Faurecia (EO.PA), a leading automotive technology company, held its Half Year Results Presentation for the first half of 2024, revealing a mix of challenges and advancements. Despite a stable global automotive production, regional disparities were evident with Europe, North America, and China experiencing different trends. CEO Patrick Koller announced an organic sales growth of 2.7% and an operating margin of 5.2% for the period. Faurecia’s efforts in issuing new debt instruments and progressing in its disposal program were also highlighted, alongside its partnerships in China and strides in sustainability and innovation. However, sales saw a slight decline due to currency fluctuations, and the company faced a one-off cost in Mexico. The outlook for the second half of 2024 is optimistic with an expected increase in sales and operating margin, and the company confirmed its full-year guidance, albeit at the lower end of initial ranges. Key Takeaways Global automotive production held steady at 43.6 million light vehicles. Europe’s production decreased by 5%, while North America and China saw increases of 1.8% and 5.2%, respectively. Organic sales growth stood at 2.7%, with an operating margin of 5.2% for H1 2024. Faurecia issued approximately EUR 2 billion in new debt, extending average debt maturity to 3.6 years. Net debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved to 2.0 times, reflecting a focus on deleveraging. The company anticipates a stronger second half with at least a 6% operating margin and confirms its full-year guidance. Adjustments to the 2025 sales target are made, now expected to be between EUR 28 billion and EUR 28.5 billion. Company Outlook Faurecia expects a strong sequential improvement in operating margin in H2 2024. Full-year guidance for 2024 is confirmed, with sales and operating margin at the lower end of initial ranges. Sales target for 2025 has been adjusted to EUR 28 billion to EUR 28.5 billion due to currency and market conditions. The company aims for a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio below 1.5 times by the end of 2025. Bearish Highlights Sales decreased by 2.6% in H1 2024, mainly due to currency depreciation. A one-off cost of EUR 47 million in Mexico impacted financial performance. Net income for the period was breakeven, influenced by increased restructuring costs and offset by capital gains from disposals. Bullish Highlights Positive impacts expected from the HBBL joint venture consolidation and the resolution of a loss-making contract. Operating margin increased by 20 basis points from the previous year due to synergies and volume and mix gains. Cash flow increased by 16% compared to the previous year, despite one-off costs. Misses The CVI business sale to Cummins (NYSE:) in Q3 of the previous year affected the company’s numbers. Q&A Highlights Further price recovery or compensation from OEMs is expected in H2. Positive market trends for automotive apps are anticipated. The company is taking a conservative approach to interiors in North America for H2. Details on tooling revenues, associate losses, financial costs, and restructuring expenses were provided. The company addressed customer mix and production expectations in North America, profitability in Europe, and the impact of restructuring measures. In conclusion, Faurecia’s H1 2024 results show resilience amid market fluctuations and a strategic focus on financial health and partnerships. The company is poised for a more robust second half, with clear targets for debt reduction and profitability improvements. Full transcript – None (FURCF) Q2 2024: Patrick Koller: Good morning, and welcome to our Half Year Results Presentation. With Olivier Durand, our Chief Financial Officer, we will guide you through our H1 performances. Our presentations include four chapters. We will start with H1 2024 key highlights, followed by H1 2024 financial performance, then the outlook; and finally, the takeaways. On Chapter 1, key highlights for H1. I propose to look at worldwide automotive production and the pace of electrification. Worldwide automotive production stood at 43.6 million light vehicles in H1 ’24, broadly stable compared to H1 ’23, with contrasted situations by geography. We have clearly more volumes in China and less in Europe. In Europe, excluding Russia, which accounts for 47% of the group’s sales, production was down 5% at 8.4 million, representing around 19% of worldwide production. In North America, which accounts for 24% of our sales, production was up 1.8% at 8.1 million, representing around 19% of worldwide production. In China, which represents 19% of our sales production was up 5.2% at 13.2 million, representing around 30% of worldwide production. We are strong in Asia and being in Asia is crucial due to the region’s fast growing automotive market, but also because of its competitiveness. For the full year 2024, light vehicle production should be down 2% compared to 2023 at around 88.7 million according to latest S&P Estimate. Now regarding the pace of electrification on the left side, the first half of the year presented a slowdown in Europe, while the EV market slightly increased in North America and continued to be driven by China, up 50 basis points between H1 ’23 and H1 ’24. This slowdown in electrification is most probably temporary. It is due to market adaptations related to infrastructures, technologies, prices and ongoing regulations. The European CAFE regulation sets a 15% CO2 emissions reduction target in 2025 compared to change in ’21, so from ’21 to ’24. And because of that, in order to avoid penalties, additional EV volumes will be needed, and it needs to be prepared starting in H2 2024. I would like to remind you that FORVIA is mostly powertrain-agnostic for related supplies. We might be impacted by an ad-hoc designed part dedicated to a battery electric vehicle. As an example, a seating set assembled into a battery electric vehicle if this vehicle is not selling, but this is true for whatever the powertrain, we are impacted. In this context, FORVIA recorded steady progress. Let’s have a look on four key figures. First, FORVIA posted an organic sales growth of 2.7%, outperforming the market by 290 basis points. And excluding a negative impact of geographic mix, we outperformed the market by 460 basis points. Operating margin grew by 20 basis points year-on-year to 5.2% of sales. This figure reflects margin improvement in all business groups with the exception of a one-off impact for Interiors in North America of EUR47 million, representing 30 basis points. This operating loss results from a supplier driven issue. The Mexican supplier Kamaplast (ph). It started early ’24 and generated major disruptions until mid-April. We had to refurbish and resource about 100 plastic injection tools while minimizing supply disruptions to six OEMs. This situation also impacted launch preparation at the time of record new SOPs. We had 18 launches in nine plants in Mexico, out of which two are greenfields. And this to be compared to three launches in H1 last year or seven launches in the full year 2023. The combination of these circumstances resulted into significant extra costs, including very high freight costs. But to be clear, June results were back to normal. Finally, in H1, the group continued to manage effectively its debt successfully issuing new debt instruments in H1. Let’s look more in details into it. In H1, the group successfully issued around EUR2 billion of new debt instruments, essentially maturing in ’29 and 2031. This almost cleared our ’24 and ’25 maturities and allows FORVIA to significantly extend its average debt maturity now of 3.6 years versus 2.9 years end of ’23. Our target is to be above four years as quickly as possible. We were also able to contain the average cost of our debt at 4.6%, only up 30% versus the end of last year. Let’s move to our top priority, deleveraging the company. We announced in October ’23, a second disposal program of EUR1 billion after the successful completion of our first EUR1 billion disposal program. We made good progress in the execution of this second program since the start of the year, with the closing of the disposal by FORVIA HELLA of its stake in BHTC to AUO and with the sale of Hug Engineering, our Clean Mobility business specialized in depollution systems to OGEPAR. With these two transactions, we already achieved 25% of the program. Looking ahead, progress underway gives us strong confidence to finalize the second program by the end of 2025 as planned. I move to our order intake, which is driven by Asia and backed by electronics and innovation. Asia first, EUR6 billion made in Asia, China representing EUR4.9 billion out of it, and with more than 60% of — sorry, more than 60% of which was made with Chinese OEMs. Electronics, EUR4.3 billion, key awards from Chery, from GM and U.S. EV carmaker. Innovation I think it’s important to highlight that we achieved an order intake — several order intakes, but for accumulated amount of EUR700 million in hydrogen storage. It includes the largest award ever in this field. We also won a very significant Virtual Key program for General Motors (NYSE:) and three awards from MATERI’ACT, I think these ones are the most interesting. Premium OEM, EUR3.5 billion mainly driven by German and Chinese OEMs. And I would like to highlight that this under a real commercial selectivity, which allowed us to achieve a high level of operating margin and reduced upfront costs. This totalizing EUR15 billion in the first half. Strengthening partnerships with Chinese OEMs in China, but also beyond the domestic market. Here are some examples of our recent developments. First, with BYD (SZ:), we announced yesterday that we are extending our successful partnership to Europe through the Hungary Business Award. This represents a significant step for both companies and brings our collaboration to a new level. This, while we have also announced earlier this month, the opening of a new seat assembly plant in Thailand. It will serve at FORVIA’s export hub for the Asia Pacific regions. And again, will deepen the global partnership we have developed with BYD. With Chery, we signed in April a joint venture agreement, which reinforces our strategic cooperation in the field of smart and sustainable cockpit. We are speaking here about the full interior perimeter, the full cockpit perimeter. This is why our ambition to reach EUR1 billion sales in 2029 is justified. From the starting of the year, we won six awards with Chery, which is showing that this dynamic is ongoing. We also have significant business acceleration with other Chinese OEMs, significant ones with an order intake up to EUR3 billion in H1. We developed our intimacy with leading players, such as Geely, Li Auto (NASDAQ:) and Leapmotor (HK:). In parallel to these developments in Asia, we have also made significant strides in H1, marked by deals that bolster our commitment to sustainability and innovation. Some highlights. In the field of connectivity and user experience, we completed in May the acquisition of the remaining 50% shares from Aptoide in the joint venture Faurecia Aptoide Automotive. This represented a strategic move to position ourselves in the automotive apps market. We have high ambitions to achieve a 20% market share in automotive apps by 2025 and 35% by 2030. In the field of sustainability, MATERI’ACT continued its strategic development in two key regions. In early 2024, the company established a joint venture with PCR Recycling in North America to accelerate the development and delivery of recycled compounds. In April, MATERI’ACT signed MOU with Gree Electric in China to finalize a joint venture in October to produce plastics with a very high recycled content. Speaking about sustainability. We recently received new ESG ratings with systematically improved scores. In the first half of 2024, we improved our scores with Moody’s (NYSE:) and Sustainalytics and maintain our A rating with MSCI. These new ratings are an important recognition of our convictions in terms of social and environmental responsibility. We will clearly continue our efforts to lead the way. Last February, we announced the launch of EU-FORWARD, a five year project aiming at reinforcing the competitiveness and agility of our operations in Europe, which is characterized by structural overcapacity. We have to deal with a capacity, which went from 21 million vehicles produced to 17 million. Our target is to achieve an operating margin in Europe, exceeding 7% in 2028, 7% operating margin. The effective start of this project showed already interesting progress. 14 operations have been announced. They represent close to 20% of the overall project. The restructuring costs are on track. Restructuring expenses in Europe amounted to EUR186 million out of the EUR222 million recorded for the group in H1. Savings are on track. Impact will start in H2 2024 when the people will leave the company and will accelerate in 2025. This is ending the first part. And now, I will leave the floor to Olivier who will deep dive in our financial performance. Olivier Durand: Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to share with you some detailed comments about our group financial performance in H1. That shows that we have made progress on all our key financial metrics. Let me start first with revenues. We have recorded sales of EUR13.5 billion in H1 ’24. It represents an organic growth of 2.7% i.e. 290 basis points of outperformance in a market that was slightly down. This outperformance is actually 460 basis points if we take into account the unfavorable geographical mix of H1 and represent the same trend that we have had since the setup of FORVIA after the acquisition of HELLA. On a reported basis, however, the sales were down by 0.6% as we were impacted by two elements that will neutralize the reverse in the second half. The first element is as in the second half of last year, sales continued to be impacted by the unfavorable currency impact. It has been at 2.6% in H1. It relates to the weakening of the RMB versus euro, but also to the impact of the strong depreciation of two currencies under hyperinflation, Argentinian peso and Turkish lira, for which the evolution has been more stable or at least eroding slowly in ’24. The second impact is the negative scope effect. We sold the CVI business to Cummins end of Q3 last year as part of the first EUR1 billion disposal program. And therefore, this is out of our numbers. And vice versa, we have the consolidation from January 1, of the HBBL joint venture in lighting in China. Those two elements will be — will turn neutral to positive in H2 and will sustain the growth in the top line compared to H2 last year. Now if I turn to the operating margin. It stands at EUR700 million for the first half, i.e. 5.2% of sales, an increase of 20 basis points versus H1 last year. The increase was driven by continued synergies of the combination, the anticipated benefit of the exit of the loss-making contract that we had in Highland Park as well as the gains from volume and mix. And in this respect, I would like to highlight the improved inflation pass through performance through rigorous negotiation that we have with our customers. One element, however, weighted on the performance, which has been highlighted by Patrick, which is this sizable one-off of extra costs faced by interior in Mexico, which had an impact of EUR47 million or 30 basis points. This topic is now closed and will not impact the H2 figures. On an ongoing basis, our operating margin run rate in H1 is, in fact, 5.5%. Now if I detail those results by business group, let me start, of course, with Interiors. Interiors is recording strong growth, is recording strong half performance, but the profitability is, of course, significantly hit by the one-off that we mentioned. However, the other business groups are showing solid performance and showing margin expansion of a sizable nature for many of them. Seating. Seating pursued its margin recovery towards pre-COVID level. We are recording a 130 basis points improvement year-on-year. This is not only the end of the loss-making contract in Highland Park, but is also benefiting from the better pricing and inflation pass-through as well as an improved execution, which is the case in all the geographies. Clean Mobility benefited from the slowdown in electrification, recorded an outperformance of 330 basis points on the total market and also improved its profitability, driven by the sound performance of our ultralow emission activity, which returned to double-digit profitability in this semester. On electronics, electronics is, of course, an engine of growth beyond pure electrification. It records 470 basis points of outperformance and it was boosted by the double-digit organic growth of Faurecia Clarion Electronics. Let me highlight also that for Faurecia Clarion Electronics is actually the dominant part of the 150 basis points margin improvement that we are recording in this segment. And we have now this activity, which is recording a positive profitability over the last 12 months and in the direction to be no more dilutive in coming semesters. Lighting recorded a flat organic growth in the context of consolidation. This is, however, on a reported basis plus 5%, thanks to the consolidation of the joint venture I mentioned HBBL, which reflects the expansion of our activities in this domain with Chinese OEM, which is an important topic. The profitability is a solid 5%, stable from a year before. Now I will turn to regions. From a regional standpoint, EMEA is showing a margin expansion of 50 basis points. This is on the back of the outperformance that we have in the region, in interiors, in lighting and also the first benefits of our actions in EU-FORWARD not only restructuring, but cost consciousness and reduction of external cost. Americas is showing a strong organic growth. This is driven by interiors, but this has also reflected the seating and electronic development and key customer wins that we have been obtaining in this large and important market. But the margin improvement is notable, given that we had this sizable one-off extra costs that we mentioned in Mexico. It means that the improvement in the region is larger than the impact of the exit of Highland Park contract, it means better execution, better discipline in this region in many business groups. Finally, Asia is showing again a double-digit margin, even though we had headwinds on our customer mix in China as we already saw in Q1. Let me highlight that in H1 ’23, we recorded a very sizable outperformance in China to the tune of 14%. This outperformance is now mitigated in this first half with sales decline with BYD and also with the leading U.S. EV carmakers, which are not fully offsetting the acceleration, which is not fully offset by the acceleration of the diversification and the momentum that we have with new customers, Chery joint ventures, Li Auto development and others. But if we look on a two year basis, we continue to have enough performance in this market, thanks to our overall growing presence with Chinese OEMs that are getting shares in this market, clearly. Let me go to net income below the operating margin. We are recording a breakeven net income. This is on the back of two opposite elements. We have, of course, an increase in the European restructuring costs coming from the strong start of the EU-FORWARD project that Patrick mentioned before. This is the main component of the EUR222 million of restructuring costs that we are posting. There is also a nonrecurring expense of EUR43 million, which is related to the supplier that Patrick mentioned at the very beginning of this meeting in interior in North America. However, we have been able to offset largely, those impacts with capital gains in our disposal activity. The main one, of course, being the EUR134 million that we are recording for the sale of the 50% stake in BHTC, held by FORVIA HELLA that has been sold to AUO back in April, which is kicking off the start, which was kicking off the start of our second disposal program. So breakeven in net income. The cash flow is posting an increase again this semester. We are up 16% versus a year before. And this is despite the one-off that we mentioned before. And in fact, the one-offs are two-fold. You have the EUR47 million of cost mentioned in terms of extra costs on the launches, but there was also the cost related to Kamaplast, the supplier I mentioned. So a total actually of EUR80 million of negatives. Even with this, we are posting an increase. We are at EUR201 million net cash flow in H1. This is showing, in particular, the growing effectiveness of our Manage by Cash program. CapEx were down EUR36 million in the period. Capitalized R&D are stable. Inventories have decreased finally by EUR119 million. The financial expense in this context were high. I have to recognize. This is related to the high level activity that we had in the refinancing and in particular, the buyback of some bonds. But vice versa, we have been able to normalize the tax cash out with the reimbursement of the EUR68 million withholding tax related to the extraordinary dividend that was received last year from FORVIA HELLA, which is solidifying that this is a lag just of one year in our financials. Let me highlight as a complement, the improvement and the enhanced quality of our net cash flow. You see on the graph at the bottom right of your slide, the net cash flow, excluding working capital, excluding factory. It has been EUR104 million in H1. It represents 50% of what we did in this period compared to only 7% in a year before. This is clearly showing that not only we are growing our net cash flow generation, but we are improving this quality, this sustainability, and you will see that continuing in the coming semesters. Let me move to the evolution in our debt and in our — in the leverage ratio, the central element of our financial performance. The net cash flow as well as the proceeds related to the two transactions being concluded, BHTC and Hug Engineering have been contributing to the reduction of our net debt even with the dividend of EUR0.50 per share that we paid in June to FORVIA shareholders and the abnormal level of new lease costs under the IFRS 16 line EUR125 million compared to EUR76 million a year before. As a consequence, the leverage continued to decrease. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio now stands at 2.0 times at the end of June ’24 compared to 2.5 times a year ago and 2.1 times at the end of ’23, which is reflecting the clear commitment of the company towards our — the reduction of our financial leverage towards normalcy. Let me turn to the quality of our debt in complement. Patrick alluded to the topic, we have been very active on the market. We have been raising close to EUR2 billion of new financing coming from not only the eurobond market, but the return in big fashion to the [indiscernible] market for a total of EUR740 million in two transactions, EUR200 million at the beginning of the semester under FORVIA HELLA and EUR540 million under the FORVIA name. We have been able also to extend for EUR650 million of bank loans to ’27 and this is used to reduce our gross debt by EUR300 million at the end of July on a pro forma basis to have a clear benefit in our financial costs on a future basis. We have also repaid in advance our maturities. ’24, ’25 are mostly cleared and we did quite a lot on ’26. As a consequence, we have improved our overall maturity to 3.6 years in — by 0.7 years in 6 months. Finally, let me highlight that our, of course, liquidity is solid, EUR6.2 billion, comprised of EUR4.3 billion in cash, plus close to EUR2 billion that we have in revolving credit facilities, combining FORVIA and FORVIA HELLA and they are, of course, not done. And we will — and you can expect that we will continue to be active in the market to continue to diversify our sourcing financing to increase our flexibility and to continue to work on our maturity profile as well as the reduction of the gross debt itself. This concludes our H1 performance financial overview. I will now detail elements on our outlook for the remaining of the year, our full year guidance and also our financial vision for ’25. Let me start with what can we expect in the second half of the year. The top line is expected to be boosted by more volume, the continued outperformance that we have enjoyed since the setup of FORVIA as well as a leveling of the currency and consolidation impact that I mentioned earlier. As we expect — as we stated earlier this year and consistently also to the previous year, we expect a strong sequential improvement of our group operating margin in H2 versus H1. On top of the volume, the elements are, in fact, related to three. You have inflation recovery in which we have additional elements in the second half. We have two self-help drivers, the end of the extra cost of interior in North America now that the case has been closed and operations returned to normalcy. And second, the actions on cost. First, on the synergies with HELLA in order to reach the EUR80 million target that we have for the full year and the first benefit of EU-FORWARD as well as other action on cost in terms of external cost and strict utilization of our resources. That should lead to at least 6% operating margin in the second half. And this is, therefore, translating in our confirmation about our full year ’24 guidance. This is, however, with specific precision on sales and operating margin. We expect our sales and operating margin to be in the lower end of the initial ranges of between EUR25.5 billion and EUR28.5 billion and between 5.6% and 6.4% of sales, respectively. We confirm our net cash flow and net debt adjusted EBITDA targets. Let me remind those ones. Net cash flow at least at the level of last year, i.e., at least EUR649 million for the year and leverage ratio equal or less than 1.9 times. Those elements are taken into account our H1 performance. The expected acceleration we mentioned for H2, in particular, on the cost. And we are taking into account the latest estimate related to production for ’24 presented by Standard & Poor’s and the latest update, of course, in terms of currency rates. I will turn now for a short information on ’25. We would like to remind you that our ’25 sales ambition as it was presented in the Capital Markets Day back in November ’22 was based, of course, on certain exchange rates, which were prevailing at that time. In the last 18 months, currencies have evolved negatively versus euro and impacted the top line that we can project by close to EUR1.5 billion. This impact is primarily due to the depreciation of U.S. dollar and RMB versus euro compared to this period, but also to the impact of hyperinflation in specific countries which are Argentina and Turkey where we operate. Lastly, the evolution of market conditions could lead to another adjustment to the previous objective that should not exceed EUR500 million. As a consequence, taking those two factors into account, we are, therefore, reevaluating our ’25 sales target to between EUR28 billion and EUR28.5 billion versus the initial ambition of circa EUR30 billion in revenues. Arguably, those evolution in sales will have some impact on the progress