Energy prices in the United States rose on Tuesday after a severe winter storm hit the southern and central parts of the country, with 150 million people under storm warnings. Millions of people were left without ice in cold temperatures.
Natural gas futures for delivery in March rose 6.3 percent, the biggest jump since Feb. 1, when a storm hit the Northeast. The demand for natural gas has increased, but the disruption of the storm means that gas production has fallen.
The Texas energy regulator said on Saturday that it was aware that local distributors of natural gas “could pay extremely high prices in the natural gas market and that they could incur extraordinary expenses” in response to the storm.
For oil, the future jumped by more than 5 percent over the weekend, as the coldest weather disrupted road transport in three decades, and some wells had to stand still. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, rose 0.7 percent Tuesday to $ 59.87 a barrel, the highest in 13 months. The futures contract for Brent crude oil, the European benchmark, fell 0.2 percent. The largest refineries in the state, including Port Arthur in Texas, closed Monday because the weather led to power outages in the state.
“Some producers, especially in the Perm Basin and Panhandle, are experiencing unprecedented freezing conditions that have raised concerns about employee safety and affected production,” the Texas energy regulator said Monday.
The markets in the United States were closed on Monday for the President’s holiday.
The future of Wall Street stock indices will open higher on Tuesday, after most European and Asian indices higher. Last week, the S&P 500 reached a record high amid expectations of a fiscal stimulus package in Washington, and growing confidence that vaccines could restore the world economy later in the year.
Europe
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The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose 0.1 percent and rose 1.3 percent from Monday. In Germany, the ZEW survey of investor sentiment saw a big jump in future expectations for the economy, but the view of the current situation has deteriorated.
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In Britain, the government reached its target in mid – February to vaccinate 15 million people, the most vulnerable in the country, but now the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is under increasing pressure to put a clear plan for the end of the long term on set. restriction. The central bank predicted a relatively strong economic downturn later in the year, but business leaders warned that companies should prepare to reopen and the recovery could be hampered if they get enough support. The pound rose to more than $ 1.39 this week, the strongest against the US dollar since early 2018.
Asia
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Indices in Asia rose, with the Nikkei 225 in Japan up 1.3 percent; On Monday, it climbed above 30,000 for the first time since 1990. The Hong Kong Hang Seng closed 1.9 percent higher.
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Softbank’s shares closed at a record high. Last week, the Japanese company recorded huge gains in its technology investment fund amid a spate of public offerings by companies it supports.
The government in Biden on Tuesday announced additional relief for U.S. homeowners struggling with payments, saying the pandemic has caused an affordable housing crisis.
The actions include:
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extension of a moratorium for negative until 30 June;
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extension of an enrollment window for mortgage loan requests until June 30; and
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up to and including six months additional tolerance on mortgage lending for borrowers who entered into tolerance on or before 30 June.
On his first day in office, President Biden issued orders to extend federal moratoriums on some denials and evictions until the end of March. But the expiration of the protection would put “many” at risk of further falling into debt and losing their homes, White House officials said in a statement.
According to the White House statement, one in five tenants has fallen behind and more than 10 million homeowners are behind on the mortgage loan. People of color, who experience the heaviest in the pandemic, are at risk of expulsion and negative.
Homeowners can find out who owns their mortgage by entering their address on various government websites.
The assistance programs are part of a coordinated effort by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Agriculture.
When Niki Christoff, a senior Salesforce CEO, received an offer to join the board of a stock exchange, she saw it as a sign that she was ready to break into a club that had long been men are dominated. But what happened next revealed that one of the biggest challenges facing companies in diversifying their boards, writes our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Many companies, such as Salesforce, do not allow employees to join external boards with their day job, and especially not those of the highest rank, where women and ethnic and racial minorities tend to be better represented. When Christoff asked for permission, she was turned down, and when she accepted the directorship, she was fired.
Mr. Sorkin describes the obstacle it presents:
As so many employees try to overcome the barriers to promotions at their own employers, it creates a kind of systemic barrier to the diversification of boardrooms.
And with companies facing growing calls from investors and society to diversify their boards, a new fault line is being exposed in the US business industry: should companies abandon their managers?
Ms Christoff is keen to address the matter. “People do not know that this policy exists, and it is not just Salesforce that has this policy,” she said. ‘It is not uncommon to limit board service to senior management. And highlighting the issue for me feels important from an equity perspective, but also from a business perspective. ‘
Private lawsuits are contributing to the growing legal pressure on Big Tech companies.
In the past few months, more than ten cases have been filed against the government’s antitrust lawsuits against Google, Facebook or both. Many of them rely on evidence found through government investigations, writes David McCabe for The New York Times.
If successful, Facebook and Google could be expensive. The companies work with millions of advertisers and publishers every year, and Google offers programs from numerous developers, which means there are a lot of potential legal ideas. After the United States sued Microsoft for antitrust infringement a generation ago, the company paid $ 750 million to deal with AOL, at that time the owner of the browser Netscape, which was at the heart of the government’s case. .
“There’s a fair amount of scurrying going on and people are trying to figure out what private attire can be successful and how to bring it on,” said Joshua Davis, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Facebook declined to comment on the lawsuit. Google spokeswoman Julie Tarallo McAlister said in a statement that the company would defend itself against the claims.
“Like other claims the courts have rejected in the past, these complaints seek a process to replace competition over earnings,” she said.
The private affairs follow similar matters of the government for a simple reason: Regulators have clear advantages when it comes to obtaining evidence. Federal and state investigators can collect internal documents and interview managers before filing a case. As a result, their complaints are filled with inside knowledge about the companies. Private individuals can only request this type of evidence after filing lawsuits.
If the government cases against Google or Facebook succeed during the trial, it will probably strengthen the case for private lawsuits, experts said. Lawyers can point to these victories as proof that the company is breaking the law and moving quickly toward their primary goal: obtaining monetary damages.