Financial News

Financial News:

Stocks gain ground, oil prices ease

NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks are higher in afternoon trading on Wall Street and oil prices eased lower as investors remained focused on the outlook for inflation. The S&P 500 rose 1.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% and the Nasdaq rose 1.9%. European markets also rose, while Asian markets closed higher overnight. Banks helped drive the gains, along with technology and retailer stocks. Energy stocks slipped as oil prices fell. Bond yields continued to rise a day after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was prepared to move more aggressively in raising interest rates in its fight against inflation, if it needed to.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Electric vehicle battery maker LG Energy Solution, a joint-venture partner with automaker General Motors, plans a $1.7 billion expansion in western Michigan that will add up to 1,200 jobs by 2025. The project at the company’s site in Holland was approved today for $56.5 million in state grants and a 20-year tax break worth $132.6 million. Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO Quentin Messer Jr. says the expansion will quintuple the plant’s ability to produce battery components. The average wage will be $1,257 a week, or about $65,000 annually, plus benefits. The company, which is headquartered in South Korea, could begin hiring later this year.

PARIS (AP) – French energy giant TotalEnergies says it has decided to halt all its purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products by the end of the year at the latest. The French company said today that it will “gradually suspend its activities in Russia” amid the worsening situation in Ukraine. It stressed “the existence of alternative sources for supplying Europe” with oil. Russia represented 17% of the company’s oil and gas production in 2020. The group said it will continues to supply Europe with liquefied natural gas from Russia’s Yamal LNG plant “as long as Europe’s governments consider that Russian gas is necessary.”

BERLIN (AP) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has again dismissed calls to boycott Russian energy supplies in the wake of the attack on Ukraine. Scholz said today that the sanctions already imposed on Russia were hitting its economy “and this will only get more dramatic every day.” At the same time, he says the sanctions were designed to be “tolerable” for those imposing them, including in the long term. European countries pay Russia hundreds of millions of dollars each day for fossil fuels. Ukrainian officials say this trade effectively finances Russia’s war against their country.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) – A South African court has suspended construction work on a huge new business park that will house Amazon’s Africa headquarters in Cape Town after a challenge by Indigenous groups. The groups say the development will spoil an area that’s sacred to them. The First Nations Indigenous people are recognized as the first inhabitants of South Africa and have been working for years to permanently stop the $300 million River Club project. The project is set to put offices, shopping malls and housing on more than 37 acres of land that currently includes a wetlands area and a point where two rivers meet. Developers and city officials say Amazon is to be the main tenant.