of the operating margin and cash flow that we can generate. To give elements in this direction, the drop-through that we can expect on the translation impact is around 10%, which is concerning the EUR1.5 billion revenue. So the vast majority of what we are talking about. And on the more volume and mix uncertainties, this also will be more in the 15% to 20% range in operating margin. Let me stress, however, that we expect strong increase in ’25 versus ’24 in both operating margin and net cash flow generation. We expect operating margin to be boosted by the continuous improvement of the profitability of the different business group. You have seen the progress in seating. You have seen the progress in Clean Mobility. You see the evolution in Lighting. We have only one topic that is lagging, which is interior and we are tackling this. The continued synergies of the combination, we expect cumulative synergies of at least EUR350 million by ’25 and sizable additional synergies will materialize in our numbers in ’25. On top of this, our further actions on fixed cost reductions, not only in R&D, but also SG&A on the back of EU-FORWARD, artificial intelligence and digitalization have a clear impact. In complement, you have additional elements that will further improve the conversion in cash flow. The progress of the Manage by Cash program is now more and more visible. You have seen that we are getting traction on CapEx and inventories this will continue and will enlarge on the inventory topic. And this will be also the case in the R&D since if gross costs are improving, the capitalization will be lower. The reduction of our gross debt will also benefit from — will also benefit our financial cost and will allow a gradual decrease of this value. And last but not least, our tax charge will normalize, thanks to a better geographical mix of our profitability and, in particular, with a better performance in Europe as well as what you have seen on the withholding tax recovery on dividends from FORVIA HELLA to FORVIA. This enhanced net cash flow generation combined with the expected proceeds from the finalization of the second disposal program will both contribute to accelerate the reduction of the debt to accelerate the deleveraging of the group and hit our central POWER25 objective, which is to get below 1.5 times by the end of ’25. In this context, we are confirming the central objective of POWER25, and we are adjusting the sales evolution, taking into account this evolution, mostly of foreign currencies from EUR30 billion to EUR28 billion to EUR28.5 billion in revenues. We expect strong improvements and development of operating margin and net cash flow generation. We will further update the sales target when we will announce the results of ’24 in February. Of course, at that time, we will also detail the targets on operating margin and net cash flow of ’25. But those upcoming evolution will not have any impact on our POWER25 ambition. We will be below 1.5 times in net debt-to-EBITDA. As stated by Patrick, our confidence to execute and close the second disposal program by the end of ’25, combined with the growth of our cash flow generation and our cash flow performance led us to confirm this target, which is about rebalancing the financial structure of the company. And to highlight this, I would like to show you what we are talking about. We are talking about of returning by the end of ’25 to the leverage that we had pre-acquisition, which was at 1.6. We are talking about a reduction of EUR2 billion of the debt by the end of this year and to more than EUR3 billion in debt by the end of next year. This is not only the disposal. This is about our cost actions and of course, our conversion in cash, thanks to the Manage by Cash program. So we expect, in fact, to have a reduction of the debt, which is higher than what we committed during the Investor Day. The number that was mentioned was EUR6 billion. You see here that we are talking about reduction that is going further in order to have not only the reduction of the leverage, but also the reduction of the financial cost so that we have a full absorption of the acquisition of HELLA. On this note, I hand back to Patrick for the conclusion. Patrick Koller: Thank you, Olivier. This will be our last slide before going to Q&A. I would like to summarize the presentation of our performance for the first half. Starting with thanks, thanks to the commitment and hard work of our teams. We progressed on all our key financial metrics. We recorded a positive organic growth of 2.7% with a market outperformance of 290 basis points. 460 basis points excluding the geographical mix. We gained new businesses aligned with industry megatrends. Our strong order intake includes significant steps with Chinese OEMs. In Asia, and in the rest of the world, we generated a solid net cash flow in amount and quality. We moved forward in the refinancing of the group with new important steps for our debt maturities. We made good progress with EU-FORWARD on track with our initial assumptions and develop new synergies with FORVIA HELLA. Collectively, we stayed steady, focused and determined to achieve our deleveraging targets, which is the top priority of FORVIA. All these elements make us confident but our H2 performance will allow us to reach all our 2024 objectives as indicated during the presentation. And now I’m happy to answer to your questions with Olivier, and we might start with the questions per phone. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We have the first question from Pierre-Yves Quemener of Stifel. Thank you. We move on to our next question from Sanjay Bhagwani of Citibank. Pierre Quemener: I think my line works. Operator: Thank you. Pierre Quemener: Sorry. Good morning to everyone, Patrick and Durand (ph). Just a quick follow-up on the adjustment for 2025 for the sales and thanks for providing the work versus — between the previous and the new sales target for ’25 ambition as you might put it. Is it fair to assume that given the drop-through that you also provided for the operating margin that the new margin ambitions for 2025 could be no longer 7% plus, but more likely 6.5% to 6.6% less. That would be my first question. I’ve got the second one. Patrick Koller: So you understand what we did. We adjusted the ForEx to the reality we have today. And this is a mechanical calculation, which might change until next year. We did the same thing about the market assumptions. We have no clear picture today, and we made here again an assumption. Olivier told you that on the ForEx, the fall-through might be calculated about around 10% and that on the market part between 15% and 20%. With these assumptions, it will be difficult to achieve 7% next year. But what we also tried to explain is that we will be above what might be expected in normal conditions in terms of fall through. And so we should be close to it. Pierre Quemener: Okay. That’s very clear. Turning back to H2 ’24. I struggle to see the improvement. I understand that sequentially, we’ve got — we might have more volumes in H2 than we have in H1, according to the latest IHS and S&P assumptions. But year-on-year, now S&P IHS assumes a decline of 4%. And I would suspect that we are not done yet in terms of revision for the LVP. So how could you have a better operating leverage if we exclude, of course, the one-offs that you suffered from in H1? Thank you. Patrick Koller: That traditionally, we do a better second half than a first half. Why this? If I start with the part below the top line, and I will be back to the top line. We have the carryforward of our commercial actions plus the commercial actions in the second half. The same thing for purchasing productivities. We have to carry forward of H1 plus the new actions achieved, which will be achieved in the second half. We have the one-off, which will not exist in the second half. We have cost reductions, and we have accelerated our cost reductions. We have taken very drastic measures. We have EU-FORWARD, which will start to — from which we will start to benefit in the second half. And we have the synergies with HELLA. On the top line, we have some additional businesses versus H1, which are also related to our growth which we expect to be at least with an outperformance of 300 basis points. So we feel confident about our capability to deliver what we announced. Pierre Quemener: Okay. Correct. So if I understand you correctly, Patrick, just my last comments. You still expect to get further price recovery or compensation from OEMs in H2, correct? Patrick Koller: Correct. Pierre Quemener: Thank you. Operator: Our next question comes from… Olivier Durand: And just to say that, of course, it contributes to top line but it contribute to bottom line. Pierre Quemener: Thanks. Operator: Our next question comes from Mr. Bhagwani of Citibank. Sanjay Bhagwani: Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question also. I’ve got two questions as well. The first one is on the free cash flow ex-working capital and factoring. First of all, thank you for providing that as your focus point in the presentation. So when we think of the full year free cash flow ex-working capital and factoring, are you able to provide some color on this that, let’s say, out of this net cash flow of EUR650 million, what you are targeting, is it roughly half is going to be ex-working capital or ex-factoring? And related to that, if I understand it correctly, last year, in total, you had maybe EUR120 million of one-off taxes. What I say is EUR-68 million is now already recovered? So the rest of them come in H2. That is my first question. Olivier Durand: Good morning. So you can expect, indeed, the continuation of having positive net cash flow outside working capital and factoring will not be contributing because we will return strictly to the EUR1.3 billion that we have as a target. There was EUR20 million of last minute, but we will return to EUR1.3 billion for the year. I think it’s close to half. I think we will be between 40% and 50%. In terms of tax normalization, so last year, we had inside the EUR120 million, we had mainly this aspect of withholding tax, but there were also some more smaller amounts that indeed are not fully — are not fully there yet and will appear normally in H2. And this is one of the reasons why I’m saying that the tax cash out will be a more normal one in ’24. Going forward, what you can expect is in fact that this level will not increase that much, even if profitability will because one of the key driver of the improvement in profitability relates to Europe. And in Europe, our actual tax charge is low given the low profitability we have on top of tax losses that we have in France and Germany. So the average marginal tax increase will be much smaller than what we have faced on the base. Sanjay Bhagwani: Thank you. That’s very helpful. So if I understood it correctly, going forward, the cash taxes, the difference between the cash and the P&L tax narrows down. Is that correct interpretation? Olivier Durand: Correct. Sanjay Bhagwani: Thank you. And my second question — yes, sorry. And my second question is on the automotive apps. I think just the bigger picture, you just highlighted here you are targeting 20% market share? Are you able to provide some color on what — where we stand right now in terms of the market share? And how big is this opportunity? If you can provide some color on what this opportunity pertains to? Thank you. Patrick Koller: What I can tell you is that the 25% for 2025 are almost booked. So we are very confident about achieving this 25% market share. We are speaking about equipped vehicles just to be clear. And the tendency is also very favorable. Why? Because we are much less demanding in terms of information or data ownership, data privacy, which is kept to the end user and to the OEM, when it comes to them. The other thing, which is a significant opportunity for them is that we are already able to display them — apps possibilities as we want. So you might not recognize that this is coming from one of the key apps providers. Sanjay Bhagwani: Thank you very much. That’s very helpful. Operator: Our next question comes from Christoph Laskawi of Deutsche Bank. Christoph Laskawi: Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Basically, follow-ups. The first one would be, sorry, if I missed it, but on the area of your business, You already target for the [Technical Difficulty] basically starting. Patrick Koller: Sorry to interrupt you. We can’t understand you. The line is very bad. Christoph Laskawi: Is it now better? Patrick Koller: Yes. Christoph Laskawi: Sorry for that. The first question would be just on the interior business. And is the run rate that you target for the H2 margin already achieved? Or do you still need to improve in Q3 to get there? And then the second question would just be, if you’re willing to share any assumption on ’25 with regards to inflation. Should that basically be a net zero or have you factored anything in the update that you provided today? Thankyou. Patrick Koller: We were very conservative on interiors North America for the second half. In fact, the objective in operating margin is below — significantly below their budget while we believe that we will do better again because at the end of June, they were back to normal conditions. So we were prudent, but I think that in the current context, this was requested. So in other words, we feel confident that our teams in North America will at least deliver what they have currently in the forecast. Christoph Laskawi: Thank you. That’s very helpful. And then just on inflation? Olivier Durand: So on inflation, we are — we will see what happened is part of the elements that we will solidify at the time of giving our guidance in details for ’25. But today, we are assuming a marginal inflation. So we are not counting yet on the dilution impact on this topic, which can be a positive, but this is to be confirmed. Christoph Laskawi: Thanks, Durand. Operator: Our next question comes from Mr. Thomas Besson of Kepler. Thomas Besson: Can you hear me? Olivier Durand: Now we can. Thomas Besson: Great. Sorry, you had major technical difficulties to access any documents on this call today? I have a few questions that I also sent in working, because of these difficulties. The first question is, can you explain why you did not exclude the EUR47 million extraordinary costs in U.S. interior in H1? Why is it included in your figure? Olivier Durand: To be exact, the interior EBIT margin of 1.4% includes the one-off cost in terms of the launches that we mentioned, the EUR47 million. The Kamaplast litigation and resolution is under the operating margin for EUR34 million, and this is in the line of other expense. So the interior number includes the launch cost. If you exclude this one-off totally, you will get to a margin of interior in H1 above 3%. Patrick Koller: But the operational costs related to Kamaplast are in the P&L also. Olivier Durand: Yes, they are in the net income, absolutely below the line and they are in the cash flow, obviously. Thomas Besson: Thank you. Can you explain Olivier why you have EUR12 million associate loss in H1 and what we should expect for the year? What is it related to last year? Olivier Durand: So further to the evolution of consolidation, the main remaining associate company equity investment is actually Symbio. So it’s mainly related to Symbio. You should expect a lower negative in the second half. Thomas Besson: Okay. Thank you. Then another question as well. Basic. Can you explain why your tooling revenues jumped 45% in H1 remain this way? Olivier Durand: The tooling revenues is to be associated with the number of launches that we had in H1. So the number has been particularly high in interiors in North America, which is the business that has the most tooling revenues. So this is one driver, but there was quite a lot of activity in interiors and growth in interior also in the other regions. So this is the reason. This is related to the number of new programs and new launches that we had in the period, the organic growth of interior. Thomas Besson: Thank you very much. Last question, please. Can you guide us for full year ’24 net interest and net restructuring expense please. Olivier Durand: So on the financial costs. If I start by the cash, you should expect net-net a number close to last year even though the gross debt has decreased, the actions that we have taken to — as you have seen, to work on the maturities and to buy back in some cases, some bonds have a one-off impact. So this is an element. Related to the P&L, you have capital gains in H1 related to the disposal. I’m not expecting anything major in the second half in terms of gain and loss on disposal. And the financial — the net financial cost in the P&L should be below EUR500 million, including this capital gain. Thomas Besson: Okay. Thank you. For restructuring expenses? Olivier Durand: For the restructuring. So the first half, as we mentioned, has been quite high. This is related to the number of operations that have been announced. The second half should be lower. I think the restructuring cost for the year should be around EUR300 million, EUR300 million plus. And cash-wise, the translation of those actions in actual departure depend on the jurisdiction. So there is obviously a lag. There is also in the restructuring cost, some noncash items, i.e., write-off of assets primarily. And so the impact in terms of cash out in restructuring for the year should be around EUR200 million, slightly up year-on-year for the full year. Thomas Besson: Thank you. That’s all for me. Thank you. Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Jacks from Bank of America. Michael Jacks: Hi. Good morning, Patrick, Olivier. Thanks for taking my questions as well. My first question, customer mix was strongly negative for you and most other suppliers in the first half of the year. How robust do you believe your assumptions are here in the second half, particularly in relation to your D Three customers in the U.S. given their current high inventory levels. I’ll stop there if it’s okay and ask my subsequent questions after that. Olivier Durand: Especially in the U.S., given the level of inventories of the Detroit Three. Patrick Koller: So we do not have — by the way, we do not have the same level of inventories, all of them and I’m particularly having in mind GM, which has a very reasonable level of inventories. And we are not significantly dealing with the one which has the highest inventory level. But what we believe is that the market in North America is robust. We’ve seen it in the first half, and we are not really concerned about the volumes. We consider for the second half. The risks are more related to the European market and to the Chinese market. But in both cases, we also believe that there are elements which could boost the growth of these two markets. Michael Jacks: Understood. Thank you, Patrick. Do you expect your European customers to increase their production already in the fourth quarter of this year in anticipation of meeting their 2025 CO2 emission targets or do you think this will likely just be delayed to 2025? And what is the content factor that you have on BEV programs as compared to ICE programs? Patrick Koller: I try to explain that. When you consider the supplies which are directly related to a powertrain, we are — we have about the same sales and profitability independently if it’s on hybrid ICE or on BEV. So we are agnostic from this point of view. Where we might have an impact is when we have an ad-hoc development for a given car, and this car might be on BEV and this car might sell less well as forecasted. But this is the risks we always had independently from the powertrain. So our exposure to it is limited with the exception of some electronics subsystems. Michael Jacks: I understand. And then maybe just one final accounting-related question for Olivier. How much of the P&L and cash financial expense related to premiums paid for these bond buybacks? Just want to get a sense for the underlying expense and cash outflow. Thank you. Olivier Durand: I think we can say between EUR20 million and EUR30 million in H1. Michael Jacks: Very clear. Okay. Thank you. Operator: Our last question comes from José Asumendi of JPMorgan. Jose Asumendi: Thank you very much. I have a couple of questions, please. Patrick, can you please address a little bit the profitability that the company is delivering in Europe and how the restructuring measures you’re taking will accelerate the EBIT margin? It looks to me like at this stage, where we stand in terms of volumes post semiconductor and COVID crisis, you should be 1 percentage points to 2 percentage points higher at this stage. So can you please address a little bit the capacity decision of your plants and how the restructuring measures will lift the margins in Europe in the next 12 months? And then second, can you talk a little bit about the proportion of order backlog or revenues in Asia from your Chinese OEMs and how the recent joint venture with Chery will accelerate this order backlog sustaining the profitability in China at a double-digit rate? Thank you. Patrick Koller: The first one was related to… . Olivier Durand: The first one is — if I — let me repeat the question and Jose will correct me if I’m wrong. Jose Asumendi: Profitability in Europe and restructuring measures to improve margins in Europe. Olivier Durand: So the impact of the restructuring and the EBIT margin evolution in Europe and utilizing — level of utilization of capacity. Patrick Koller: Okay. To give you an indication, we are — in terms of payback of our restructuring costs, we are between two and three years. And for the first ones we have done, we are closer to two years. Of course, the benefit will happen when the people will have left the company. What we also haven’t taken into account when we presented the plan are the savings, which are related to transfers from high-cost countries to low-cost countries related to the massification and the better absorption of fixed costs. So these savings will start in the second half, and they will be significant in 2025. About the backlog as you spoke in China, so yes, we expected SOPs earlier this year, especially with Chery and with Li Auto. These ones are now in the pipe. They will happen in the second half. They will be significant for us as — especially for Chery, we have a scope, which is significantly higher than the average. What I also would like to say is that with BYD, we have signed in the last days very important and significant contract, which is dealing with the volumes, with the market share with BYD on a global scale. Jose Asumendi: May I follow up on BYD. When you say on a global scale, can we think that which region will benefit the most? Is it South Asia? Is it Latin America? Or is it a bit of everything? Does it include Europe, if I may ask? Patrick Koller: It is — so we spoke about Thailand, which is done. We have now the award for Hungary. We will not have all of them. BYD, as you know, has also an in-house production [indiscernible] which will also get some of these programs. But they count on us to support them on their international deployment, which is not easy. And I think that the market share we will have in the deployment of BYD internationally will be superior to the one we have in China. Jose Asumendi: Thank you, Patrick. Thank you. Operator: That was our last question. Thank you very much. Patrick Koller: We have one on the screen. Olivier Durand: The question is from Peter [indiscernible]. Please explain the free cash flow ambition for ’25, 4% of sales of roughly EUR1.1 billion versus the guidance for ’24 better than 2.3% because it’s free cash flow above EUR649 million. What will drive that improvement? So first off, if we give a guidance on cash flow of at least EUR649 million, it means at least EUR649 million. The second point is that the strong improvement in operating margin will drive improvement of the EBITDA, which is a key element of the growth of the net cash flow. And then below the EBITDA is to ensure that the EBITDA growth is fully translated in cash, how to do that to continue to have a contribution from the working capital, not at all the type of value that you have seen in the past. . But there will be continuing benefits on the inventories also in ’25 as we streamline our operation and normalize it. And this is also an indirect benefit of the EU-FORWARD project. Besides the working capital, the most recurrent improvement is about CapEx and is about R&D capitalization, which are expected to go down in absolute terms next year and allow that the other lines which are related to restructuring and are able to be fully offset. So increase in operating margin, translating an increase in EBITDA and this EBITDA improvement translating in net cash flow. The magnitude of which is, of course, will depend on a few factors, and we will give the detailed guidance about this, but you will have a strong increase of net cash flow next year. That will be a key factor of reduction of our debt on top of the disposals. Patrick Koller: Thank you, Olivier. We have another question from Ross McDonald. Regarding the BYD strategic cooperation in Hungary, was this project included in the initial EU-FORWARD margin estimate of 7% for Europe by 2028. Do you expect the profitability of the BYD business in Europe to be significantly accretive to this 7% target. Patrick, you suggested the BEV slowdown is probably temporary in our opening remarks. Can you comment on how the group is positioned should we see a push back to the 2035 BEV mandate in Europe. Would this be a net positive or negative for FORVIA overall based on your customer profile in the region. So the first question, No. The Hungary project of BYD was not included in EU-FORWARD and in the EU-FORWARD margin estimate. Do we expect the profitability of the BYD business in Europe to be significantly accretive? It will be at the level of our target. You suggested the BEV slowdown is probably temporary. Yes, I do. I think that regulations will support an increase in battery electric vehicles. And I do believe that these vehicles are better than ICE vehicles on many aspects and that they will continue to develop. We were clear from day one. This cannot be a linear growth. We will have stop and goes. We will have slowdowns. We will have accelerations. But I think the trend is not put in question. I just said before that we are on both, we are — we have a content per vehicle and the profitability, which is perfectly comparable for ICEs/hybrid ICEs and battery electric vehicles. So for us, this is neutral. And what we have to do is to be clear on what are the vehicles we believe in and where we want to invest and cooperate. I think this is the last one. I don’t see any new questions. Okay. So I would like to thank you very much for your attention. I also would like to conclude in telling you that you have — in front of you FORVIA team, federated, fully committed to achieve the presented targets. Thank you very much. Olivier Durand: Thank you. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Faurecia reports stable production, aims for debt reduction By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

