HAMBURG, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Water levels on the river Rhine in Germany have fallen again in hot and dry weather and shipping costs are rising as vessels cut loads to continue sailing, commodity traders said on Wednesday.

Shallow water after the summer heat-wave has hampered shipping on the entire river in Germany since July, along with other European waterways. read more

The reference waterline level at the chokepoint of Kaub south of Koblenz was at 48 centimetres on Wednesday, said Refinitiv Eikon data, down about 4 centimetres on the day. Vessels need about 1.5 metres of reference waterline to sail fully loaded.

NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq closed down on Tuesday after a dismal forecast from Micron Technology pulled chip makers and tech stocks lower as investors await U.S. inflation data that could lead the Federal Reserve to further tighten its efforts to curb inflation.

High inflation numbers on Wednesday, following last week's blowout jobs report, would likely stop the Fed from easing interest rates hikes anytime soon and halt the market's rally off mid-June lows.

Traders see a 68.5% chance of the Fed raising rates by 75 basis points in September, in what would be its third big hike in a row.

HONG KONG, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Prudential Plc (PRU.L) posted on Wednesday a rise of 8% in its first-half operating profit, but the Asia-focused insurer warned of challenging conditions for the rest of the year as COVID curbs persist in some markets.

Adjusted operating profit from continuing operations of the London and Hong Kong dual-listed company was $1.66 billion for the period, up from $1.57 billion a year earlier, it said in a statement.

That figure was lower, however, than an average profit of $1.68 billion from 17 analysts in an estimate compiled by the company.

Aug 10 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk sold $6.9 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle maker, saying the funds could be used to finance a potential Twitter deal if he loses a legal battle with the social media platform.

"In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock," he said in a tweet late on Tuesday.

Musk in early July tore up his April 25 agreement to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Twitter has sued Musk to force him to complete the transaction, dismissing his claim that he was misled about the number of spam accounts on the social media platform as buyer's remorse in the wake of a plunge in technology stocks. The two sides head to trial on Oct. 17.

TOKYO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp (6502.T) on Wednesday posted an unexpected operating loss in the April-June first quarter as it grappled with a global chip shortage and a sharp rise in costs for raw materials.

The loss of 4.8 billion yen ($35.6 million), its first quarterly loss in two years, compares with a profit of 14.5 billion yen a year earlier and a consensus estimate of a 19.4 billion yen profit from four analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Higher material and logistics costs pushed down its operating earnings by 9.4 billion yen, while a chip shortage had a negative impact of about 3 billion yen, the company said.

TAIPEI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier Foxconn (2317.TW) reported on Wednesday a 12% jump in second-quarter net profit, beating market estimates, helped by strong demand for its cloud computing products.

The Taiwanese company, the world's largest contract electronics maker, said net profit for the April-June quarter rose to T$33.29 billion from T$29.78 billion a year earlier.

Eleven analysts were expecting on average a profit of T$31.02 billion, according to Refinitiv.

The company, like other global manufacturers, has grappled with a severe shortage of chips that has squeezed smartphone production, and more recently a downturn in major markets amid high inflation and the war in Ukraine.

Foxconn shares closed 0.9% higher ahead of the earnings release, versus a 0.7% drop in the broader market (.TWII). They have risen 5.8% so far this year, giving the company a market value of $50.3 billion.

COPENHAGEN, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Wind turbine maker Vestas (VWS.CO) on Wednesday reported a bigger-than-expected second-quarter operating loss as costs rose due to geo-political uncertainty and supply chain disruptions.

The Danish firm reported quarterly earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) before special items of minus 182 million euros, below an average loss of 143 million forecast by analysts in a Refinitiv poll.

"The first half of 2022 was characterised by geo-political uncertainty and supply chain disruptions that have caused costs to increase and an energy crisis to unfold," Chief Executive Henrik Andersen said in a statement.

HANOI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Vietnam will need investment of between $8 billion and $14 billion a year through to 2030 to develop new power plants and expand its grid, its deputy industry minister said on Wednesday.

