Metals tycoon Gupta says Trafigura ‘devised’ $557mn nickel fraud scheme

The number of pollution incidents by water companies in England and Wales increased last year, according to a government report that condemned the water sector’s environmental record as “very disappointing”.

In its annual assessment of the nine largest water and sewage companies, the Environment Agency said “the majority of water companies are not meeting basic environmental requirements”.

The number of pollution incidents from sewerage and water supply assets increased to 2,026, the highest number recorded since 2019. The incidents are self-reported by water companies and the EA said that companies were getting better at reporting incidents.

Elon Musk has formally launched xAI, an artificial intelligence company aiming to challenge the dominance of Sam Altman’s OpenAI and “understand the true nature of the universe”.

The company will be led by Musk and staffed by a team hired from other leading AI research labs, including Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft and OpenAI. The Tesla and Twitter boss has also secured thousands of GPU processors from Nvidia, which are required to build large language models that consume vast amounts of content.

xAI will be separate from the rest of Musk’s empire, but will work closely with both Twitter and Tesla, according to its web site.

Prateek Gupta, the Indian businessman that Trafigura has accused of being behind a $577mn nickel fraud, has said in his defence that the global commodity trading giant “devised and proposed” the scheme.

Gupta’s defence has alleged that Trafigura employees first proposed trading other materials that would be presented as nickel trades to the Singapore-based commodity trader’s lender Citibank, according to court filings submitted in London on Wednesday. 

“The arrangement to agree contracts with Trafigura for the sale and purchase of nickel but, in fact, to trade other material was devised and proposed by Trafigura,” the legal filings said.

Trafigura alleged in February that it was the victim of a “systematic fraud” and accused Gupta of being the “controlling mind” behind more than 1,000 containers of nickel that were discovered to contain low-value materials instead of the high-value industrial metal used mainly in stainless steel.

Trafigura did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US money market funds escaped the threat of “swing pricing” on Wednesday after regulators opted instead to impose fees and boost liquidity buffers in efforts to improve the $5.4tn market’s ability to withstand periods of extreme stress.

Wednesday’s decision by the Securities and Exchange Commission followed strong pushback from the industry against the swing pricing plans, under which the net asset value that investors withdraw funds at is adjusted to reflect the costs of their exit in a bid to slow any stampede for the exit by sharing the costs more widely.

Calls for reforms emerged after the wild market swings of March 2020, where the Federal Reserve was forced to intervene after a “dash for cash”, or safety, led to heavy outflows from so-called “prime” MMFs.

Russia’s Wagner group has begun to hand over its arms and heavy equipment as part of a plan to dismantle the paramilitaries following their failed insurrection last month, according to the defence ministry.

Wagner has handed over more than 2,000 pieces of equipment, including tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and rockets, air defence systems, howitzers, and anti-tank weapons, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The handover is part of a deal to dismantle the group after its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin led a revolt against the defence ministry’s top brass for a day in late June.

The pound hit $1.30 for the first time since April 2022 after softer-than expected US inflation data sparked a broader sell off in the dollar. 

Sterling surged 0.49 per cent against the greenback on Wednesday, extending gains following stronger-than-expected UK wages data on Tuesday.

The pound has risen 2.28 per cent against the dollar since the start of July as markets bet on several more rate rises for the Bank of England, and just one more for the Federal Reserve. 

Swaps markets are now pricing in a peak Bank of England rate at 6.2 per cent in March 2024.

Mark Thurston is quitting as chief executive of Britain’s High Speed 2 rail line after more than six years in charge of Europe’s biggest infrastructure scheme, it announced on Wednesday.

Thurston’s departure comes after years of delays to the project, which has seen its budget more than double in a decade and its opening date pushed back by several years.

HS2 has also paused a major upgrade to Euston station in north London after the estimated cost of that scheme rose from £2.6bn to £4.8bn.

Thurston, will leave the state-owned company at the end of September. Sir John Thompson, HS2 chair, will fill in as executive chair until Thurston’s successor is appointed.

The dollar index, which tracks the US currency against six others including the euro and sterling, fell to its lowest level since April 2022 after softer-than expected US inflation data.

The dollar index fell 0.99 per cent to 100.73 on Wednesday, falling below a previous trough of April this year, as investors bet that the Federal Reserve only has one more rate rise to go after official data showed annual US inflation eased to 3 per cent in June.

The euro rose 0.84 per cent against the dollar to $1.1101, the highest level since March 2022, while the sterling rose 0.35 per cent to $1.2981.

