US Business

Global stock markets were mixed Tuesday, as traders looked ahead to the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision hoping it will signal a more dovish approach to fighting inflation.

But early gains in US equities soon turned to red after the release of a survey showing manufacturing growth slowed in October to its weakest since mid-2020 on falling orders and prices.

The Dow Jones was down 0.4 percent in early afternoon trading.

Investors were looking for signs of optimism as US central bankers started their two-day policy meeting Tuesday, against the backdrop of persistently high inflation.

The Fed is widely expected Wednesday to announce a fourth straight 75-basis-point rate hike as it tries to rein in runaway prices — but recent signals have suggested officials are looking to dial down the pace of increases.

Hopes it could pivot to a less hawkish stance in the coming months has sparked a rally in risk assets over the past week — helped by signs other central banks are also trying to take a step back.

“While a 75 basis point hike looks locked in tomorrow, the messaging is what investors are interested in,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.

The main European indices pared back on earlier gains through afternoon trading, but still closed in the green.

London was up 1.3 percent, Paris 1.0 percent, and Frankfurt gained 0.6 percent.

– Waiting game –

“The waiting game for the Fed is still on, with investors largely in the dark until the US central bank illuminates the path ahead for interest rate rises tomorrow,” said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter.

In Asia, Hong Kong led the rally following unconfirmed posts on Chinese social media saying officials were putting together a committee to discuss how to move the country away from its economically damaging zero-Covid policy.

Shares jumped more than five percent after the appearance of the unverified document, which ramped up hopes the world’s number two economy could begin opening up in the new year and ease the strict containment measures that have hammered productivity and markets.

Oil prices also gained on speculation of a gradual easing of the zero-Covid policy in China, a major consumer.

However, neither Chinese state media nor government officials have suggested the meeting actually took place, or that such a committee was established, raising questions about the statement’s veracity.

Nonetheless, Shanghai climbed more than two percent, while the yuan also rallied after recently falling to record lows against the dollar.

Sydney was also well up after the Australian central bank lifted rates by 0.25 percentage points to a near-decade high but brushed off calls for a bigger raise.

– Big earnings season –

Meanwhile positive results from multinational firms also helped lift equities. 

Shares climbed in London-listed oil giant BP after it reported that third-quarter profit had more than doubled on high commodity prices, to $8.2 billion.

It is the latest energy group to report bumper earnings in recent weeks after Chevron, Shell and TotalEnergies.

Also reporting Tuesday was US drugmaker Pfizer, which recorded an 83 percent surge in Covid-19 vaccine revenues in the United States in the most recent quarter.

Ride-hailing group Uber saw shares rocket after it reported a 72 percent surge in quarterly revenues.

And shares in British grocery delivery platform Ocado soared more than 35 percent at one point after it announced a tie-up with South Korean conglomerate Lotte Shopping.

– Key figures around 1630 GMT –

New York – Dow: DOWN 0.4 percent at 32,614.01 points

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.9 percent at 3,649.46 

London – FTSE 100: UP 1.3 percent at 7,186.16 (close)

Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.6 percent at 13,338.74 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: UP 1.0 percent at 6,328.25 (close)

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.3 percent at 27,678.92 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 5.2 percent at 15,455.27 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 2.6 percent at 2,969.20 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $0.9869 from $0.9885 on Monday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.1458 from $1.1465

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 148.09 yen from 148.72 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 86.11 pence from 86.20 pence

West Texas Intermediate: UP 2.2 percent at $88.44 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: UP 2.1 percent at $94.83 per barrel

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The rapper Takeoff, a member of the influential hip-hop trio Migos, was fatally shot at a bowling alley in Houston, Texas Tuesday, according to local media. He was 28 years old.

Houston police said they responded to a shooting overnight in which one person had died. Police confirmed to a local television station that Takeoff and fellow Migos member Quavo had been present at the scene.

A police spokesperson told AFP they were awaiting formal confirmation from the medical examiner’s office and assurance that the victim’s family had been notified before publicly discussing details of the case.

Two other people were shot and taken to area hospitals in private vehicles, police said. 

Born Kirshnik Khari Ball, Takeoff was playing dice with Migos partner Quavo at around 2:30 am “when an altercation broke out and that’s when someone opened fire,” said TMZ, which first reported the news. 

