World

US soy futures dropped after President Donald Trump confirmed he would be postponing his trip to China for trade talks. 

On Tuesday, Trump said his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping would now take place in “about five or six weeks,” rather than at the end of March as originally planned. Trump had earlier flagged he was looking to postpone the trip due to the war with Iran.

New purchases of US soybeans are expected to make up any part of a fresh trade deal between the two countries, so the move to delay talks is seen as negative for the major oilseed. 

Leading soybean contracts fell by as much as 0.8%, while soy oil dropped by as much as 1.9%. Joe Davis, director at brokerage Futures International, said the decline would have been greater if not for the announcement on Tuesday of a “celebration of agriculture” on March 27 at the White House, raising hopes of more clarity on US biofuels blending policy.

However, he said that further confirmation of the meeting from Beijing will “likely be needed to meaningfully rekindle a broader ‘risk-on’ tone across the row-crop markets.”

Prices
-Soybeans were down 0.3% to $11.54 a bushel at 7:39 a.m. in Chicago
-Wheat rose 0.3% to $5.8600 a bushel, while corn was steady

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OIL rose on Wednesday after Iran said some of its energy facilities had come under attack, with most of the supply in the wider Pesian Gulf still choked off by the war in the region. 

Brent was trading near US$105 (RM411.23) a barrel, after adding more than 3% on Tuesday. Iranian state TV said part of the giant South Pars gas field was hit in an airstrike, as were Asaluyeh oil industry facilities. Further details of the attacks hadn’t yet been determined, the reports said. 

Iran vowed revenge for attacks that led to the death of its security chief Ali Larijani, while President Donald Trump said the US could end the conflict in the near future. 

Gulf nations are still enacting workarounds for Hormuz, with traffic through the vital waterway grinding to a halt. Iraq will resume exports through a pipeline that links the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan to Türkiye’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. But the rerouting can only ship a fraction of the Opec producer’s output, which has dropped to about a third of levels before the war. 

Brent crude has rallied almost 70% this year, with the bulk of the surge following the US-Israeli attacks against Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on energy and shipping assets across the region. The conflict has sent energy prices soaring, triggered fuel shortages in Asia and spawned concerns about faster global inflation.

“The immediate impact of a potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz, something the US administration may have significantly underestimated, is higher energy prices,” said Tamas Varga, an analyst at brokerage PVM. “The US’ objectives in Iran remain unclear, and the end of the conflict is nowhere in sight.”

Fuel price hikes — with US diesel prices at the pump topping US$5 a gallon this week — will be scrutinised by central bankers around the world as they steer monetary policy. US Federal Reserve officials gather later on Wednesday to set interest rates, though no change is expected.

The oil market’s focus remains firmly on the Hormuz chokepoint, which is effectively closed. Traffic conditions are now shaped by a political calculus, with Iran likely allowing just a handful of vessels to transit based on their affiliations, while deterring or blocking most others.

Though headline price moves have been more muted in recent days, other gauges in crude markets are still seeing wild swings. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude’s discount to Brent expanded to more than US$9 at one point on Wednesday, the biggest since July 2022. US futures have weakened in part because of hedging around the release of emergency reserves. 

“With no end in sight to hostilities, shut-ins rising on a daily basis, and the strait technically closed, we remain of the view that Brent is set to remain in a new, higher US$95-to-US$110 range,” said Robert Rennie, the head of commodity research at Westpac Banking Corp. “Were we to see a major refinery plant hit or confirmation of additional mining of the strait, we would expect that range to extend higher by another US$10-US$20,” he added.

Prices:

Brent for May settlement was up 1% US$104.48 a barrel as of 11.36am in London

WTI for April delivery slid 1% to US$95.27 a barrel

The more active May contract declined 0.8% to US$94.80 a barrel —Bloomberg

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THE European Union has unveiled a red-tape-cutting plan dubbed “EU Inc” to boost the emergence of companies that could compete on the world stage with US and Chinese rivals.

The linchpin of the European Commission’s proposal is a set of measures to allow firms to incorporate once under a single EU-wide regime and operate seamlessly across the 27-member bloc.

“We are making it drastically easier to start and grow a business all across Europe,” commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on Wednesday. “Any entrepreneur will be able to create a company within 48 hours, from anywhere in the European Union, and fully online.”

The EU’s executive arm is betting that reducing administrative burdens and increasing legal certainty will make the EU more attractive to startups and investors while helping homegrown firms scale more effectively. The package includes fully digital incorporation procedures, streamlined governance and tax rules, and no minimum shared capital requirements.

Politically, the step reflects mounting concern about Europe’s ability to compete with the US and China, particularly in attracting high-growth companies. Brussels has framed the initiative as part of a broader effort to make Europe the easiest place in the world to start and grow a business. —Bloomberg

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CHINESE shares related to OpenClaw jumped, buoyed by bullish comments from Nvidia Corp’s chief executive officer on the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) agents. 