BP has made its first foray into offshore wind in continental Europe, agreeing to pay Germany €6.8bn for two major development licences.

The company will develop 4GW of offshore wind at two sites approximately 130-150km north-west of Heligoland in the North Sea, with grid connection targeted by the end of 2030.

Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP’s head of gas and low carbon energy, described the award as a “huge milestone” for the company’s plans in Germany, while the award increases BP’s offshore wind pipeline from 5.2GW to 9.2GW globally.

BP is forecasting unlevered returns of 6-8 per cent from the projects. The first payment of €678mn will be made in July 2024 with the rest paid out over 20 years once operational.

Canada’s central bank on Wednesday lifted its benchmark interest rate to 5 per cent, the highest level since 2001.

The Bank of Canada said there was still excess demand in the Canadian economy and the labour market remained tight. The BoC increased rates for the second consecutive meeting after pausing rate rises in January.

Canada’s inflation rate slowed to 3.4 per cent in May, its slowest pace in two years, but core measures of inflation are persistently high, and the headline figure is well above policymakers’ 2 per cent target.

Economists believe the July increase, which was in line with expectations, will be the last in the BoC’s tightening cycle, which began in March 2022.

The S&P 500 rose to its highest level in 15 months on Wednesday after fresh data showed that US inflation eased more than expected in June.

Wall Street’s benchmark stock index jumped 1 per cent in the first few minutes of New York trade, reaching its highest since April 2022. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite index rose 1.2 per cent in early dealings.

Those moves came as the consumer price index gave a reading of 3 per cent for June — lower than consensus forecasts of 3.1 per cent, and down from 4 per cent in May. That marked the slowest rate of US inflation since March 2021.

The European Investment Bank has said that it will provide an extra €45bn in financing for Europe’s green transition, its highest ever amount dedicated to funding energy projects, raising the bank’s lending for green projects by 50 per cent. 

The bank has come under pressure to provide more money for clean technologies as national coffers have been depleted by rising inflation and the aftermath of the pandemic, and governments have struggled to find public money to fund the green transition. 

“We are deploying the full range of our available financial firepower to support Europe’s industrial competitiveness, manufacturing, and the rollout of critical technologies that will lead us to a swift and just transition to net zero,” said the EIB’s president Werner Hoyer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the G7’s plan to begin discussions with Kyiv on long-term security arrangements are a meaningful victory, striking a more positive note a day after criticising Nato countries for failing to spell out a clear path to the alliance.

“The Ukrainian delegation is bringing home significant security victory for the Ukraine, for our country, for our people, for our children,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday in a striking tone shift.

He said the arrangements will offer new opportunities for Ukraine and repeatedly thanked the gathered leaders who made it possible.

“I thank everyone who made it possible. Thank you, dear colleagues,” he said.

Brent crude oil rose above $80 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since May, as deep production cuts by Opec+ and expectations of a growing supply gap in the second half of this year lifted prices out of their recent range.

Brent, the international benchmark, rose 0.7 per cent to a high of $80.05 a barrel, taking gains since the start of the month to around 10 per cent. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, rose by a similar amount to $75.40 a barrel.

The gains over the past two weeks come as Saudi Arabia has led Opec and allies like Russia in deepening production cuts as the producers cartel attempts to boost the price.

Sergei Surovikin, the Russian general who has not been seen in public since the Wagner paramilitary group staged a failed mutiny last month, is “resting,” according to a senior lawmaker.

Andrei Kartapolov, a former senior military official and head of the defence committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, told reporters on Wednesday that Surovikin was “not available right now”, according to a video posted on Shot, a news outlet on social media app Telegram.

Surovikin, the former commander of Russia’s invasion force in Ukraine and one of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s closest allies in the military, was detained in the aftermath of Wagner’s mutiny amid a security services shake-up, according to people familiar with the matter. 

US Treasuries and stock futures soared after data showed inflation slowed more than expected in June.

The yield on the two-year Treasury, which is sensitive to monetary policy expectations, tumbled 0.16 percentage points lower to 4.74 per cent. That was its lowest level in almost a fortnight, continuing to reverse course from the 16-year high above 5 per cent last week when strong private payrolls data steeled investor expectations the Federal Reserve would lift interest rates further.

Futures tracking the S&P 500 jumped to be 0.7 per cent higher, having been up 0.2 per cent before the release of the inflation figures.

US inflation dropped further than expected in June, in the latest sign that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate rises are having an effect on price pressures.