According to TMZ, Quavo was not hurt. 

A couple of hours prior to the shooting, Takeoff had posted a selfie from what appeared to be the bowling alley.

The venue, 810 Billiards & Bowling, said they would be closed on Tuesday.

Early tributes rolled in as news that a member of one of rap’s biggest contemporary acts had died spread on social media.

“Sending love to Takeoff’s loved ones,” tweeted Congressman Jamaal Bowman. “I’m tired of seeing young Black men die.”

“Takeoff will never be forgotten. From the music he made with Migos to his own solo work, his legacy will continue for years to come. RIP,” tweeted the streaming platform Tidal.

– ‘Bad and Boujee’ –

Born in Lawrenceville, Georgia on June 18, 1994, Takeoff was best known for his membership in Migos along with Quavo, his uncle, and Offset, his cousin who is married to fellow rapper Cardi B.

“Growing up, I was trying to make it in music. I was grinding, which is just what I loved doing,” Takeoff said in a 2017 interview with The Fader. “Just making something and creating for me.”

“I was getting my own pleasure out of it, because it’s what I liked doing. I’d wait for Quavo to get back from football practice and I’d play my songs for him.”

The Atlanta-based Migos soared to prominence off their viral 2013 song “Versace,” which Drake remixed.

The trio later recorded “Walk It Talk It” with the Canadian superstar rapper.

It was 2016’s hit “Bad and Boujee” that first saw them hit number one, a song emblematic of their signature flow, a unique cadence of staccato lyrical bursts in triplet rhythm. 

The smash has been streamed 1.5 billion times in the United States alone.

The trio, managed by hip-hop powerhouse Coach K, is considered widely influential in bringing contemporary Southern trap, a popular rap sub-genre, to the mainstream.

Following their debut album “Yung Rich Nation” in 2015, they debuted atop the Billboard top albums chart with their sophomore album “Culture.”

After inking a deal with Motown and Capitol Records in 2017, they followed up with “Culture II,” once again hitting the chart’s top spot.

In 2021, they completed the trilogy with “Culture III.”

The trio also played fictionalized versions of themselves on the hit Donald Glover show “Atlanta.”

Quavo and Takeoff, who have been performing as a duo, had recently released a new music video for the track “Messy.”

After playing some concerts in Europe, Takeoff returned impressed by the reception of their show abroad as the rappers’ stars continued to rise.

“They don’t speak no English, but they know every verse, every word. They spit lyric for lyric, bar for bar,” Takeoff told Rolling Stone. “I went over there, we were doing ‘Versace.’ I held up the Paris flag and the whole building went crazy, like they scored a goal, like it was a soccer game.”

“It felt real good.”

Takeoff was considered the most reserved member of the group, but his fellow rappers routinely heralded him as a singular talent.

“My thing was rapping. I knew I was gonna be who I was,” Takeoff told the music magazine. “You couldn’t tell me I  wasn’t going to be who I was.”

“I knew I was going to be here.”

SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida Tuesday, the first flight since 2019 of the world’s most powerful rocket. 

Mission USSF-44, transporting cargo for the US Space Force, including the TETRA 1 satellite, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center around 9:40 am (1340 GMT). 

Several minutes later, the rocket’s two side boosters made their way back to Earth — the craft’s main stage will never be recovered. 

Falcon Heavy was launched for the first time as part of a test in 2018, carrying SpaceX boss’ Elon Musk’s own Tesla car. 

Tuesday’s flight was Falcon Heavy’s third operational commercial flight, and the first since June 2019. 

The US aerospace company currently operates two rockets. 

The first is the Falcon 9, which is primarily used to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and to launch satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink internet program. 

Falcon Heavy is used to launch much heavier payloads into further orbits. It is capable of carrying up to 64 tons into Earth orbit. 

NASA has also chosen Falcon Heavy to fly parts of its future space station set to orbit around the Moon. 

SpaceX is also developing another rocket at its base in Texas, the Starship, which consists of a spacecraft mounted on a first-stage booster called the Super Heavy, though the craft has never flown in its complete configuration. 

The spaceship part of the craft has taken several suborbital test flights on its own, many of which ended in dramatic explosions. 