MiniMax Group Inc, which launched its own agent earlier, climbed as much as 14% in Hong Kong on Wednesday, while Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC Ltd, known as Zhipu, rose as much as 11%. Cloud services provider UCloud Technology Co also gained in Shanghai. 

Chinese AI stocks got a lift after Jensen Huang said on Tuesday that OpenClaw is “definitely the next ChatGPT”, describing it as a foundational shift that expands what individuals can do with the technology. The tool has garnered a cult-like following in China, providing a fresh tailwind for the local AI boom kicked off by the launch of DeepSeek more than a year ago.

“Jensen Huang’s bullish comments about the future of OpenClaw are fuelling optimism over AI agent,” said Steven Leung, an executive director of UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong. Nvidia’s plan to launch related products also means the “lobster” — the symbol of OpenClaw — fever is just kicking off, he said.

Launched in November, OpenClaw is an agent that leverages large language models (LLMs) to perform daily functions. Major Chinese cloud computing providers, including Tencent Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc, have rushed to offer OpenClaw to their customers, while LLM providers like MiniMax and Zhipu have offered tokens that power the agents.

OpenClaw is an open-source autonomous AI agent platform that does more than the traditional chatbots. Instead of answering questions, these agents can complete tasks, make decisions and take actions with minimal input from users. —Bloomberg

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OIL held a gain as the war in the Middle East dragged on, with Iran confirming the death of its security chief in another intensification of the conflict that’s roiled energy markets.

West Texas Intermediate was little changed near US$96 a barrel, after adding almost 3% on Tuesday, while Brent settled above US$103. Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and a key pillar of the country’s wartime leadership, was killed, according to state media.

The death came as President Donald Trump has been seeking to restart trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz to ease a growing global energy crisis. While the US leader pressed allies to send warships to help reopen the artery that normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil, his efforts were rebuffed.

“The Larijani killing is a big deal, and may make Iran more desperate to disrupt oil flows,” said Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Trump is obviously being pressured to escort tankers — so we’re in for the possibility of very tense US operations in ways I’m certain the Navy would like to avoid.” —Bloomberg

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BOEING Co pushed back a goal of generating positive margins at its key commercial unit by a year, as the cost of integrating newly acquired Spirit Aerosystems weighs on profitability.

The planemaker now expects to generate flat or positive margins at Boeing Commercial Aircraft only in 2027, chief financial officer Jay Malave told a conference on Tuesday. Boeing expects this year to be negative for margins at BCA, with the first-quarter margins to be -7% to -8.5%, Malave said.

Boeing found that Spirit, which it repurchased after spinning off the business two decades ago, had some performance issues that it discovered after taking the business back in-house, he said.

“You don’t get access to all the information until you actually close,” Malave said. “And so there was cost.” As a result, Boeing had to “reset” the margins at its commercial unit, with Malave calling it “a short-term headwind”.

Boeing shares reversed gains after the executive’s comments and were at 2.9% at 10.24am in New York (10.24pm Malaysia).

Malave also said that Boeing is fixing about 25 737 MAX aircraft after discovering some issues with wiring, which it flagged last week. As a result, about 10 units will slip into the second quarter in terms of deliveries, he said. —Bloomberg

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ASIAN equities rose while oil edged lower, suggesting investors are trying to look past near-term geopolitical uncertainty and find a measure of stability in markets.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index advanced 1.3% — with most of the 11 subgroups rising — setting the gauge up for a third day of gains. That came after the S&P 500 rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.5% on Tuesday, marking a second straight day of advances and suggesting cautious optimism despite the conflict in the Middle East.

Brent crude fell around 1% to trade below US$103 a barrel even as Iran confirmed the death of its security chief in a further intensification of the Middle East war. Treasuries were little changed with the yield on the benchmark 10-year at 4.20%, suggesting easing inflation concerns.

The near shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has rattled energy markets, with the shock reverberating across stocks and bonds amid concern that surging oil prices will stoke inflation. How policymakers respond is now top of mind for investors, especially with the Federal Reserve (Fed) set to deliver its interest-rate decision later Wednesday.

“There is a growing sense that markets are trying to look through the current tensions,” said Fawad Razaqzada at Forex.com. “Still, markets aren’t getting carried away. If the conflict drags on, the risk is that it starts to weigh more heavily on stock markets again.”

In geopolitical news, President Donald Trump abandoned his effort to recruit partners for the war and scolded allies who openly rejected his appeals, even as he repeated claims the conflict would end soon.

Israel said it killed Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani. The development came after Tehran set a massive natural gas field in the United Arab Emirates ablaze overnight. Trump threatened to expand strikes on Kharg Island, Iran’s main export hub.