TULSA, Okla. – Alliance Resource (NASDAQ:) Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: ARLP) today reported a shortfall in earnings and revenue for the second quarter of 2024. The company’s earnings per share (EPS) came in at $0.77, which was below the analyst consensus estimate of $0.95. Revenue also missed expectations, with the company posting $593.4 million against an anticipated $629.45 million. The second quarter’s revenue represented a decrease of 7.6% compared to the same period last year, primarily due to reduced coal sales volumes, which declined by 11.8% due to transportation delays. However, coal sales price realizations saw a 3.8% increase year-over-year (YoY), reaching $65.30 per ton sold. Joseph W. Craft III, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of ARLP, commented on the quarter’s performance, highlighting the company’s enhanced liquidity position. “The successful completion of our Senior Notes offering further strengthened our balance sheet and represents a vote of confidence from the capital markets for our business strategy and plans for execution,” said Craft. He also noted that coal sales volumes were impacted by flooding on the Ohio River and the Baltimore bridge incident, which disrupted rail and port logistics, leading to higher inventory levels. Despite the challenges faced in the second quarter, the company’s Oil & Gas Royalties segment reported a 6.8% increase in BOE volumes YoY, driven by production growth from recently drilled and completed wells in their Permian-weighted minerals portfolio. Looking ahead, ARLP has adjusted its full-year guidance for coal operations, expecting to sell approximately 34.0 million tons in 2024, which is 2.6% below the mid-point of the original guidance for the year. The company also anticipates more than half of its uncontracted tonnage position will be sold in the domestic market due to increased summer burn. Craft remains optimistic about the future, stating, “The increase in coal-fired generation and inventory drawdown is constructive for the U.S. thermal coal market and for ARLP as we look forward to next year and beyond. We remain confident in the core fundamentals expected to drive rapid growth in electricity demand for many years to come.” This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Alliance Resource Partners posts worse-than-expected Q2 results as coal sales volumes decline By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

