weigh on the company.

AMD forecast current-quarter revenue of about $6.1 billion, plus or minus $300 million. Analysts polled by LSEG expect revenue of $6.37 billion. AMD forecast adjusted gross margins of 51.5%, slightly below estimates of 52.1%, according to LSEG data.

Adjusted revenue in the third quarter rose 4% to $5.8 billion, compared with estimates of $5.7 billion. Adjusted profits were 70 cents per share, above analyst estimates of 68 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Revenue at its data center business was roughly flat at $1.6 billion in the third quarter, while sales at its client segment, which caters to the PC market, rose 42% to $1.5 billion, signaling rebound in demand.

Revenue at its embedded segment, housing programmable chips, fell 5% to $1.2 billion, while gaming revenue fell 8% to $1.5 billion.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Jonathan Oatis and Rod Nickel)

(Reuters) – Tesla is aiming to make 200,000 units of its electric pickup truck, Cybertruck, per year, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Tuesday.

The company had earlier said that Tesla had the capacity to make more than 125,000 Cybertrucks annually, with Musk adding there was potential to lift it to 250,000 in 2025.

The deliveries of the much-awaited pickup truck will begin on Nov. 30, nearly four years after it was unveiled by Musk at an event in Los Angeles, where his head of design cracked the vehicle’s “armor glass” window with a metal ball while demonstrating a series of tests to the audience.

On the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast released Tuesday, Musk reiterated how hard it was to produce the Cybertruck.

“We’re aiming to make about 200,000 a year at point production … maybe a little more, but I just can’t emphasize enough that manufacturing is much much harder than the initial design,” Musk said about the futuristic-looking Cybertruck.

“We dug our own grave with Cybertruck,” he had said on an earnings call earlier this month, adding the company could face “enormous challenges” in ramping up production and making it cash-flow positive.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

By Chavi Mehta and Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) -Chip designer Advanced Micro Devices forecast fourth-quarter revenue and gross margins below Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, hurt by a weak gaming market as well as a decline in demand from some industries for its programmable chips.

Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company fell as much as 4.6% in trading after the bell. They come as the company is readying a chip called the MI300X that it hopes will compete against Nvidia in the market for data center artificial intelligence chips to create technologies similar to ChatGPT.

Before Tuesday, AMD had told investors to expect as much as $300 million in sales from those chips in the last quarter of 2024. But weakness in other segments left the company short of Wall Street expectations for the fourth quarter.

While the PC market is in recovery mode, demand for programmable chips used by industries such as wireless communications, healthcare and automotive has slowed down.

Intel last week said it expects demand from that segment to decline and stay down for the “next few” quarters. That same slowdown appears to be hitting AMD’s Xilinx business for programmable chips, which is known for its high margins.

Analysts said the recent expansion of U.S. sanctions on chip exports to Beijing will require AMD to seek licenses to sell its most high-end artificial intelligence chips to China, which it plans to launch and ramp only in the fourth quarter.

Moreover, capital spending cuts by key customer Meta Platforms could also weigh on the company.

The company forecast current-quarter revenue of about $6.1 billion, plus or minus $300 million. Analysts polled by LSEG expect revenue of $6.37 billion. AMD forecast adjusted gross margins of 51.5%, slightly below estimates of 52.1%, according to LSEG data.

Adjusted revenue in the third quarter rose 4% to $5.80 billion, compared with estimates of $5.70 billion. Adjusted profits were 70 cents per share, above analyst estimates of 68 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Revenue at its data center business was roughly flat at $1.6 billion in the third quarter, while sales at its client segment, which caters to the PC market, rose 42% to $1.5 billion, signaling rebound in demand.

Revenue at Embedded segment, housing programmable chips, fell 5% to $1.2 billion, while gaming revenue fell 8% to $1.5 billion.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Jonathan Oatis)

(Reuters) -Lithium producer Livent Corp posted a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday and cut its annual revenue and earnings forecast, citing expansion delays in Argentina.

The company pushed back the opening of a key expansion of its lithium operations in northern Argentina to next year from late 2023. The expansion is expected to boost production by 20,000 metric tons annually.

The company, which supplies lithium for Tesla and BMW, posted third-quarter net income of $87.4 million, or 42 cents per share, compared to $77.6 million, or 37 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding restructuring charges and other one-time items, Philadelphia-based Livent earned 44 cents per share. By that measure, analysts expected earnings of 46 cents per share, according to IBES data from LSEG.

Livent said its merger with rival Allkem is on track to close by the end of the year. The combined company will be called Arcadium Lithium.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; editing by Jonathan Oatis)