Meanwhile, Russia is sharing satellite imagery and drone technology with Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Investors should expect continued volatility until the energy situation stabilises,” said veteran strategist Louis Navellier. Gains for US stocks despite higher oil prices reflect expectations for solid earnings and economic growth, he said.

In other corners of the market, a gauge of the greenback was little changed while the yen traded at around 159 per dollar. In commodities, gold was steady at around US$5,000 an ounce. Bitcoin traded around US$74,000.

Based on a study on the past six supply-side oil shocks, on average, it takes around four to five months for oil, the S&P 500 Index and other stock markets to come to the pre-supply shock level, David Chao, a global markets strategist at Invesco Asset Management, said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

Focus later Wednesday will turn to the Fed, which is widely expected to hold rates steady, with attention shifting to how it may respond if the fallout from the war pulls its policy goals in opposite directions.

Bond traders are scaling back some of the aggressive bets that had largely driven markets to price out Fed rate cuts this year. While no change is expected Wednesday, policymakers will set projections on the rates path in coming months. Traders will also scrutinise Chair Jerome Powell’s press conference for the central bank’s views on rising energy prices against signs of a softening labour market.

“Risk assets like US stocks and cryptocurrencies have held up surprisingly well despite all the turmoil,” said Bret Kenwell at eToro. “Depending on whether the Fed strikes a more dovish or hawkish tone, that could shape the near-term direction for both into quarter-end.” —Bloomberg

Corporate highlights:

Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang said the company is firing up manufacturing of H200 AI accelerators for customers in China.

Qualcomm Inc plans to buy back another US$20 billion worth of shares and raise its quarterly cash dividend.

Boeing Co signalled that several performance issues will weigh on its first-quarter results, from fewer-than-planned deliveries of its widebody aircraft and wiring defects on the 737 Max to the cost of turning around a key supplier.

Eli Lilly & Co fell after HSBC turned bearish on the stock, saying investor expectations for weight-loss drugs are over-inflated.

BHP Group has appointed Brandon Craig as its new chief executive, as the world’s biggest miner grapples with a slower Chinese economy and a shift toward more aggressive growth in copper.

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 9.53am Tokyo time

Hang Seng futures were little changed

Japan’s Topix rose 1.3%

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was little changed

Euro Stoxx 50 futures were little changed

Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed

The euro was little changed at US$1.1535

The Japanese yen was little changed at 159.08 per dollar

The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.8834 per dollar

The Australian dollar was little changed at US$0.7109

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin fell 0.9% to US$73,887.88

Ether fell 0.2% to US$2,322.93

Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.20%

Japan’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 2.245%

Australia’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 4.91%

Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.5% to US$94.72 a barrel

Spot gold was little changed

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A breakthrough at the plant devastated in 2011 is testing a new approach to shutting down atomic reactors 

by YUSUKE MAEKAWA & SHOKO ODA 

FIFTEEN years ago last week, Japan faced the biggest nuclear meltdown since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. While Soviet authorities entombed that plant in concrete, Tokyo decided on a very different approach — the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility would be entirely dismantled. 

The tsunami-devastated plant is taking a pioneering approach to the critical next phase of the world’s most complex clean-up operation. If successful, it could become a blueprint for the global industry. 

Progress has been painfully slow, stalled by gaps in technical knowledge, cost overruns and the extreme caution required to deal with an unprecedented accident of such magnitude. “It’s an unknown world,” said Yuichi Sato, a spokesperson for the unit of Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) that is responsible for cleaning up the plant. 

Tepco, however, sees a potential breakthrough in the effort to extract about 880 tonnes of melted atomic fuel lodged at the bottom of three damaged reactors — thanks to a purpose-built, 22-metre (m) robotic arm that will be deployed as early as this summer to obtain samples of the radioactive material. 

Unit No 2 on display at the Fukushima plant

The results — as well as images captured by drone-mounted cameras — will be an important step toward full-scale extraction, a huge undertaking that isn’t slated to begin until 2037. The entire decommissioning process, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, is expected to last until the middle of this century. 

The project carries enormous significance for Japan and its nuclear power sector, which has struggled to rebuild public trust and restart reactors that were shuttered after the disaster. But it also matters for a global industry that is expanding rapidly to supply the stable, carbon-free electricity needed by massive projects such as artificial intelligence data centres. Eventually, this will also require safe and efficient ways to retire ageing atomic plants. 

The Unit No 3 (left) and Unit No 4

Of more than 200 reactors worldwide that have closed, only 11 with capacity of at least 100 megawatts (MW) have been fully decommissioned, according to a study published in September 2024. A further 200 reactors are expected to reach the end of their operational lifetime in the next two decades. 

“We are going to have a lot of decommissioning in the future,” said International Atomic Energy Agency DG Rafael Mariano Grossi. “Of course, it’s not post-accident decommissioning, which is different; nevertheless, there are many things that are going to be applicable from the examples which are being developed in Fukushima.” 