Trading bots have risen in popularity over the past two decades, and technological breakthroughs, particularly relating to artificial intelligence, have supercharged the sector, but are trading bots legal? Find out what you need to know about the legality of using trading bots before you deploy them and learn how to identify scams and fake bots. When most traders reference trading bots, they refer to algorithmic trading solutions, which handle 80%+ of Forex trading volumes and 70% plus of equity trading. Among the most popular are expert advisors or EAs, native to the MT4 trading platform, the leading algorithmic Forex trading platform, but are trading bots legal? The short answer is yes, but exceptions apply, and some brokers or markets apply restrictions. There is also a grey area when it comes to AI-assisted trading bots. Trading bots in financial markets are not only legal, but they dominate trading activity, handle the bulk of research, and operate 100% autonomously without human interference. Retail traders can access thousands of trading bots on various platforms, which generally do no work in the long term for numerous reasons, as evident by decades of data and live trading performances. Here are the core reasons many retail trading bots do not work: Poorly coded trading bots Simple strategies that have a track record of long-term losses Trading bots with only one strategy Inability to adapt to changing market conditions Static risk management profiles Sophisticated algorithmic trading solutions, which financial firms, traders, and developers guard at all costs to maintain their competitive advantage, are generally unavailable for sale to retail traders. The core features of the best algorithmic trading solutions include the following: Numerous trading strategies to deploy based on market conditions In-depth analytics consisting of technical and fundamental analysis Dynamic risk management profiles that adjust risk parameters AI-assisted decision-making and selection of which strategy to deploy Flawless coding to ensure error-free trade execution and increase the overall speed of operations for low-latency trading Since social media and chatbots emerged, the term bot has gained negative connotations, but are trading bots legal? Using trading bots in financial markets is legal in most countries. In other sectors like online marketplaces for buying and selling various types of goods or gaming, where gamers can trade in-game items, usually outlaw trading bots. Algorithmic trading accounts for 80%+ of daily trading volumes, confirming the legality of trading software, sometimes known as a trading bot. Most brokers offer at least one trading platform allowing traders to use trading bots, with MT4 as the leading algorithmic platform. While trading bots in financial markets are legal and dominate market activity, in certain circumstances they can be illegal. Here are the more common conditions that make trading bots illegal: Market manipulation, including placing fake orders or placing high-volume orders and canceling them immediately to impact Level 2 price feeds Using strategies that a broker does not allow (for example, arbitrage trading or hedging), which brokers mention in their terms and conditions Using strategies a financial exchange does not allow Today’s financial markets depend on algorithmic trading solutions, often simplified as trading bots, which is a misleading term. The Forex market is the most algorithmic-dependent financial market, and the emergence of AI in Forex trading has magnified the sophistication of algorithmic trading systems. AI trading bots are legal, but their level of sophistication may spark legal debates as soon as this decade. One dominant question that legal professionals must resolve is the liability if an AI trading bot that can create strategies or modify existing ones violates market rules or engages in illegal behavior. The owner or developer did not program the AI to violate the rules, but the AI wrote an algorithm to exploit market inefficiencies. No legal precedent exists, making this a compelling sector to monitor. The legality of crypto trading bots depends more on the legal status of cryptocurrency trading, which varies between countries. A trader using a crypto trading bot in a country where cryptocurrency trading is illegal would violate the rules twice. Firstly, for trading cryptocurrencies and second by using a cryptocurrency trading bot. With few exceptions, most trading activities require a broker. Therefore, traders must ensure their broker supports algorithmic trading and maintains the necessary infrastructure. Here is what algorithmic traders should look for: A broker allowing algorithmic trading without restrictions on strategies, as some brokers implement internal policies banning select strategies Ultra-fast order execution via an STP/ECN/NDD trading environment Competitive, commission-based trading fees with volume-based rebates Deep liquidity, which increases order execution and lowers trading fees No requotes and positive slippage pass-through Most brokers allow algorithmic trading using trading bots, as they benefit from the increased trading volume and commissions. Many brokers passively discourage trading bots with inadequate trading infrastructure and high fees. The popularity of trading bots and algorithmic trading also creates excellent conditions for forex scammers. The only possibility for a trading bot to deliver consistent returns is if traders code their strategy. Trading bots for sale do not work, as has been evident over the past two decades. Here are tips on how to spot scammers: Excessive returns, often illustrated via linear portfolio growth in doctored account history screenshots Promise of guaranteed profits Curve-fitting, referring to a strategy optimized using an exclusive set of historic data and not identifying trends and correlations that can accurately predict future price action Lack of transparency about the team behind the trading robot Low-cost trading robots Are trading bots legal? Trading bots in financial markets are legal and account for 80%+ daily trading activities. Select circumstances can make their usage illegal, and AI has elevated the abilities of algorithmic trading to a new level. Despite their legality, the trading bots that retail traders can purchase frequently fail to deliver promised returns and only generate consistent income for the companies or individuals selling licenses. Therefore, there is no substitute for learning how to trade and coding chosen strategies for algorithmic trading. Source link The post Are Trading Bots Legal & Profitable? All You Need to Know! first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