The annual increase in the consumer price index slowed to 3 per cent from 4 per cent in May, according to economists surveyed by Refinitiv. That marked the slowest rate of inflation since March 2021. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a figure of 3.1 per cent.

Prices increased 0.2 per cent on a monthly basis in June, up from 0.1 per cent the previous month but less than economists had forecast. The annual figure was further helped by so-called base effects, as extremely large rises from June 2022 drop out of the calculations.

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The UK’s defence secretary said it is “for Ukraine to define” what victory against Russia would look like, as Kyiv’s campaign to join Nato hangs on the war coming to an end. 

Speaking at the defence alliance’s two-day summit in Vilnius on Wednesday, Ben Wallace said: “I have my theories [about victory] but it’s for Ukraine to define what it looks like,” adding: “We will stand by them and help them do that.”

At the Nato summit the US said leaders of the G7 group of industrialised nations, which includes the UK, will pledge to provide Ukraine with more weapons and other assistance over the long term. 

Bilateral talks between the G7 nations and Ukraine will also focus on making sure Kyiv has assistance to advance a reform agenda, which the US and other powers say will be necessary in order to ultimately admit Ukraine into Nato.

G7 countries have agreed a multilateral framework to provide long-term security guarantees to Ukraine, aimed at safeguarding it against future aggression from Russia.

“Today we are launching negotiations with Ukraine to formalize . . . our enduring support to Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and territorial integrity, rebuilds its economy, protects its citizens, and pursues integration into the Euro-Atlantic community,” they said in a statement, adding that negotiations would start immediately.

The commitments, which non-G7 countries are also invited to strike under the broader umbrella, would include supplies of “modern military equipment, across land, air, and sea domains”, training of Ukrainian forces, intelligence sharing and cyber defence assistance.

In exchange, Kyiv would commit to reforms including of its judiciary and civilian control of the military.

Prices for olive oil have surged to a fresh all-time high as an extended period of unusually dry summer weather in southern Europe has damaged farmers’ crops, massively denting supplies ahead of this year’s harvest.

Prices have roughly doubled over the past year to more than €7 per kilogramme on the back of dry weather in Spain, the largest producer, as well as Italy and Greece.

“We’ve had a very poor crop, prices have never been this high and concerns extend beyond the season we’ve just had,” said Kyle Holland, oilseeds and vegetable oils analyst at Mintec, the commodity data firm. “Market players expect prices to continue to increase.”

Microsoft and Activision are exploring a restructured version of their proposed $75bn tie-up in a move that could trigger a new UK antitrust probe, according to the country’s competition regulator.

The Competition and Markets Authority, which blocked the original deal last month, said on Wednesday that the two companies had indicated they were “considering how the transaction might be modified.” The regulator said the only way to return to the negotiating table would be to start from scratch with a new deal.

On Tuesday, a US federal judge rejected the Federal Trade Commission’s injunction to prevent the deal from closing. After the ruling, the CMA said it was ready to “consider any proposals from Microsoft to restructure the transaction in a way that would address” its concerns.

Microsoft and Activision did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US mortgage costs have topped 7 per cent for the first time since early November as the Federal Reserve continues its monetary tightening campaign.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said that the average interest rate for a standard 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reached 7.07 per cent last week from 6.85 per cent at the end of June. Rates peaked at 7.2 per cent in October.

“Markets expect that the Federal Reserve will need to hold rates higher for longer to slow inflation. All mortgage rates in our survey followed suit,” said Joel Kan, deputy chief economist at the MBA.

Vladimir Putin is to visit China, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, hailing the planned trip as a show of force amid both countries’ deepening rivalries with the US.

Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesman, said Putin’s trip to China was “on the agenda,” adding that dates had yet to be agreed, according to state newswire Ria Novosti.

Putin’s visit would be his first trip to China — which has yet to confirm his plans to visit — since meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing, shortly before he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

Peskov said Xi and Putin’s meeting would prioritise bilateral trade discussions but also include “an exchange of views about the situation in the world.”

The European parliament has endorsed a landmark law to rewild parts of Europe as part of the EU’s fight against climate change, defeating an attempt by rightwing parties to veto it.

MEPs in Strasbourg voted 324 to 312 against a motion to reject the Nature Restoration Law, which would restore a fifth of the EU’s land and sea habitats.

The centre-right EPP group proposed rejection, but fell short after some of its members decided to back the law. It is a key part of the EU’s Green Deal, championed by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, herself an EPP member.

