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Times
16 minutes ago
- Times
Pound and gold rise as dollar falls on increased trade tensions
The pound rose to a fresh three-year high against the dollar, and gold headed back toward an all-time high on Monday after President Trump went back on the offensive in his trade war. Sterling strengthened 0.73 per cent to $1.355, its highest since the middle of 2022 and taking its gains against the dollar since the start of the year to more than 8 per cent. The pound also strengthened 0.08 per cent against the euro to €1.18, but is down 1.76 per cent against the currency since the start of the year. Safe-haven buying pushed the gold price up 1.75 per cent to $3,349.65 per ounce. Geopolitical and trade tensions saw gold hit an all-time intraday high of $3,500.05 on April 22. Investors ditched the dollar following an escalation in tensions between Washington and Beijing as a pause in the tit-for-tat tariffs between the countries looked to have ended. The dollar fell 0.66 per cent against a basket of currencies and is down by nearly 9 per cent over the past six months. On Monday, China accused the United States of 'seriously violating' a trade truce after Trump last week, in a post on Truth Social, said that 'China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US'. Last month, after talks in Geneva, China and the US agreed to lower tariffs on each other's imported goods by 115 percentage points for 90 days. The intention behind the temporary tariff climbdown was to cool relations to open up space for trade talks. Analysts at Deutsche Bank, the German investment bank, said: 'It is really hard to keep up or predict what's going to happen on trade at the moment, and that's before we factor in the full ramifications from the court ruling last Thursday night, and then subsequent brief stay of execution for them on appeal.' Last week, a US trade court ruled that Trump's 'reciprocal tariffs' were illegal, before an appeals court temporarily reinstated them. The White House has said it intends to overturn the original ruling. 'For now it seems likely that the tariff uncertainty will linger for a long time ahead, even if we're still likely past the peak aggressiveness of US policy', Deutsche Bank said. Trump has sharpened his commitment to protectionist policies after gradually walking back their most onerous elements in recent weeks. Late last week, the President announced that charges on imported steel and aluminium would double to 50 per cent from 25 per cent. Oil rose sharply, with the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, up 3.27 per cent to $64.81 a barrel after OPEC+, the oil cartel, decided to increase output in July by the same amount as it did in each of the prior two months. Traders said that was a relief to those who had expected a bigger increase. The FTSE 100 rose by 0.06 per cent and the mid-cap FTSE 250 edged up 0.06 per cent. The yield on the ten-year UK government bond rose 4 basis points to 4.69 per cent.
Reuters
21 minutes ago
- Reuters
Exclusive: Tesla executives questioned Musk after he denied killing $25,000 EV project
June 2 (Reuters) - Some senior Tesla executives were alarmed last year when Elon Musk denied a Reuters report that the company had killed a planned all-new $25,000 EV that investors had expected to drive explosive vehicle sales growth, according to people familiar with the matter. 'Reuters is lying,' Musk had posted on X, minutes after the story published on April 5, 2024, halting a 6% decline in Tesla's stock. Tesla shares recovered some of the loss after Musk's post, but the stock was down 3.6% at market close. The executives knew that Musk had, in fact, canceled the low-cost vehicle, which many investors called the Model 2, and pivoted Tesla to focus on self-driving robotaxis, the people said. The company had told employees the project was over weeks earlier, Reuters reported, citing three sources and company documents. Musk's post was so confusing to some senior managers that they asked him whether he'd changed his mind. Musk rejected their concerns and said the project was still dead, according to the people with knowledge of the matter. The executives' concerns, which haven't been previously reported, shed light on the company's struggle to deliver a low-cost, mass-market EV, considered a core promise of the company. Some other Tesla executives were unconcerned about Musk's X post, said people familiar with the matter. The automaker keeps its product plans flexible, one person said, to respond to market conditions. A year later, struggling with a dated lineup and falling sales around the world, Tesla has still not released the low-cost EV that Musk once called pivotal to the company's future. Neither Musk nor Tesla has explicitly confirmed killing an all-new model that investors and Tesla enthusiasts have long referred to as the Model 2 because it would slot in below the current cheapest model in Tesla's lineup, the $42,500 Model 3. On Wednesday, Musk announced that he is leaving his role as a special advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump to return his focus to his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, and the social media company X. Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Weeks after Musk's post on X, Tesla published an investor update, opens new tab that assured Tesla still planned 'new vehicles, including more affordable models' that will be built on current manufacturing lines. Musk and Tesla had said previously that the planned $25,000 EV would be an all-new model, designed and built from scratch on a new platform. Musk had touted the project as a testbed for groundbreaking manufacturing innovations that would lower the cost of electric vehicles. But instead of an all-new model, Tesla is working on stripped-down versions of the Model 3 sedan and Model Y compact SUV, Reuters reported in April. No pricing on those models has been announced and the cars, set to roll out in the first half of 2025, have been delayed. On Tesla's earnings call in April, engineering chief Lars Moravy said that the affordable models would 'resemble in form and shape the cars we already make.' 