(Reuters) -U.S. sports-betting service BetMGM reported an interim loss on Monday and said it expects to post a loss in the second half of the year as well, as it ramps ups investment in customer experience and additional marketing. The joint venture between MGM Resorts (NYSE:) and Entain posted a core loss of $123 million in the first half that ended on June 30, and said its forecast for the final six months of the year is in line with its expectations. CEO Adam Greenblatt said, “2024 is a year of investment, focusing on improving our customer experience and stepping up our level of investment in players.” Gambling firms see less pressure in an improving economic environment as customer turn more confident about spending. BetMGM, the third-largest online gambling company by revenue in the United States, said it expects revenue to grow in the second half of the year and into 2025, banking on demand from punters looking to cash in on the National Football League (NFL) season. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post BetMGM expects further losses amid investment in customer experience By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

Investing.com– Most Asian stocks rose sharply on Monday with focus on an upcoming Federal Reserve meeting for more cues on interest rate cuts, with the battered technology sector leading gains. But Chinese markets continued to lag their regional peers, as sentiment towards the country showed little signs of improving ahead of more key economic readings this week.  Regional stocks took positive cues from a strong finish on Wall Street on Friday, as signs of easing inflation drove up bets that the Fed will eventually cut interest rates this year. U.S. stock index futures also rose in Asian trade on this notion. The Fed is set to at the conclusion of a two-day meeting on Wednesday. But any signals on when it plans to begin cutting rates will be closely watched, especially amid encouraging comments from Fed officials.  Asian tech extends rebound Tech-heavy Asian bourses continued to lead amid an extended rebound in tech stocks. Japan’s index surged 2.2%, while South Korea’s and Hong Kong’s rose around 1% each.  Tech stocks saw a degree of bargain buying after being walloped by profit-taking over the past two weeks, while expectations of rate cuts also saw investors pivot into more economically sensitive sectors.  But investors were seen moving back into the sector, especially ahead of several key earnings due this week. U.S. tech giants Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:) are set to report second-quarter earnings in the coming days, offering up more cues on the industry and artificial intelligence.  Chinese stocks lag amid few positive signals  China’s and indexes fell 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively, remaining close to five-month lows and seeing little relief from negative sentiment towards China.  Fears of a slowing Chinese economic recovery- following a series of weak readings through July- sparked extended selling in Chinese markets. U.S. political uncertainty also weighed on Chinese markets, especially with investors uncertain over how the next U.S. administration will treat Beijing.  Focus this week is on data from the country for July, for more cues on business activity.  Broader Asian markets rose. Australia’s added 0.8%, while Japan’s index added 1.9%. for India’s index pointed to a positive open, with the index set to extend gains after surging to record highs last week.  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Asian stocks rebound with Fed, rate cuts in focus; China lags By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

According to your friends on Facebook, Joe Biden has gifted us with record-breaking stock market highs. Is this true, or is something else going on? It is true stocks have soared to new heights multiple times over the last several months. So, what does President Biden have to do with it? Not much. I like to remind my Facebook friends that if you are going to play the “lookie, my president made the stock market be biggly” game, you have to give Trump credit for the upward trajectory of stocks during most of his term (I don’t). In reality, the recent bull market in stocks is mostly a function of the promise of a return to easy money with the Fed set to cut interest rates. In the current economic environment, presidents and their policies have very little to do with the stock market. That’s not to say they have no impact at all. Taxes, spending, regulations, trade policies, etc. all impact the economy, and through it, stock prices. But in this modern age of aggressive central bank intervention, Federal Reserve monetary policy serves as the biggest market driver. Fed intervention has been so extreme in the 21st century it has overwhelmed normal market dynamics such as corporate fundamentals or federal economic and tax policy. As you can see from this graph showing the trajectory of the Dow Jones Index, other than the onset of the pandemic, movements in the stock market correlate almost perfectly with the trajectory of monetary policy. Looser monetary policy proceeds and drives bull markets, and tighter monetary policy pushes the markets lower. Note the dip in the orange box. At the time, the Federal Reserve was trying to normalize interest rates after nearly a decade of artificially low rates in the wake of the 2008 financial. The Fed held rates at zero through most of that period. During that time, the trajectory of the Dow was generally upward. As you can see on the graph, the market starts to climb again before the big crash during the pandemic. Why? The Fed cut rates three times that year because the previous hikes had started the process of the next bust cycle. The central bank pumped a little easy money back into the system juicing the markets in 2019 and stalling the looming bust (And all the Trump people said, “See! He’s making America great!”). Then we had COVID. You can see the pandemic era as a big dip on the chart. The pandemic bailed the Fed out. It gave the central bankers an excuse to go back to an unprecedented easy money policy. It cut rates to zero again and put quantitative easing on steroids. Over the next 18 months or so, the Fed injected nearly $5 trillion into the economy in QE alone. I’m convinced that had we not had the Rona, the economy was on the path to crashing in 2020. But the pandemic created an opportunity to reinflate the bubbles with an unprecedented loose monetary that almost made 2008’s intervention look normal. With all of the money flowing during and after the pandemic, you can see the Dow climb until 2022. Then we have the first rate hike to fight “transitory” price inflation in March 2022. Notice the Dow tanked as the Fed was raising rates then stabilized and traded sideways (Green box) during the balance of the hiking cycle. The Dow took off again and started setting record highs in late 2023. What exactly did Biden do to cause this? Source link The post Did Joe Biden give us a record breaking stock market? first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

The University of Wyoming is launching the UW Bitcoin Research Institute in August. The new institute aims to provide “high-quality peer-reviewed” studies about Bitcoin. Bradley Rettler, a Bitcoin activist and Associate Professor at the University of Wyoming, announced the new institute on X on July 28. He will serve as the institute’s director. Rettler described the current state of Bitcoin (BTC) research as “poor” and stressed the industry needs more “high-quality peer-reviewed” publications to ensure the public is properly informed about what Bitcoin is and how it works. University of Wyoming campus in Laramie, Wyoming. Source: University of Wyoming He highlighted a 2018 study led by University of Hawaii Professor Camilo Mora that claimed Bitcoin emissions alone could increase global warming by 35.6° Fahrenheit (2° Celsius) by 2048. “They failed to account for the difficulty adjustment *and* didn’t know there was a block size cap,” Rettler stressed in a July 28 X post. “These mistakes make their way into journalism, and policy. Bitcoin is multi-faceted in theory, and even more so in practice. Journalists can’t be experts, so they rely on academics. Too many of those academics have let them down.” One of the institute’s professors is Andrew M. Bailey, lead author of “Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin.” Rettler was also named as an author of the book. The Bitcoin Research Institute will officially open in August when the Fall semester for 2024-2025 begins. Source: Andrew M. Bailey It will run annual summer workshops, offer academic prizes and host weekly seminars, according to its website. Related: Bitcoin firm, Texas university partner for $5M endowment fund The BRI is classed as a nonprofit and is accepting Bitcoin donations to assist research. “We allocate 4% of our investments to bitcoin, so if you donate bitcoin, we will not sell it,” Rettler explained. Source: Dagnum PI Wyoming is fast becoming a leading Bitcoin state in the United States, largely due to pro-Bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis and Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, which offers Bitcoin custody solutions. Lummis announced a strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on July 27, which would see the US buy 5% of the 21 million Bitcoin that will ever enter into circulation. “It can be used for one purpose, to reduce our debt,” Lummis declared during her keynote speech. Wyoming lawmakers passed a bill in February, 2023, that prohibits state courts from forcing someone to disclose their digital asset private keys. The state also provides a legal framework for decentralized autonomous organizations. Magazine: ‘Bitcoin Layer 2s’ aren’t really L2s at all: Here’s why that matters Source link The post University of Wyoming launches Bitcoin Research Institute first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