Of the amount, 75% would be spent on new power plants, with priority given to renewable sources, and 25% on grid expansion, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Dang Hoang An said in a statement.

He said the country will seek to raise funds from private investors for the new power projects, without elaborating.

HONG KONG, Aug 10 (Reuters Breakingviews) - ByteDance can't seem to quit its unhealthy acquisition habit, and it’s not alone. The TikTok-owner has taken over a high-class women's hospital chain for $1.5 billion, Bloomberg reports. Peers like Alibaba (9988.HK) and Tencent (0700.HK) have made similar forays into healthcare, with underwhelming results. Amid falling valuations and Beijing's sustained pressure on technology companies, this relapse into off-piste dealmaking looks even more ill-advised.

The video-app owner's unlikely target is Beijing-based Amcare Healthcare, which specialises in fertility, obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics. Catering to mothers is politically savvy in one respect: China's plummeting birthrate is a rising concern among policymakers. The country's 1.4 billion population may start shrinking next year, per a July United Nations report.

But the sight of a viral app specialist buying a hospital chain raises eyebrows nevertheless. Bytedance...

NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The Nasdaq closed down on Tuesday after a dismal forecast from Micron Technology pulled chip makers and tech stocks lower as investors await U.S. inflation data that could lead the Federal Reserve to further tighten its efforts to curb inflation.

High inflation numbers on Wednesday, following last week's blowout jobs report, would likely stop the Fed from easing interest rates hikes anytime soon and halt the market's rally off mid-June lows.

Traders see a 68.5% chance of the Fed raising rates by 75 basis points in September, in what would be its third big hike in a row.

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Former workers at Malaysian rubber glove maker Brightway Holdings filed a lawsuit in the United States against Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB.N) and Ansell Ltd (ANN.AX), accusing them of "knowingly profiting" from the alleged use of forced labour at the supplier, according to the complaint seen by Reuters.

The workers - all Bangladeshi citizens - say Kimberly-Clark and Ansell were aware of the alleged labour abuses through public reports on Brightway and other Malaysian glove makers, and violations found by labour audits, according to the complaint filed late on Tuesday in the United States.

Kimberly-Clark did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of regular U.S. business hours.

SHEBOYGAN, Wisc., Aug 10 (Reuters) - Travel brochures in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, tout the town’s beaches on Lake Michigan as the Malibu of the Midwest. But pages of glossy photos leave out a feature of the landscape: a coal-fired power plant on the shore that will remain open until mid 2025 instead of closing this year as planned.

Alliant Energy Corp's Edgewater coal-fired plant in Sheboygan is one of at least six across the country that this summer have announced delays or potential delays to their planned closures, citing concerns about energy shortages.

A key culprit: renewable energy deployment, which was meant to replace these coal plants, has taken a hit in recent months because of COVID-19-related supply chain hiccups. Utilities say import tariffs on solar panels imposed by U.S. Commerce Department make it hard to keep up with robust power demand.

Aug 10 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (0293.HK) said strict air crew quarantine rules were crimping its ability to take advantage of rising travel demand, even as it narrowed its first-half loss to HK$5 billion ($636.98 million).

The carrier is falling far behind traditional rival Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA) (SIAL.SI) in restoring international capacity because its Hong Kong-based crew on passenger planes must spend three nights in a hotel on return from each trip, complicating rosters.

Hong Kong is also one of the few places in the world, along with mainland China and Taiwan, to still require COVID-19 quarantine for arriving passengers, though such hotel stays are to be cut to three days from seven, officials in the financial hub said this week. read more

Aug 9 (Reuters) - U.S. worker productivity in the second quarter fell at its steepest pace on an annual basis since 1948 when the Labor Department began tracking it, while growth in unit labor costs accelerated, suggesting strong wage pressures will continue to help keep inflation elevated.

Nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, fell at a 2.5% pace from a year ago, the department said on Tuesday. It also declined sharply in the second quarter at a 4.6% annualized rate, after having declined by an upwardly revised 7.4% in the first three months of the year.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected productivity would decline at a 4.7% rate in the April-June period.