'The key is they'll be affordable,' he added, 'and you'll be able to buy one.' After Musk denied the Reuters report about killing the Model 2, executives questioned Musk about what the company should tell perplexed suppliers and investors, people familiar with the matter said. Some executives told associates the denial made no sense -- investors and the public would inevitably learn the truth -- and worried it would hurt Tesla sales as buyers delayed purchases to wait for a $25,000 Tesla that, in reality, it had decided not to build. Their concerns were not universally shared at the company. One of the sources familiar with the internal deliberations about Musk's public denial told Reuters that Tesla has considered a variety of strategies for producing low-cost EVs over the years. Gary Black, a Tesla investor who manages money for the Future Fund LLC, said he didn't view Musk's statement as a 'denial' at the time, noting that Musk often makes 'brief and abrupt' comments that 'can be about anything.' That said, Black told Reuters he recently sold his fund's $1.2 million position in Tesla in part out of concern the affordable new vehicle will be a "stripped down Model Y" rather than a "differentiated product." Some Tesla executives told associates they were worried that denying the Model 2 was dead could land Musk in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors about a future product line that had been baked into their forecasts for the company. Musk had previously paid a $40 million settlement in 2018 over another social media post that the agency alleged misled investors that Musk planned to take Tesla private. Reuters could not determine whether executives approached Musk directly with the SEC enforcement concern, nor if they alerted the SEC itself. An SEC spokesperson declined to comment. Musk's agreement with the SEC requires him to have his social media posts about certain aspects of Tesla, such as new business lines and forecasts about the company, first vetted by a lawyer. Musk despises the settlement, according to people familiar with his thinking, and has told associates he doesn't post anything that needs attorney approval. The same day Musk denied the Reuters report, he lifted Tesla's stock again in after-hours trading with a post saying 'Robotaxi unveil 8/8,' for August 8, a plan he had not widely announced to Tesla employees, said people familiar with the matter. The Hollywood-style debut of a two-door 'Cybercab' ended up being delayed until October and underwhelmed investors. Many investors long ago gave up hope for a transformational $25,000 EV that would juice sales. Instead, Tesla posted its first annual vehicle sales decline in 2024 and sales were down 13% in the first quarter of 2025 amid rising competition and public protests against Musk's work in the Trump administration. In April, Chinese automaker BYD outsold Tesla in Europe for the first time and is taking the global lead in affordable EVs. BYD's entry-level Seagull electric hatchback costs less than $10,000 in China and sells competitively for more than double that price in export markets.
Daily Mail
21 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
CNN's Scott Jennings delivers reality check to democratic party
CNN pundit Scott Jennings (pictured) has mercilessly mocked the ailing Democratic Party while musing about the lack of viable candidates to become their next leader. Conservative commentator Jennings, 47, who is somewhat of a black sheep on the left-leaning channel, poked fun at several top Democrats for being too radical or incompetent to stand a chance at orchestrating the floundering party's comeback. He took aim specifically at Wes Moore's communication skills, and Tim Walz, who he said 'is a special mixture of extreme buffoonery and a mean spirit', after the duo appeared at a Democratic rally in South Carolina the day before. Jennings spoke on CNN's State of the Union show Sunday morning while sitting beside Democrat Representative for Michigan Debbie Dingell, whose summary of where her party is heading prompted his brutal takedown. 'Democrats have to stop being against Donald Trump and start being for something. We've got to lay out our agenda for what we're going to do,' Dingell said. Jennings (pictured) disagreed, saying the Democrats 'are for things'. 'I'll defend the Democrats,' he said. 'They are for things: illegal aliens. You're for boys in girl's sports. I mean, you are for things,' he added as Dingell repeatedly said 'no, no.' 'That's why you have such struggles right now in your party, because you're not for anything that's on the right side of any of the 80/20 issues that are driving this cultural divide in America,' Jennings continued. 'I think Wes Moore is actually a pretty talented communicator. The other person who spoke in South Carolina, Tim Walz, is a special mixture of extreme buffoonery and a mean spirit, which is a toxic brew. He is not the future of the Democratic Party. 'Moore is interesting. Moore is interesting, probably more interesting than some of the radicals you have out there - Crockett, AOC - I mean, those are the true leaders of your party right now. But you'd probably be better off replacing them with Moore.' Minnesota Governor Walz used his appearance at the South Carolina rally on Saturday to encourage his supporters at the South Carolina rally to 'bully the [expletive] out of Donald Trump. The 2024 vice presidential candidate slammed the President and told the crowd to bully Trump, bestowing him the nickname the 'cruel man,' claiming that liberals 'need to be meaner.' Walz branded Trump a 'wannabe dictator' and 'existential threat' to democracy and he urged his fellow Democrats to abandon their usual approach and get tough with Trump. It comes as a recent CNN poll indicated that liberals believe New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the person who best reflects the party's key principles. However, there wasn't a clear winner and many respondents had no opinion at all. The survey asked Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independent voters which politician best reflects the core values of the Democratic Party today. Ten percent of voters chose AOC while former Vice President Kamala Harris was a close second with nine percent of the votes. Sanders came in third with eight percent while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was placed fourth with six percent. Former President Barack Obama and Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett were tied for fifth with four percent. California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were all tied at two percent. Another fifteen Democrats including some lawmakers and governors each received one percent of the votes, while a whopping 26 percent of respondents had no opinion. Trump allies greeted the results of the poll as good news as the progressive Democratic congresswoman has long been accused of being too far left by moderates. Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro also shared the poll on his show, dubbing the results 'brutal' for Democrats. He claimed the New York Congresswoman is 'totally out of touch with most Americans.' The survey conducted March 6-9 included 1,206 respondents and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