EPP leader Manfred Weber has argued that the law would put some farmers out of business and limit renewable energy projects. 

US inflation: The annual increase in the consumer price index is expected to have slippped to 3.1 per cent in June, its lowest level in more than two years, down from 4 per cent in May. Analysts forecast that price levels for “core” products and services will remain high, however, which is likely to lead the Federal Reserve to stick to its monetary tightening path at its next rate-setting meeting later this month.

Bank of Canada: The country’s central bank is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate to 5 per cent, its second consecutive increase after it held interest rates for the first five months of the year. Canada’s inflation rate slowed to 3.4 per cent in May, its slowest pace in two years, but the figure is well above policymakers’ 2 per cent target, and the labour market is still tight.

Fedspeak: The presidents of the Federal Reserve’s Atlanta, Richmond, Cleveland and Minneapolis branches are all scheduled to speak at various events. Thomas Barkin of the Richmond Fed will be discussing inflation.

Brussels has cleared Broadcom’s $69bn acquisition of cloud software company VMware after it offered concessions make sure the market remains competitive, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

The move came after a lengthy probe into one of the largest tech deals in history. Following the EU’s concerns that the deal could harm some of VMware’s clients, Broadcom committed to ensuring that VMware’s software can still work with rivals’ hardware.

“Broadcom offered . . . comprehensive access and interoperability commitments” to existing players and “any potential future entrant”, the EU said.

Broadcom said: “With this decision, the commission recognises the importance of this combination in enabling enterprises to accelerate innovation.”

The deal is still awaiting clearance in the UK and the US.

Russia has warned Nato against giving Ukraine security guarantees, saying they were “severely mistaken and highly dangerous”.

Dmitry Peskov, president Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said the bloc’s decision would “infringe on Russia’s security,” which he said “carries the risk of negative consequences and makes Europe much more dangerous for many years,” state newswire Ria Novosti reported.

Peskov also said the US’s recent decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions “changes the situation and forces Russia to take countermeasures,” even though Ukraine says Russia has used the weapons indiscriminately since the start of the invasion.

The EU hit Illumina with a €432mn penalty on Wednesday after the US biotech company bought cancer-screening start-up Grail without Brussels’ blessing, and is the highest fine ever imposed on a company for completing a deal without regulatory approval.

The fine was close to the maximum of up to 10 per cent of a company’s global turnover — a rare move by the EU and an indication that it wants to deter other companies from making similar moves.

The EU said the fine, which represented around 9.5 per cent of Illumina’s turnover, was imposed because the company went against “the cornerstone” principle that it is ultimately the EU that decides whether mergers should be cleared.

Illumina said it would appeal against the decision.

Babcock International has secured a £50mn contract from the UK’s Ministry of Defence to support the provision of armoured vehicles to Ukraine.

Britain’s second biggest defence contractor will help to maintain vehicles such as Challenger 2 tanks being sent to Ukraine. The company will also manage the supply of spares and train Ukrainian personnel as part of the 12-month contract which it said could be extended.

Babcock earlier this month agreed to work Ukraine’s state defence group Ukroboronprom to look at potential opportunities to implement joint defence projects in the country.

Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary, said the contract would deliver “essential support for Ukraine on the battlefield”.

European stocks and Wall Street futures rose on Wednesday while the dollar declined, as investors awaited closely watched US inflation data that is expected to show price growth falling to a more than two-year low in June.

Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 advanced 0.7 per cent, while France’s Cac 40 and Germany’s Dax both added 0.6 per cent in early trading. London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.8 per cent, with all sectors apart from real estate in positive territory shortly after the open. 

Contracts tracking Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent ahead of the New York open while a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six other major currencies fell 0.3 per cent, as investors looked ahead to speeches from four Federal Reserve officials and the release of US inflation data for June. 

Big share price moves in Europe today include UK estate agency Winkworth, British lender Virgin Money and French flag carrier Air France:

• Winkworth: Shares in the UK estate agency plunged 14 per cent in early trading after the company warned of a hit to its full-year profits as rising interest rates continue to drag on home sales. 
  

• Virgin Money: Shares in the British digital bank climbed 3.7 per cent on Wednesday after Virgin and seven other top UK lenders were shown by the Bank of England’s annual stress tests to be resilient enough to withstand severe market stress.
  

  

• Air France: The French airline’s shares fell 5.5 per cent in early trading after Deutsche Bank downgraded the company’s stock to hold from buy.