Aug 9 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is lobbying the Ontario government as part of an effort to set up an "advanced manufacturing facility" in Canada, a filing by the electric-vehicle maker to the province's Office of the Integrity Commissioner showed.

The company's Canadian unit is working with the government to "identify opportunities for industrial facility permitting reforms", the amended filing from July 18 said.

Tesla as well as the office of Ontario's minister for economic development, job creation and trade did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

HONG KONG, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Lenovo Group (0992.HK), the world's biggest maker of personal computers, reported flat revenue for the April to June quarter when many Chinese cities were hit by COVID-19 lockdowns, marking its most subdued result in eight quarters.

Total revenue during the period was $16.96 billion, up 0.2% from the same quarter a year ago though it was in line with an average Refinitiv estimate of $16.87 billion drawn from seven analysts. That was the smallest quarter-on-quarter increase since the period ending in March 2020.

However, Lenovo has made big strides in expanding into other higher-margin businesses such as server operation, information technology services and mobile devices, with Lenovo's non-PC business now accounting for 37% of the company's revenue. For the quarter, net income attributable to shareholders rose 11% to $516 million.

HONG KONG, Aug 10 (Reuters) - China's real estate crisis is casting a darkening cloud over governance and financial prospects of once highly valued property management companies, triggering a rout in their shares and making investors cautious.

Already battered share prices have fallen a further 7% this month as investors have reacted to the latest instances of such companies lending support to cash-strapped developer parents.

"The capital market has lost confidence in some of the property management companies, even in those companies that have not seen misuse of funds by their parents," said UBS's head of China and Hong Kong property research, John Lam.

HONG KONG, Aug 10 (Reuters Breakingviews) - ByteDance can't seem to quit its unhealthy acquisition habit, and it’s not alone. The TikTok-owner has taken over a high-class women's hospital chain for $1.5 billion, Bloomberg reports. Peers like Alibaba (9988.HK) and Tencent (0700.HK) have made similar forays into healthcare, with underwhelming results. Amid falling valuations and Beijing's sustained pressure on technology companies, this relapse into off-piste dealmaking looks even more ill-advised.

The video-app owner's unlikely target is Beijing-based Amcare Healthcare, which specialises in fertility, obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics. Catering to mothers is politically savvy in one respect: China's plummeting birthrate is a rising concern among policymakers. The country's 1.4 billion population may start shrinking next year, per a July United Nations report.

But the sight of a viral app specialist buying a hospital chain raises eyebrows nevertheless. Bytedance...

HONG KONG, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Prudential Plc's (PRU.L) operating profit rose 8% in the first six months of 2022, the Asia-focused insurer said on Wednesday, as life insurance sales bounced back from a COVID-induced slowdown in Asian countries.

Adjusted operating profit from continuing operations of the London and Hong Kong dual-listed company was at $1.66 billion for the period, up from $1.57 billion in the year-ago period, it said in a statement.

It was lower, however, than a $1.68 billion average profit estimate of 17 analysts compiled by the insurer.

Annualised premium equivalent (APE) sales, a gauge for insurance sales in annualised metrics, was up 9% to $2.2 billion in the period.

"We achieved stronger APE sales growth in the second quarter as conditions started to normalise in most markets," Mark FitzPatrick, Prudential Group CEO said in the statement, referring to sales recovery from COVID-19-related disruptions.

Aug 9 (Reuters) - Ralph Lauren Corp (RL.N) and Michael Kors-owner Capri Holdings (CPRI.N) blew past earnings estimates, underscoring an unwavering demand for luxury apparel and handbags from wealthy consumers who remain largely unscathed by red-hot inflation.

Surging prices have had little impact on middle- and high-income households who have been happily splurging on designer labels, using what they saved during the pandemic when everything from foreign holidays to eating out came to a halt.

"High-income consumers are shopping in a way that is different from other times of inflation," Jane Hali & Associates analyst Jessica Ramirez said.