Top shareholder Saudi Arabia has been supportive of Lucid Group Inc. during a supply crunch that forced two production target cuts this year, an official at the carmaker said on Thursday. 

European power prices rose to fresh records on Thursday as a blistering rally showed no signs of abating.

The gains reflect a tight market for natural gas -- used to fuel power plants -- as Russia cuts supplies just as Europe works to replenish stockpiles for winter. A drop in nuclear-reactor output, as well as low wind and hydro generation, has exacerbated the squeeze, raising the specter of intervention to reduce demand.

Carol Van der Vorst will join London-based Freshfields’ leveraged finance team as a partner, according to a statement Thursday. She was most recently at rival law firm

Volvo Treasury AB, the financing arm of the vehicle maker and one of Sweden’s biggest corporate-bond issuers, pulled in more than 3 billion euros ($3 billion) of bids for a 500 million-euro

Applications for US unemployment insurance rose for a second week and held near the highest level since November, indicating continued moderation in the labor market.

Initial unemployment claims increased by 14,000 to 262,000 in the week ended Aug. 6, Labor Department data showed Thursday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 265,000 applications.

China may be ready to curb some of the excess liquidity sloshing in the banking system as it turns its focus to mitigating risks in the financial industry.

The first sign of that could come at Monday’s medium-term lending facility operation. Eight out of 12 economists and analysts polled by Bloomberg are forecasting that the People’s Bank of China will withdraw cash through MLF for the first time this year by offering less cash than the 600 billion yuan ($89 billion) maturing this month. The median estimate is for a 400 billion yuan injection, and all of those polled expect the rate to be kept unchanged.

Hello. Today we look at the biggest victims of still-soaring rents, Japan’s new digitization push, and a four-step proposal to overhaul Ukraine’s economic policies.

The latest US inflation report, out Wednesday, showed a welcome deceleration from the biggest surge in the cost of living since the early 1980s. But it offered little respite to millions whose purchasing power continues to drop.

US consumers looking to furnish their homes or apartments with new dining- and living-room sets may want to hold off for a while longer.

That’s because a report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed wholesale inventories of furniture are piling up as sales dropped for a second month. Excluding the pandemic, the wholesale inventory-to-sales ratio for furniture and home furnishings increased to a record.

When Nafisat Ekerin’s weekly grocery bill soared to 20,000 naira last June, up from 12,000 the previous year, her family of five made major cuts: fewer eggs and beans, watered-down hot chocolate, no more fruit for the baby. After she found herself pleading with market vendors for price cuts to keep her children fed, the fashion designer in Lagos, Nigeria, didn’t think it could get much worse. 

And then it did. In the year since, Nigeria’s currency has continued to depreciate while food prices are up another 21%, forcing households like hers to make a new round of dietary sacrifices even sharper than the first. 

The shares sank as much as 11%, the most since late May, after Kwarteng said Drax’s reliance on US pellets isn’t sustainable and “doesn’t make any sense.” It’s another setback for the power producer, which is already under scrutiny following a complaint by environmental campaigners over its green credentials.

Gradual monthly declines will start as soon as this month as Russia cuts back refining, and will quicken as the embargo takes effect, the IEA said in a market report. The agency expects to see close to 2 million barrels a day shut in by the start of 2023, despite a healthy recovery in production in recent months.

In the midst of an arid summer that set heat records across Europe, the continent’s rivers are evaporating.

The Rhine — a pillar of the German, Dutch and Swiss economies for centuries — is set to become virtually impassable at a key waypoint later this week, stymieing vast flows of diesel and coal. The Danube, which snakes its way 1,800 miles through central Europe to the Black Sea, is gummed up too, hampering grain and other trade.

Prices were at $3.99 figures released Thursday showed, continuing a downward trend for almost two months. Costs have fallen with cheaper oil and relatively weak demand. By one measure, fuel consumption has recently been

Zimbabwe is considering establishing a currency board to support the Zimbabwean dollar, as inflation surges.

“The issue of the currency board is being looked at,” Ashok Chakravarti, a member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, said Thursday at an economic conference in the resort city of Victoria Falls. “It’s been done by 40 countries before, but it also requires a substantial amount of reserve money. It is being considered.”

China’s coal industry has come roaring back since last year’s supply crunch saw Beijing prioritize energy security, but a recent spate of accidents is now ringing alarm bells.

Production of the fossil fuel in Asia’s largest economy is up markedly this year, but that’s come at a horrible cost. Some 129 coal miners have died in accidents in the first seven months of 2022, according to figures from the National Mine Safety Administration.

Mexico and Peru’s central banks are expected Thursday to hike their key interest rates to the highest point in more than a decade, as they continue their record tightening cycles to try to wrestle persistent inflation back under control.

Banxico, as the Mexican central bank is known, will raise its benchmark rate by 75 basis points to 8.5% -- its highest since adopting a target rate in 2008 -- according to all 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Peru, in the meantime, will increase borrowing costs by a half-point to 6.5%, eight of nine analysts predict.

Rate hikes are (still) coming, gasoline prices fell, but rents are soaring.

Federal Reserve officials responded to softening inflation data by saying it doesn’t change the US central bank’s path toward even higher interest rates this year and next. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who prior to the pandemic was the central bank’s most dovish policy maker, said Wednesday that he wants the Fed’s benchmark interest rate at 3.9% by the end of this year and at 4.4% by the end of 2023. Yesterday's stock rally was fueled by bets that the Fed may turn less hawkish. Yet market observers cautioned that policy makers will want to see months more of evidence that price gains are slowing before they change their view. Economists are divided on whether slower CPI growth means the Fed could ease its aggressive rate-hiking program.

The Rhine River is set to drop well below a critical depth over the weekend, signaling further turmoil for shipments of energy supplies on one of Europe’s most vital waterways.

Water levels at Kaub, a key waypoint west of Frankfurt are poised to plunge to 33 centimeters (13 inches) by Aug. 15, according to

The worst may be over for emerging Asian currencies as slower-than-expected US inflation eases pressure on the Federal Reserve to aggressively raise interest rates, according to DBS Group Holdings Ltd. and Malayan Banking Bhd.

Currencies across the region jumped Thursday, following their developing-nation peers in the Americas and Europe, after the US data published Wednesday led to a slump in the dollar. The Thai baht led gains, rising 0.9%, while the Indonesian rupiah strengthened 0.7%.