(Reuters) -Former Rockwell Collins (NYSE:) chief Kelly Ortberg has joined the list of contenders under serious consideration by Boeing (NYSE:) as its next CEO, The Air Current reported on Sunday, citing industry officials. Ortberg, Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:) CEO Pat Shanahan and Boeing Chief Operating Officer Stephanie Pope are among candidates for the Boeing job, the trade publication said. Reuters has reported Shanahan and Pope as contenders along with Boeing board chair Steve Mollenkopf. RTX’s Rockwell Collins produces aircraft communications, electronics and aviation systems for commercial and military customers. Ortberg retired in 2021 as an adviser to the CEO of RTX after heading Rockwell Collins and its successor entities for about eight years as it went through mergers, acquisitions and restructuring. Boeing has been looking for a new head after Dave Calhoun said in March he would step down by year-end, in a broad management shakeup following a January mid-air panel blowout on a 737 MAX plane. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Former Rockwell Collins chief being considered for Boeing CEO, report says By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

(Reuters) -Apple’s upcoming artificial intelligence features will arrive later than anticipated and will miss the initial launch of upcoming iPhone and iPad software overhauls, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday. The iPhone maker is planning to begin rolling out Apple (NASDAQ:) Intelligence to customers as part of software updates coming by October, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter. AI features will arrive a few weeks after the initial iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 releases planned for September, Bloomberg said. Apple is planning to make Apple Intelligence available to software developers for the first time for early testing as soon as this week via iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1 betas, the report added. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. In June, Apple underscored its AI push with a slew of new features and software enhancements for its iPhone and other devices to bolster sagging sales. Apple Intelligence, which uses AI to conjure text, images and other content on command, would be available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with its M1 chip and later versions. iPhone Mirroring on MacOS Sequoia allows the phone’s screen to be viewed and interacted with on Mac computers. The report comes after Apple in late June delayed launching three new artificial intelligence features because landmark European Union tech rules require it to ensure that rival products and services can function with its device. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Apple’s artificial intelligence features to be delayed, Bloomberg News reports By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

(Reuters) – U.S. home insurers suffered their worst underwriting loss this century in 2023, as a toxic mix of natural disasters, inflation and population growth in at-risk areas put a vital financial market under acute pressure, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Insurers providing policies to homeowners were hit with a $15.2 billion net underwriting loss last year, according to figures from rating agency AM Best, the report added, saying that the figure was the worst since at least 2000 and more than double the previous year’s losses. The FT said that the report identified rising populations in those regions most susceptible to natural disasters as a significant factor — citing census figures showing that six states prone to severe weather, including California and Texas, accounted for half of the country’s population growth in the 2010s. The figures lay bare the underwriting conditions that have sparked a pullback by US insurers from disaster-hit areas, either exiting markets or driving up prices, creating an affordability crisis for many homeowners, the FT said. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post US home insurers suffer biggest loss of century in 2023, FT says By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

In a Thursday note to clients, Citi strategists assessed how the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election, which will likely be a battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, could impact oil prices. Under a Trump administration, the impact on the oil market “could be net bearish due to trade tariffs, oil-and-gas-friendly policies/deregulation, and pushing OPEC+ to release oil to the market,” strategists highlighted. On the flip side, Citi sees the potential for increased sanctions on Iran under Trump as a significant bullish factor, though even this could have a limited impact. Trump’s history with Iran suggests that reimposing sanctions could remove substantial volumes of Iranian oil from the market, thereby pushing prices up. On the other hand, Harris’s energy policies are expected to align closely with those of the current Biden administration, which could maintain or slightly increase regulatory pressures on the oil industry. Harris’s approach to Iran is likely to be less confrontational, maintaining the status quo rather than reimposing severe sanctions. Her administration might continue to support a diplomatic approach, reducing the likelihood of significant disruptions in Iranian oil exports. Moreover, Harris could be more supportive of a Middle East ceasefire, which could also add to the stability in the region and its oil supply dynamics. Meanwhile, Trump’s environmental policies could also play a role. Citi said the administration might roll back environmental regulations and halt aggressive Democratic fuel economy standards. Trump’s stance against electric vehicle (EV) subsidies could slow down the adoption of EVs, sustaining higher demand for oil. However, Elon Musk’s recent endorsement of Trump “could moderate this impact,” strategists said. Conversely, a Harris administration is expected to maintain or slightly intensify the current administration’s regulatory approach. “Harris’s energy policy would not look too different from those of the incumbent administration,” strategists pointed out. This includes supporting renewable energy initiatives and maintaining stricter regulations on fossil fuel production. The potential impacts on oil prices also extend to infrastructure and regulatory measures. Under Trump, there could be efforts to increase leasing and acreage auctions for oil production, particularly on federal lands. This could boost domestic supply, but the immediate effects might be limited due to broader market conditions and legislative processes required to enact significant changes. On the other hand, Harris might push for more stringent regulations under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, although these could face legal challenges. Her administration might also aim to phase out new internal combustion engine vehicle sales by 2035, “though this would be again challenged by courts,” strategists remarked. From a geopolitics perspective, Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia could lead to increased oil supply from OPEC+, potentially lowering prices, According to Citi. Similarly, Trump has also mentioned negotiating a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If successful, this could also potentially ease the oil and gas markets. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Citi looks at the election impact on oil prices By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

Is automated Forex trading profitable? The short answer is yes and no. As with all matters related to Forex trading, it is more complex than it appears. I will explain under which conditions automated Forex trading is profitable and what to avoid, as the sector is ripe with scams and misinformation, leading to confusion among retail traders. Over 80% of the daily Forex trading volume, which approaches $8 trillion daily, comes from algorithmic trading solutions, and the number continues to increase, but is automated Forex trading profitable? The best automated Forex trading platforms can yield consistent profits if: Forex traders code strategies with a proven track record Forex traders have multiple strategies to use in various market conditions Forex traders have a sophisticated algorithmic trading solution that can accurately decide which strategy to use when Automated trading requires knowledge of a diverse array of strategies, powerful software, a trading platform that supports API trading, and experience coding in that language or access to trusted developers who will code with bulletproof NDAs and employment contracts. For example, MT4 uses the MQL4 programming language, while cTrader uses C#, but with APIs, developers can use their preferred programming language and connect to the trading platform. AT stands for automated trading, and EA for expert advisor, but what is the difference, or are they identical? Automated trading refers to anything related to algorithmic or automated trading and is a broad-based term. An expert advisor is specific to the MT4/MT5 trading platforms, referencing algorithmic trading solutions that traders can utilize. MT4 is the leading algorithmic Forex trading platform, and most traders use the terms automated trading and EA synonymously, but is automated Forex trading profitable? The profitability depends 100% on which algorithmic trading strategies are used and the developers who coded them. As part of answering the “is automated Forex trading profitable,” question, traders must also understand the pros and cons of automated Forex trading. It will ensure they can make an informed decision on the topic and help them implement it as their core portfolio strategy. Removes emotions from the decision and trading process Allows the analysis of the entire Forex market in a few seconds at the most Increases trade execution Ensures efficient Forex trading Enables deployment of complex strategies Offers 24/5 trade monitoring and risk management VPS hosting for 24/5 low-latency Forex trading Third-party solutions do not work The automated trading sector is littered with scams and frauds Most traders only have one strategy, which may have taken years to develop. Automated trading solutions with one strategy fail to adapt to changing market conditions Most brokers fail to support algorithmic traders with low trading fees and ultra-fast order execution With 80%+ of daily Forex trading algorithmic, automated trading is necessary for efficient and effective trading, but is automated Forex trading profitable? For most Forex traders, the answer is no, as third-party automated trading solutions do not work. Most algorithmic trading solutions are well-guarded, secretive systems deployed by quantitative trading firms, hedge funds, and high-frequency trading firms. Individual traders with a profitable automated trading system will equally guard its algorithms, as it ensures they maintain a competitive edge. Forex trading, despite popular belief, is not a social activity. The more traders crowd a trade, the less profitable automated trading systems become, while the risks increase. Source link The post Is Automated Forex Trading Profitable in [year] first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

UBS analysts are forecasting a summer ripe for strategic portfolio adjustments to maximize carry, with a focus on short-term European investment grade (IG) debt and strategic diversification. In a note dated Tuesday, analysts at UBS said they see a return to stability in credit spreads across Europe, particularly in the high yield (HY) space, following recent volatility triggered by the French elections. Recommendations for enhanced summer carry Prioritizing Short-term European IG: Analysts at UBS underscore the attractiveness of short-term debt (3-5 years) within the European IG universe. This segment offers particularly compelling yields in light of the recent inversion of the yield curve. Re-embracing US IG Bonds: For the first time in nearly two years, UBS recommends incorporating US IG bonds (7-10 years) into your carry strategy. This strategic shift reflects an evolving market outlook. Diversification with GBP IG: British Pound IG bonds (5-7 years) are recommended for their low correlation to the and their potential to generate attractive carry. Strategic Risk Reduction: UBS advises reducing exposure to riskier assets such as European HY (3-5 years) and credit default swaps (CDS) like ITRX Main. Emerging Markets (EM): While cash remains preferable to EM exposure for the immediate term, “Cash + Synthetic” investors can cautiously re-enter the EM market at benchmark weight. Synthetic-only investors have the flexibility to increase their EM allocation as well. Maintaining Long HY Positioning: The report recommends maintaining a long HY versus IG position in both the US and European markets. UBS model recommendation Cash + Synthetic Investors: Increase allocation to US IG (3-5 years), reduce exposure to EU HY (3-5 years) and ITRX Main, cautiously re-enter EM at benchmark weight, and maximize allocation to GBP IG (5-7 years). Synthetic-Only Investors: Increase allocation to US IG (3-5 years) and EM exposure, maintain a long HY versus IG position in both regions, and reduce exposure to ITRX Main !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post How should investors reallocate their portfolios this summer to maximize carry? By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors (OTC:) is set to join an alliance between Honda (NYSE:) Motor and Nissan (OTC:) Motor, creating an auto group with combined sales of more than 8 million vehicles, the business daily said on Sunday. Nissan and Honda said in March they were considering a strategic partnership to collaborate on producing key components for electric vehicles and artificial intelligence in automotive software platforms. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Mitsubishi Motors to join Honda-Nissan alliance, Nikkei reports By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

