Russian diesel tanker signals U.S. voyage before destination shifts to ‘for orders’
Chinese regulators have approved Citi’s plan to set up a wholly owned securities company in China, The Wall Street Journal reported. The license will let the banking group establish an onshore company offering a suite of capital markets services to domestic and foreign clients, including underwriting capital markets deals and equities brokerage services.
The Wall Street Journal called the approval “a milestone” in Citi’s yearslong effort to deepen its presence in China.
A tanker carrying Russian diesel intermittently signaled that it was headed to the United States, according to ship-tracking data, potentially marking a resumption of direct shipments amid President Trump’s push to increase Russian fuel supplies to global markets. The Malta-flagged Agioi Fanendes loaded about 40,000 metric tons of ultra-low-sulfur diesel — equivalent to roughly 300,000 barrels — at Russia’s Primorsk port on Thursday, Kpler data showed. The vessel updated its destination to New York before changing it to “for orders,” a designation that typically indicates a vessel has no confirmed final discharge port, and its estimated arrival date is Nov. 7.
American shoppers remain convinced that businesses — including retailers, restaurants, ride-shares and grocers — are deploying technology to charge higher prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. Shoppers worry that businesses are using artificial intelligence and other technology to quickly change prices by assessing a shopper’s needs or profile.
Business denials have failed to stanch those concerns among shoppers and consumer activists. On social media, posts complain that stores are using AI in combination with digital shelf tags to track shoppers’ interest and make sudden or personalized price changes.
As the complaints have risen, several states have passed laws restricting data-driven pricing or requiring companies to disclose their use of algorithmic pricing. Earlier this month, a customer filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s that alleges “algorithmic price-fixing” of menu items. McDonald’s said the lawsuit is “filled with inaccuracies.”
In Venezuela, shrimp magnate José Enrique Rincón thought he could safely return home to reclaim the $700 million business the Venezuelan government had seized from him, after Caracas aligned with the Trump administration following the U.S. overthrow of Nicolás Maduro, The Wall Street Journal reported. Instead, he was jailed shortly after landing in June.
The U.S.-backed government in Caracas is now carving up Rincón’s sprawling Grupo Lamar conglomerate and allowing outside investors to manage pieces of it. The Wall Street Journal reported that among those outside investors is a Turkish executive who last month married a President Trump ally in a ceremony attended by prominent U.S. officials.
Dow Jones Market Data published an analysis of the expected share of America’s earnings boom accounted for by Nvidia and Micron.
The Wall Street Journal said its most recent Risk Journal Podcast discussed the new test facing Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation and local opposition to U.S. datacenter projects. The newsletter also carried a line from Katie Porter, a progressive former congresswoman from Orange County who opposes California’s proposed billionaire tax: “Already a hot mess, no matter what happens.”
Elsewhere in the same report, Brazil’s presidential election produced what The Wall Street Journal described as a surprise victory for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Electoral authorities said the leftist leader, who is two days away from turning 81, won 51.8% of the vote against 48.2% for Flávio Bolsonaro, with over 99% of the votes counted, for an unprecedented fourth term. The Wall Street Journal said the result cemented his place among the world’s longest-serving democratically elected leaders. It came after Lula’s Workers’ Party requested that voting be extended Sunday, following reports that some local governments had reduced the number of buses serving poorer voters, who tend to support the president; the report did not present the voting-extension request or the bus reductions as factors in the result.