Tepco owns the site that was overwhelmed when Japan’s strongest-ever earthquake triggered the tsunami on March 11, 2011. Flooding destroyed backup generators and severed the reactors from the cooling systems, causing core meltdowns in three of the plant’s six units. 

From a distance, the structures today resemble rows of high-rise apartments encased in steel. Much of the last decade has been spent trying to stabilise the facility, containing radiation within the reactors and reducing the amount of contaminated water on site. 

Large breaches in the walls have been sealed, and Tepco built a filtration system to treat, store and — since 2023 — discharge water into the nearby ocean. Ice walls were built to limit groundwater from seeping into the site. 

“I never imagined I’d be able to come here without wearing a mask,” Sato, the Tepco spokesperson, said on an observation deck inside the plant. A nearby dosimeter read 36.8 microsieverts per hour — roughly the same dose as a round-trip flight between Los Angeles (LA) and New York (NY), and less than a quarter of what it would’ve displayed in the years immediately after the disaster. 

The biggest challenge now is to remove the highly radioactive uranium rods — mixed with steel, rock and concrete — that still lie deep within. Though remotely operated probes have captured video footage since 2012, much remains uncertain — for example, the extent to which the molten fuel burned through the bottom of the reactor vessels. 

In 2024, using a telescopic robotic device, engineers were able for the first time to extract a tiny sample of debris. The material was porous and crumbly, allaying fears that the fuel might’ve fused into a diamond-hard mass impenetrable even to drills.

The snake-like robot arm measures 22m and weighs about 4.6 tonnes (pic: AFP)

After years devoted to tackling basic safety issues, the situation at the plant has “stabilised considerably,” said Akira Ono, the chief decommissioning officer. “We’ve reached a point where we can carry out decommissioning work in a more planned and forward-looking manner.” 

The latest robotic arm was developed by Tepco in partnership with various Japanese government agencies. It will attempt to gather samples that should provide more precise data to help the company move closer to the large-scale extraction programme. 

But schedules have slipped before, perhaps unsurprisingly, in a fragile environment where every operation is preceded by months of modelling and mock-ups. Public opprobrium followed a failed first attempt at extraction, when the correct sequence of steps was not followed to the letter — an experience that Sato recalled as humbling. 

Despite the advances, there is a lack of clarity over the future, said Satoshi Yanagihara, a visiting professor at the University of Fukui Research Institute of Nuclear Engineering who specialises in decommissioning and radioactive waste management. For example, it is still unknown where the waste from the Fukushima facility will be stored, he said. 

Ono, the chief decommissioner, said the company should “never let our guard down” but that continued investigations had provided the information needed to move forward. 

“If you’re told to reach your hand into pitch darkness without knowing what’s inside, you’d feel anxious,” he said. “But if you have at least some idea of what’s there, then the feeling is quite different.” — Bloomberg

• This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition

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US diesel rose above US$5 (RM19.59) a gallon for the first time since December 2022, the latest sign of surging fuel price pressures menacing the global economy as the war in Iran continues to disrupt energy supplies.

The nationwide average retail price reached US$5.044 a gallon on Monday, according to the American Automobile Association, up by more than a third since the conflict began.

The surge in prices comes as the Strait of Hormuz — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil usually transits each day — remains largely closed to traffic. Crude oil prices have topped US$100 a barrel but the rally has been even more acute in markets for products that consumers actually use like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Diesel is the lifeblood of the global economy. Across the world, it powers the freight, agriculture and construction industries. Any spike at the retail level will ripple through the broader economy. Prices have surged faster than most other petroleum-based products because Persian Gulf refineries are major suppliers, exposing consumers in the US, Asia and Europe.

“We are not seeing operational disruption at this stage but the economic impact is direct,” said Pavel Kveten, CEO at Girteka Logistics, one of Europe’s largest trucking companies, when asked about the impact of higher diesel prices.

The company adjusts its pricing weekly based on oil prices and “this means higher fuel costs can be reflected in transport rates within days rather than months.”

In Europe and Asia, jet fuel has soared above US$200 a barrel and fuel oil — usually a product that trades lower than crude futures but one that keeps shipping moving — is now close to US$140 a barrel. Countries are adopting increasing levels of protectionism in order to keep fuel at home and shield consumers from the higher costs.

In some US states, diesel prices had already surpassed the US$5 mark. Prices for residential heating oil, which is effectively interchangeable with diesel, have also climbed above US$5 according to the US Energy Information Administration. For US President Donald Trump, a prolonged surge in fuel prices could weigh on midterm election prospects later this year.

South Korea’s industry minister said on Tuesday that his country will set a cap on the volume of oil product exports by its oil refiners. Last week China’s refiners began cancelling agreed export cargoes for gasoline and diesel. — BLOOMBERG

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