NASA has already picked Starship to ferry its astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis 3 mission, set for 2025 at the earliest. 

The space agency will take astronauts up to lunar orbit itself, thanks to its own heavy rocket called the SLS, which has been in development for more than a decade. 

The SLS, which is expected to surpass Falcon Heavy to become the most powerful rocket in the world, has seen its first launch twice canceled at the last minute in recent months. 

The next tentatively planned launch date for the uncrewed flight is set for November 14. 

In a US workshop echoing with the sound of steel girders clanging into each other, Zachary Williams is learning a trade.

At this vocational training center in Ohio, the red-bearded apprentice is eyeing work that will be generated by two huge factories under construction in this one-time bellwether state that swung to the right as long-time heavy industries rusted out.

But in next week’s midterm elections, Williams is hoping for a change in leadership, even though President Joe Biden’s Democrats helped engineer the building of Intel’s chip plant and the Honda e-vehicle battery factory in the state.

The 30-year-old Williams — who is learning to work with rebar, the steel used to strengthen reinforced concrete — is very worried about inflation, which is at a 40-year high in the United States.

And he hopes the Republicans will win control of Congress and “get it back down for us to where the working class can be able to afford gasoline prices.”

Addressing the inflation fears that have dominated the campaign ahead of November 8, Biden has pressed the message that billions of dollars in investment approved by his administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress will invigorate the US manufacturing sector.

Biden, who himself grew up in a working-class town, is revisiting one of the themes of his winning 2020 presidential run as he travels often to Ohio and works to reconnect with white blue-collar workers embittered over globalization’s elimination of good-paying jobs.

But in Ohio, where Donald Trump prevailed in the last two presidential elections, inflation and that feeling of disenchantment among workers is making things hard for Biden and his party.

– ‘Struggling to survive’ – 

“We need to bring some people in that can help the poor class or the working class, because a lot of people out there are struggling to survive,” Williams said, amid the whine of power tools.

Elsewhere in the workshop, Matthew Atha points a blow torch at a piece of metal.

“Put that oxygen down,” says Simon Denby, an instructor at this course run by a labor union near Dayton. “Keep going, keep going.”

Atha, 54, has watched industry collapse in the American Rust Belt but says he has hope — he believes Biden has worked to boost manufacturing with a huge infrastructure investment bill.

“It may win back the working class, but they (Democrats) are going to have to work for it. It’s not something that we’re going to hand to them,” said Atha.

“We don’t want false hope,” he added. “But over the last few decades, we’ve seen the working class failed many times by both parties.”

Indeed, as capital migrated to Mexico and other low-wage countries, Ohio lost a quarter of its manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2007.

– Lost identity –

In Middletown, located about an hour’s drive south of Dayton, a huge steelworks managed to stay operational, but “we lost a part of who we are” with all the other changes with the decline of industry, said Mayor Nicole Condrey.

“The steel industry went through some turmoil. Their headquarters moved out of Middletown,” said Condrey.

“It kind of left us without that same identity. And so we’re still kind of trudging through to find what that next generation of identity is in Middletown.”

A lot of people here support “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance, the Trump-backed US Senate candidate who grew up in Middletown, she said.

Tim Burga, head of the Ohio branch of the AFL-CIO, the main US labor federation, said he’s betting on a shift in manufacturing to more high-tech jobs and a clean energy economy.

“And we’re transitioning out of the old label of being the Rust Belt. So signs are encouraging. Signs are good,” he said in his office overlooking the state capital Columbus.

– ‘Trying real hard’ –  

But on the ground, local trade unions are struggling to reach voters and get the message out that the Democrats are working for them.

David Cox — the business agent for Ironworkers Local Union 290, which manages the vocational training program — is trying to push Biden’s pitch.

“We’re trying real hard, we’re trying real hard,” he says.

But one of the problems with that push is the cultural divide, he explains.

“Whether it be guns or God or abortions or whatever the case may be, there’s a whole lot of them in our membership that typically don’t want to vote for Democrats,” Cox says.

Tim Ryan, the Democrat battling Vance for the Senate seat, is adopting a novel strategy, saying boldly that he does not want Biden to serve a second term and isn’t giving him a free pass on sky-high inflation.

Ryan’s campaign posters have a lot of red, the color of the Republican Party. 