Gold price bounces from daily lows of $2,356, now at $2,385. Fed’s preferred inflation gauge shows mixed results, edging closer to the 2% target. US Treasury yields slump as bonds rally, signaling potential for multiple Fed rate cuts this year. Gold price makes a U-turn after diving to two-week lows of $2,353 edges higher some 0.80% as market participants seem secure the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates at the September meeting, following a soft inflation report. The XAU/USD trades at $2,385 after bouncing off daily lows of $2,356. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revealed that the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index (PCE), ticked a tenth higher monthly than May’s data. It dipped as foreseen in the twelve months to June, though it’s at the brisk of hitting the Fed’s 2% goal. June’s Core PCE edged up a tenth every month, while year-over-year (YoY) was unchanged, above projections. Following the data, US bonds rallied, and consequently, US Treasury yields slumped, with the 10-year note sliding four and a half basis points to 4.202%. Sources cited by Reuters noted, “Today’s mixed-to-weaker U.S. data suggests inflationary pressures and economic activity are waning, paving the way for the Fed to cut rates twice this year.” Next week, the Federal Reserve will make its latest monetary policy decision. The central bank is expected to keep rates unchanged, but the meeting could pave the way for the first cut at the September meeting. Daily digest market movers: Gold price bounces off weekly lows The US PCE in June rose by 0.1% month-over-month (MoM) and 2.5% year-over-year (YoY); both figures were as expected, with the annual rate falling from 2.6%. Core PCE expanded by 0.2% MoM, exceeding estimates and May’s figure. On an annual basis, Core PCE rose by 2.6%, higher than forecasts and unchanged from the prior month’s reading. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey, in its final reading, jumped to 66.4, missing projections of 66. Inflation expectations for one year decreased from 3% to 2.9%, while for a five-year period, they remained unchanged at 3%. Data from the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) shows that traders are pricing in 55 basis points (bps) of easing towards the end of the year, as indicated by the December 2024 fed funds rate futures contract. Technical analysis: Gold price climbs but remains below $2,400 Gold prices remain upward biased, snapping two days of losses and forming a ‘bullish harami’ two-candle chart. Momentum hints that buyers are still in charge, as depicted by the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which pierced above the 50-neutral line, opening the door for further upside. XAU/USD buyers must reclaim $2,400 before pushing prices above the psychological $2,450 area. A breach of the latter will expose the all-time high (ATH) at around $2,483, followed by the $2,500 mark. On the flip side, if XAU/USD continues to edge lower and drop below the 50-day moving average (DMA) at $2,359, further losses are on the cards. The next support would be the July 25 daily low of $2,353. Once those levels are removed, the 100-DMA would be up next at $2,324, ahead of diving to the $2,300 mark. Gold FAQs Gold has played a key role in human’s history as it has been widely used as a store of value and medium of exchange. Currently, apart from its shine and usage for jewelry, the precious metal is widely seen as a safe-haven asset, meaning that it is considered a good investment during turbulent times. Gold is also widely seen as a hedge against inflation and against depreciating currencies as it doesn’t rely on any specific issuer or government. Central banks are the biggest Gold holders. In their aim to support their currencies in turbulent times, central banks tend to diversify their reserves and buy Gold to improve the perceived strength of the economy and the currency. High Gold reserves can be a source of trust for a country’s solvency. Central banks added 1,136 tonnes of Gold worth around $70 billion to their reserves in 2022, according to data from the World Gold Council. This is the highest yearly purchase since records began. Central banks from emerging economies such as China, India and Turkey are quickly increasing their Gold reserves. Gold has an inverse correlation with the US Dollar and US Treasuries, which are both major reserve and safe-haven assets. When the Dollar depreciates, Gold tends to rise, enabling investors and central banks to diversify their assets in turbulent times. Gold is also inversely correlated with risk assets. A rally in the stock market tends to weaken Gold price, while sell-offs in riskier markets tend to favor the precious metal. The price can move due to a wide range of factors. Geopolitical instability or fears of a deep recession can quickly make Gold price escalate due to its safe-haven status. As a yield-less asset, Gold tends to rise with lower interest rates, while higher cost of money usually weighs down on the yellow metal. Still, most moves depend on how the US Dollar (USD) behaves as the asset is priced in dollars (XAU/USD). A strong Dollar tends to keep the price of Gold controlled, whereas a weaker Dollar is likely to push Gold prices up.   Source link The post Gold rises amid soft US Dollar as traders eye next week Fed meeting first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

Top Stories This Week BlackRock Bitcoin ETF records biggest inflow day since March at $523M BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) notched its biggest day of inflows in over four months, with over $523 million entering the fund on July 23. The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) scooped up 7,759 Bitcoin on July 22 — worth just over $523 million at the time of writing — according to Hey Apollo data cited by its co-founder, Julian Fahrer, in a July 23 post on X. The July 22 inflows bring the total assets under management for IBIT to 333,000 BTC, worth around $22 billion at current prices. It marks the seventh-largest day of record for inflows into IBIT in United States dollars.IBIT witnessed its largest single day of inflows on March 18, when $849 million worth of BTC was added to the fund. The second-largest day on record occurred on March 5, when the fund saw $788 million in inflows, according to Farside Investors data. Revolut secures UK banking license after three-year wait Revolut, the London-based fintech company, finally secured a banking license in the United Kingdom after a protracted three-year regulatory approval process. This significant milestone, announced on July 25, marks a pivotal moment for the company as it strengthens and solidifies its position in its home market. The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority granted the license with certain restrictions, allowing Revolut to gradually build out its banking operations before a full-scale launch. Nik Storonsky, the CEO of Revolut, commented on this landmark event: “We are incredibly proud to reach this important milestone in the journey of the company and we will ensure we deliver on making Revolut the bank of choice for UK customers.” The company was founded in 2015 and has rapidly grown its customer base, with nine million registered users in the UK and over 45 million globally. It is supported in 35 countries around the world.  Revolut was valued at $33 billion during a fundraising round in 2021. Currently, the firm is in discussions to sell shares worth about $500 million, potentially increasing its overall valuation to approximately $40 billion. India cracks down on darknet drug deals using crypto tracking India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the country’s nodal drug law enforcement and intelligence agency, is actively monitoring cryptocurrency payments on the darknet as part of its ongoing efforts to combat drug trafficking in the country. During a Parliamentary discussion on July 24, Nityanand Rai, the minister of state for home affairs, revealed India’s current strategy to reduce the import and inter-state movement of narcotic drugs. According to data from NCB, the use of cryptocurrencies in drug crimes has been inconsistent over the last five years. However, the number of cases of drug seizure involving darknet and cryptocurrencies has seen a steady increase since 2022. Rai detailed 13 plans of action against the growing problem of drug trafficking and narco-terrorism in India, two of which targeted the misuse of cryptocurrencies. He said: “A Special Task Force on Darknet and Crypto Currency has been constituted to monitor suspicious transactions related to drugs on Darknet.” Spot Ethereum ETFs post $107M net inflows on first day United States Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted net inflows of $106.6 million on their first day of trading despite massive outflows from Grayscale’s freshly converted Ethereum Trust. BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF led the pack with $266.5 million of inflows, followed closely by the Bitwise Ethereum ETF with $204 million in net inflows. The Fidelity Ethereum Fund ETF came in third with $71.3 million. The inflows to the “newborn” spot Ether ETFs were enough to overcome bleeding from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which saw outflows of $484.9 million on the day, amounting to 5% of the once $9 billion fund. ETHE was launched by Grayscale in 2017, allowing institutional investors to buy ETH. However, it imposed a six-month lock-up period on all investments. Its conversion to a spot ETF means that investors can more easily sell their shares, which could explain the high day-one outflows.In January, spot Bitcoin ETFs were marred by a similar dynamic with the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which saw over $17.5 billion in outflows following the launch of the 11 spot BTC ETFs. Asset manager says Trump admin may make Bitcoin strategic reserve asset Asset manager Bryan Courchesne recently appeared on CNBC to discuss Bitcoin’s potential to become a strategic reserve asset of the United States government under a potential future Trump administration. According to the asset manager, adopting Bitcoin as a reserve asset would be difficult but not impossible. Courchesne pointed to the Department of Justice’s vast holdings of 200,000 BTC, making the U.S. government the largest holder of Bitcoin behind its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Courchesne explained that the Department of Justice could simply transfer the Bitcoin to the United States Department of the Treasury, paving the way for the Treasury to begin accumulating and holding the scarce asset long-term. Speculation that Bitcoin may become a global reserve asset or a strategic U.S. Treasury asset surged following former President Donald Trump’s announcement of support for the digital asset industry amid mounting worldwide debt and monetary inflation.Trump’s pick of J.D. Vance, a 39-year-old Bitcoin holder, as his running mate also fueled speculation that a future Trump administration could mean a new era for crypto, in which Bitcoin becomes fully integrated into the current financial system. Winners and Losers At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $67,636, Ether (ETH) at $3,260 and XRP at $0.59. The total market cap is at $2.41 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Helium (HNT) at 20.43%, SATS (1000SATS) at 11.81% and Pyth Network (PYTH) at 10.73%. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Lido DAO (LDO) at 19.39%, Worldcoin (WLD) at 17.14% and Mog Coin (MOG) at 16.15%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis. Most Memorable Quotations “Despite SEC Chair Gensler’s term ending on June 5, 2026. He will most likely resign by January/February 2025.” Markus Thielen, CEO of 10x Research “Although a full demand picture may not emerge for several months, ETH price could be sensitive to inflow numbers of the first days.” Will Cai, managing director of Kaiko Indexes at Kaiko “Those affected by the 2014 hacking operation have spent a decade waiting to be reimbursed, but now, with a lengthy bankruptcy process concluded, many will realise considerable profits.” Bitstamp, cryptocurrency exchange “The narrative of Bitcoin as an emerging store of value is simpler and largely understandable, while Ethereum’s value proposition is more complex and will require more time and greater educational efforts.” Adrian Fritz, head of research at 21Shares “Open source will ensure that more people around the world have access to the benefits and opportunities of AI, that power isn’t concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies, and that the technology can be deployed more evenly and safely across society.” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta “The SEC justifies this conduct on the grounds of relevance, burden, and privilege. None holds water.” Coinbase, cryptocurrency exchange Prediction of the week Traders see ETH’s $3.2K pullback as a ‘buy’ while ETFs build steam Traders suggest that Ether’s price fall to $3,209 has now put it in “buy” territory but warn that it may not last once the “tremendous” impact of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) comes into effect.  “There are 2 major zones to buy,” pseudonymous crypto trader Sheldon The Sniper told their 490,300 X followers in a July 24 post. He pointed to $3,300 and below as the current buy zone and added that the $3,097 buy zone has already passed. Sheldon further predicted that Ether could reach $4,000 “in the next week or two,” reiterating two entry points as the “ones you ride to the next all-time high breaks.” Ether is trading at $3,209 at the time of publication at 5:50 pm UTC, down 7.68% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data. The price has dipped another level below the closely watched $3,500 mark. Ether has fluctuated since the debut of spot Ether ETFs, which saw $106 million in net inflows. However, futures traders were expecting a larger price drop after the debut of Ether ETFs. The 7.68% decline liquidated $42.53 million in short positions, along with just $2 million in long positions, according to CoinGlass data. FUD of the Week Bitcoin traders warn BTC price can still dip to $62K or ‘even lower’ Bitcoin may be seeing “impulsive” upside, analysis warns as markets brace for key news events. In a July 26 post on X, popular pseudonymous trader Crypto Ed joined those cautioning over the latest Bitcoin price spike above $67,000. Bitcoin may be up by around 2% since the July 25 daily close, but not everyone believes in the short-term BTC price strength. For Crypto Ed, the rebound from local lows of $63,430 the day prior, which matched price behavior from the end of last week, is a surprise. “Bouncing stronger than I was expecting yesterday, looks impulsive,” he summarized. “I expected a corrective bounce, followed by another leg lower towards 62k and maybe even lower.” The post nonetheless acknowledged that the market could still fulfill bulls’ wishes and refuse to take downside liquidity. “That scenario is still possible, but the strength in the current bounce is starting to look like we have already finished leg 2 and heading to new highs again. I’ll let PA develop a bit more to see if I was wrong on low TF,” Crypto Ed concluded alongside an explanatory Elliott Wave chart. ETH ETFs launched in ‘weak market’ and could pressure Bitcoin — Analyst A Bitcoin analyst thinks spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) may have launched too early and could threaten Bitcoin’s price if no new capital enters the market. “It would have been better to only have the BTC ETF in 2024,” Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards told Cointelegraph. He argued that the new Ether ETFs will only distract investors who have been invested in Bitcoin  “Current BTC ETF holders at the institutional level likely think they should diversify a little and buy the ETH ETF. Without new flows into the whole market, this creates sell pressure on Bitcoin,” Edwards argued. Read also Features Crypto critics: Can FUD ever be useful? Features Blockchain games aren’t really decentralized… but that’s about to change Since spot Bitcoin ETFs launched on Jan. 11, approximately $17.53 billion has flowed into the 11 products, according to Farside Investors data. And since Ether ETFs launched on July 23, Bitcoin’s dominance has remained fairly stable, up 0.07% over the past 24 hours, according to TradingView data. While spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $78 million on July 23 — the debut trading day of spot Ether ETFs — the following two days have seen inflows of $44.5 million and $31.1 million, respectively. Fake Zoom malware steals crypto while it’s ‘stuck’ loading, user warns Crypto scammers are up to no good again, and their latest weapon appears to be malicious links to a webpage that looks and feels almost exactly like the video conferencing platform Zoom, which prompts users to install malware when clicked. On July 22, pseudonymous non-fungible token collector and cybersecurity engineer NFT_Dreww alerted X users to a new “extremely sophisticated” crypto scam involving fake links for Zoom. Drew said the scammers have already stolen $300,000 worth of crypto from the method. Read also Columns Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh may be crypto’s sleeping giant: Crypto City Guide Features Building blocks: Gen Y can use tokens to get on the property ladder Like many social engineering scams, Drew explained that scammers typically target non-fungible token holders or crypto whales, asking if they would be interested in licensing their intellectual property, inviting them to X Spaces, or asking them to join a team for a new project. The scammers will insist on using Zoom and hurry the target to join a meeting in progress using a hard-to-notice malicious link. Once the link is clicked, the user will be met with a “stuck” page showing an infinite loading screen. The page will then prompt the user to download and install ZoomInstallerFull.exe, which is actually malware. Once installed, the page will redirect back to the official Zoom platform, making the user believe it worked, but by then, the malware has already infiltrated the target computer and stolen the data and loot, explained Drew.According to pseudonymous technologist Cipher0091, whom Drew also credits for his X thread, when the malware is first executed, it adds itself to the Windows Defender exclusion list to prevent antivirus systems from blocking it. Top Magazine Pieces of the Week THORChain founder and his plan to ‘vampire attack’ all of DeFi After posing as an anon girl for six years, THORChain’s founder is now waging war against the “slow rugs” of DeFi. When Musk Empire listing? Find love in The Sandbox and more: Web3 Gamer Web3 gaming is taking an unexpected turn this year, says Delab Games head of strategy. Toyota’s love for Ethereum, HK nods inverse Bitcoin ETF, stablecoin: Asia Express Asia’s top automobile manufacturer is researching how Ethereum can play a role in autonomous vehicles, Hong Kong approves an inverse Bitcoin ETF and a new stablecoin, and more! Subscribe The most engaging reads in blockchain. Delivered once a week. Editorial Staff Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article. Source link The post Hodlers Digest, July 21-27 – Cointelegraph Magazine first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