US President Joe Biden and other members of the G7 will announce long-term security commitments to Ukraine at the Nato summit on Wednesday, a senior US official said on Wednesday.

“The United States along with G7 leaders will announce our intent to help Ukraine build a military that can defend itself and deter a future attack,” said Amanda Sloat, senior director for Europe on the US’s National Security Council.

The US and its partners will launch a process of bilateral negotiations alongside the announcement, Sloat added.

Leaders from the G7 group of industrialised countries are attending the Nato defence alliance’s two-day summit being held in Vilnius, Lithuania, alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Estate agent Winkworth has warned of a hit to profits this year, blaming surging interest rates, lower mortgage approval rates and a slowing housing market, adding to concerns over the health of the sector overall.

Winkworth said on Wednesday that pre-tax profits for the first half of 2023 would be “below last year’s level”. Lettings were up about 11 per cent and sales were down 20 per cent compared with the same period last year, as uncertainty has led to “a high number of agreed sales being delayed to the second half of the year”.

It added: “The outlook for sales in the second half of the year remains uncertain . . . [and] full year pre-tax profits are likely to fall below market expectations.”

France’s Thales has made an offer to buy Cobham Aerospace Communications in a deal that values the maker of cockpit communications systems at $1.1bn. 

The acquisition of the France-headquartered company by Thales, a defence electronics group, would be its largest since late 2017 when it agreed to buy digital security company Gemalto for €4.8bn. Its latest move is a sign of how chief executive Patrice Caine is seeking to take advantage of the post-pandemic resurgence in civil aviation alongside growing demand from governments in response to the war in Ukraine. 

Thales said the acquisition of Cobham would include about 690 employees and would generate close to $200mn revenue this year. “Thales will be ideally positioned to seize the opportunity of the shift towards connected cockpits,” the group said.

The UK’s top eight banks “would continue to be resilient” in an economic environment “much worse” than the one they face, and are well positioned to support households and businesses through rising interest rates, the Bank of England said on Wednesday.

The verdict of the BoE’s latest ‘stress tests’ on banks’ capacity to weather imagined catastrophes came as bank officials warned that the wider financial sector faced risks from a “highly uncertain” economic outlook and a “challenging” environment for risk.

The latest tests, which cover NatWest, HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered, Lloyds, Santander, Nationwide and Virgin Money, were based on a doomsday scenario imagined in September 2022, before a spate of US bank collapses and the demise of Credit Suisse.

North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan on Wednesday morning, days after threatening to shoot down US reconnaissance planes it accused of violating its airspace.

The missile was launched on a trajectory from near Pyongyang and travelled for about 600 miles before splashing down, according to South Korea’s military.

Japan’s defence ministry said the missile flew for about 74 minutes before falling outside the country’s exclusive economic zone, 155 miles west of Japan’s Okushiri island.

That would make it the longest flight time for any North Korean long-range missile. In March 2022, North Korea launched a Hwasong-15 ICBM that travelled for 71 minutes.

A China-based hacking group infiltrated the Microsoft email accounts of several western European government agencies, according to the software company.

In a blog post on Tuesday night, Microsoft said that in May, the China-based group known as Storm-0558 hacked email accounts of 25 organisations, including government agencies in Western Europe and their employees’ personal accounts.

Storm-0558 gained access through forged authentication tokens and remained undetected for a month. It said the group’s access has now been blocked.

The announcement comes as Western governments raise the alarm about the growing threat posed by Chinese cyber espionage groups. Last month, Jen Easterly, the US’s top cyber security official, said China’s capacity for sabotage constituted an “epoch-defining threat”.

Events: A UK parliamentary select committee grills water industry bosses as fears grow over the financial viability of the country’s privatised suppliers. The two-day Nato summit concludes in Vilnius, Lithuania, with a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the defence bloc’s main decision-making body. Leaders will also attend a Nato-Ukraine Council meeting. US president Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet to discuss bilateral matters. South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol visits Poland.

Economic data: The Bank of England publishes results of the annual stress test of the UK banking system alongside its Financial Stability Report. Russia and Spain announce June inflation figures.

Corporate news: Grafton, JD Wetherspoon, PageGroup, Ten Entertainment Group and Tullow Oil issue trading updates.

A Chinese company has achieved the world’s first successful launch of a liquid methane-fuelled rocket, beating US rivals SpaceX and Blue Origin.

LandSpace said its Zhuque-2 rocket took off from a launch site in the Gobi desert on Wednesday morning.