By Sheila Dang PARIS (Reuters) – The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics drew 28.6 million U.S. viewers, according to preliminary data from Comcast (NASDAQ:)’s NBCUniversal on Saturday, which the company said was the most-watched start to a summer Games since London in 2012. The celebration on Friday featured athlete delegations floating down the Seine past Paris landmarks and singer Celine Dion’s first public performance in years. It is a crucial broadcast event for NBCUniversal which paid $7.65 billion to extend its rights to air the Games in the U.S. through 2032. NBCUniversal’s Olympics media-rights deal is the largest in the world. The viewership figure, which includes NBC and streaming service Peacock, is a boon for the broadcaster compared to just 17 million viewers for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Both the Tokyo and Beijing 2022 Olympics presented a challenging time zone for American audiences and were beset by the pandemic. Leading up to the Paris Olympics, NBCUniversal had been vocal about its plans to attract viewers back to the event. During its broadcast, singer Beyoncé introduced Team USA in a video that aired just before the American athletes appeared on the river, one of many celebrities who will take part in NBCUniversal’s coverage throughout the Olympics. It will also infuse AI technology into its coverage, including recreating the voice of sports commentator Al Michaels. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Paris Olympics opening ceremony draws 28.6 million US viewers, most since 2012 By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

In light of the potential policies of a second Trump administration, Deutsche Bank Research delves into the practical challenges associated with implementing a soft USD policy. Analysts highlight the obstacles and limitations of such a strategy and argue that tariffs and their associated stronger implications for the USD are more likely to dominate market outcomes. Theoretical Impact of a Weak Dollar Policy A soft USD policy aims to weaken the dollar, potentially through interventions or capital controls. Achieving this requires exceptionally large financial market interventions, possibly involving trillions of USD, or implementing costly capital controls. The analysis notes that a significant dollar devaluation, up to 40%, would be necessary to close the trade deficit. Unilateral FX Intervention Challenges Proposals to weaken the dollar include creating an FX reserve fund of up to $2 trillion. This approach would require substantial additional Treasury debt and create a fiscal burden, potentially exceeding $40 billion annually in net interest expense. Such intervention would likely face significant political and practical obstacles, especially given the vast scale required. Recent experiences, such as Japan’s Ministry of Finance spending $63 billion in just two days, highlight the enormity of the challenge. Scaling this to impact the USD would require at least $1 trillion, which is beyond feasible. Constraints of Multilateral Intervention Multilateral intervention is constrained by G7 commitments to market-determined exchange rates and the limited FX reserves of major economies. Apart from Japan, G10 central banks lack sufficient reserves for effective intervention. Historical examples, such as the Plaza Accord, involved significantly larger reserves and smaller capital markets compared to today’s landscape. Potential Capital Outflows Encouraging US capital outflows might be another approach to weakening the dollar. Historical attempts, such as Switzerland’s in the 1970s, show limited success. Measures such as taxing foreign deposits or introducing residency-based requirements could be considered, but broad-based capital controls may conflict with Trump’s stated policy to maintain the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Erosion of Fed Independence The erosion of Federal Reserve independence could be the most impactful method for weakening the dollar, though this remains unlikely. Historical instances, such as the 2022 UK crisis, demonstrate how undermining central bank independence can lead to higher inflation risk premiums and increased long-end yields. However, with only a few Federal Reserve appointments up for renewal and the need for Senate approval, this scenario appears improbable. While a Trump administration might apply rhetorical pressure on the dollar, substantial financial interventions, capital controls, or a loss of Fed independence would be necessary to implement a weak dollar policy. Analysts suggest that tariffs and their implications for a stronger USD are more probable outcomes. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Why a soft USD policy is unlikely to work By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Ukraine next month, a local media report said, his first visit to the country since its war with Russia began and just weeks after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Ukraine’s embassy in New Delhi said it had no information to share immediately. There was no immediate response from India’s foreign ministry. Western countries have imposed sanctions on Moscow following its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but “friendly” nations such as India and China have continued to trade. India has refrained from directly blaming Russia, while urging the two nations to resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. Modi met Putin just as a Russian missile struck a hospital in Kyiv killing at least 41 people. The Indian leader told Putin that the death of innocent children was “painful and terrifying”. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed unhappiness over Modi’s visit, calling it a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts” to see him hug “the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day”. Russia denied striking the hospital. The U.S. State Department has raised concerns over India’s relationship with Russia especially at a time when it has been seeking to strengthen ties with India as a potential counterweight to an ascendant China. New Delhi is seeking to deepen its relationship with the West while keeping ties intact with Russia. The final date of Modi’s visit is not yet confirmed, The Print reported on Saturday. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Indian PM Modi likely to visit Ukraine in August, local media reports By Reuters first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.

In light of the potential policies of a second Trump administration, Deutsche Bank Research delves into the practical challenges associated with implementing a soft USD policy. Analysts highlight the obstacles and limitations of such a strategy and argue that tariffs and their associated stronger implications for the USD are more likely to dominate market outcomes. Theoretical Impact of a Weak Dollar Policy A soft USD policy aims to weaken the dollar, potentially through interventions or capital controls. Achieving this requires exceptionally large financial market interventions, possibly involving trillions of USD, or implementing costly capital controls. The analysis notes that a significant dollar devaluation, up to 40%, would be necessary to close the trade deficit. Unilateral FX Intervention Challenges Proposals to weaken the dollar include creating an FX reserve fund of up to $2 trillion. This approach would require substantial additional Treasury debt and create a fiscal burden, potentially exceeding $40 billion annually in net interest expense. Such intervention would likely face significant political and practical obstacles, especially given the vast scale required. Recent experiences, such as Japan’s Ministry of Finance spending $63 billion in just two days, highlight the enormity of the challenge. Scaling this to impact the USD would require at least $1 trillion, which is beyond feasible. Constraints of Multilateral Intervention Multilateral intervention is constrained by G7 commitments to market-determined exchange rates and the limited FX reserves of major economies. Apart from Japan, G10 central banks lack sufficient reserves for effective intervention. Historical examples, such as the Plaza Accord, involved significantly larger reserves and smaller capital markets compared to today’s landscape. Potential Capital Outflows Encouraging US capital outflows might be another approach to weakening the dollar. Historical attempts, such as Switzerland’s in the 1970s, show limited success. Measures such as taxing foreign deposits or introducing residency-based requirements could be considered, but broad-based capital controls may conflict with Trump’s stated policy to maintain the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Erosion of Fed Independence The erosion of Federal Reserve independence could be the most impactful method for weakening the dollar, though this remains unlikely. Historical instances, such as the 2022 UK crisis, demonstrate how undermining central bank independence can lead to higher inflation risk premiums and increased long-end yields. However, with only a few Federal Reserve appointments up for renewal and the need for Senate approval, this scenario appears improbable. While a Trump administration might apply rhetorical pressure on the dollar, substantial financial interventions, capital controls, or a loss of Fed independence would be necessary to implement a weak dollar policy. Analysts suggest that tariffs and their implications for a stronger USD are more probable outcomes. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); Source link The post Why a soft USD policy is unlikely to work By Investing.com first appeared on Forex Trader Hub.