Liquid methane fuels are considered a cleaner and safer alternative to the kerosene mix now in use. SpaceX’s methane-fuelled Raptor engines suffered a catastrophic failure during a test in April.

LandSpace, a Beijing-based start-up, has received backing from the Chinese affiliates of US venture capital firms such as Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital.

“The launch mission was a complete success,” the company said.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand kept interest rates unchanged for the first time in nearly two years at its meeting on Wednesday, as one of the world’s most hawkish central banks slows its monetary tightening.

The official cash rate was held at 5.5 per cent, having been raised 12 times from 0.25 per cent since August 2021. The rate should “remain at a restrictive level for the foreseeable future”, the central bank added.

The RBNZ was one of the earliest among advanced economy central banks to begin raising rates as the world recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. It repeatedly warned that persistent inflation meant higher interest rates were required.

Asia-Pacific currencies rose on Wednesday, as traders awaited US inflation data that is expected to show price rises moderated in June.

The yen gained 0.6 per cent to trade at ¥139.46 per US dollar, close to its strongest level in nearly a month, while the renminbi strengthened 0.3 per cent to Rmb7.1853.

The Australian dollar rose 0.5 per cent to A$0.672.

The US consumer price index data scheduled for Wednesday is expected to show a rise of 3.1 per cent in June, according to a Reuters poll, in the slowest rate of inflation since March 2021.

That has bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will stick with a pause in its monetary tightening cycle.

Events: In South Korea, the trial begins of former Samsung executive Choi Jin-seok, accused of stealing sensitive information to help set up a chip factory in China. Tokyo District Court is due to hand down a ruling on Shinichi Ueno, former head of advertising agency ADK, over the 2020 Olympic Games bribery scandal. Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe delivers a speech on the economy, while the Reserve Bank of New Zealand holds a monetary policy review. 

Corporate results: India’s Tata Consultancy Services issues a first-quarter trading update. 

Economic data: Japan machinery orders data for May to be released by the cabinet office. The country’s producer price index reading is also expected. Malaysia issues industrial production and retail sales figures, while India releases the latest consumer price index and industrial production numbers. The Philippines releases May foreign investment data and New Zealand announces visitor arrivals for that month.

Markets: Futures contracts pointed higher in Hong Kong and Tokyo on Wednesday morning. The S&P 500 added 0.7 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.5 per cent on Tuesday, ahead of inflation data that traders will look to for clues about the future path of US interest rate rises.

US president Joe Biden discussed bilateral relations with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and praised his decision to support Sweden’s bid to join Nato, in a meeting at the military alliance’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The leaders discussed their defence and economic priorities, and shared interests such as their support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, and “preserving stability in the Aegean,” according to the White House.

The Turkish leader said the meeting with Biden was a “first step” in repairing strained relations between the countries. “Our meetings prior to this were mere warm-ups, but now we are initiating a new process.”

Salesforce notched its biggest one-day gain in four months after the software group announced price rises for some of its products, the first increase in seven years.

The San Francisco-based company said it would raise list prices of its products, which include Sales Cloud and Tableau, in August by an average of 9 per cent.

Shares closed 3.9 per cent higher on Tuesday, their biggest jump since mid-March. That extended a rally that has left them up about two-thirds since the start of the year.

Salesforce has taken steps to focus on profits in an effort to appease activist investors. The group called a truce with Elliott Investment Management in March.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a rally in Vilnius that “Ukraine will make the alliance stronger” after Nato leaders agreed in a summit communiqué to grant Kyiv an invitation to join.

Zelenskyy said that he arrived in Vilnius “with faith in the decision” for Ukraine to be offered to join the defence bloc, “with faith in our partners, with faith in a strong Nato that does not hesitate, does not waste time and does not look back at any aggressor”.

Speaking to a roaring crowd on Tuesday evening, Zelenskyy said that he believes Ukraine’s fight is in defence of all of Europe.

UK postal workers have backed a deal on pay and changes to working practices at Royal Mail, concluding a dispute that had deeply disrupted mailing services and led to one of the biggest crises in the 507-year-old organisation’s history.

The Communication Workers Union said on Tuesday that over three-quarters of the 67 per cent of members who voted had supported its deal agreed with Royal Mail in April.

The announcement follows 18 days of strike action during the final quarter of 2022, amid a dispute that centred on Royal Mail’s plans to adapt working practices in response to growing demand for online shopping deliveries and competition from the likes of Amazon.