And his slogan? “Tim Ryan/Workers first.”

Taylor Swift on Tuesday announced she was returning to touring, getting back on the road for the first time since 2018’s “Reputation” tour.

The Grammy-winning megastar said the “Eras” tour would be “a journey through all of my musical eras of my career.”

“Good Morning America, it’s Taylor,” she said, making the announcement on ABC’s morning news program. 

“I wanted to tell you something that I’ve been so excited about for a really long time and I’ve been planning for ages, and I finally get to tell you I’m going back on tour.”

A number of acts are set to join the 32-year-old, including Paramore, Phoebe Bridgers and HAIM.

The tour is set to kick off March 18, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, with stops including Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and two final domestic shows in Los Angeles in early August.

Swift said international shows will be announced at a later date.

The tour announcement comes two weeks after Swift dropped her 10th album “Midnights,” which debuted to fanfare and made chart history.

She became the first artist ever to notch all 10 spots of the Billboard hot songs chart, and breezed past Drake and The Beatles by counting the most titles occupying the Hot 100 in a single week.

It was the biggest week for a release since Adele’s “25” in 2015.

“10 out of 10 of the Hot 100??? On my 10th album??? I AM IN SHAMBLES,” tweeted Swift, with a nod to her devoted fan base’s love of searching for hidden clues in her content, including titles, numbers and dates.

“Midnights” sees Taylor return to pop and recalls some of her earliest hits after two pandemic albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore,” leaned into folk.

Shares of Uber rocketed higher Tuesday after it reported a surge in quarterly revenue and described consumer demand as remaining robust.

The ride-hailing service scored a 72 percent jump in third-quarter revenues to $8.3 billion, thanks in part to the benefit of an acquisition in Uber’s freight business.

The company reported a $1.2 billion loss, citing a hit to Uber’s equity investments and the effect of stock-based compensation expense.

Despite inflation and other macroeconomic headwinds, Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi described Uber’s core business as “stronger than ever” in light of the loosening of Covid-19 restrictions, according to an earnings release.

Later, on a conference call with Wall Street analysts, Khosrowshahi said consumer spending was broadly strong, including for rides and in the company’s restaurant delivery service.

“Right now frankly we’re not seeing any signs of consumer weakness,” he said. “Even lower income riders continue to have higher trips per rider as things are opening up, showing absolutely no signs of slowing down.”

Khosrowshahi said the biggest drag on the business came from the strong dollar.

Uber offered an upbeat projection on the fourth quarter, forecasting gross bookings to rise 23 to 27 percent, with an operating profit estimate that topped analyst expectations.

Shares jumped 15.5 percent to $30.66 in morning trading.

US President Joe Biden rallies Democrats in Florida Tuesday as he makes his closing pitch for next week’s midterm elections that set the balance of power in Congress and state capitols.

As he faces signs of a growing “red wave” that could sweep the opposition Republicans to power in the House and Senate, Biden has been attempting with mixed success to court the blue-collar vote.

He travels to Hallandale Beach, a coastal city 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of Miami to tout his administration’s progress on health care and seniors’ entitlement reform.

“Millions of Americans would lose health care coverage, benefits and protections under congressional Republicans’ plans,” the White House said in a statement that hailed Biden-backed legislation to curb soaring prescription drug costs. 

The 79-year-old Democrat had been promising since a trip was canceled by a hurricane to go to Florida, a traditional “swing state” that has leaned more solidly into the conservative column in recent cycles. 

In addition to a formal speech on health care, Biden will don his Democratic leadership hat for fundraising events for his party’s gubernatorial and Senate candidates, who are both expected to lose.

The White House hopes the visit will nevertheless help in portraying the Republican Party as a threat to middle class households and seniors. 

Political scientist Aubrey Jewett said the Republicans had done a good job of convincing much of the Hispanic community — which makes up more than a quarter of the state’s 22 million population — to switch allegiance. 

Former president Donald Trump and Governor Ron DeSantis, his one-time protege turned rival, have shrewdly played on Hispanics’ fear of communism, the University of Central Florida professor told AFP.

– Campaign pivots –

“That got a certain percentage of Hispanics who thought, ‘We didn’t come to this country and flee Cuba or South America to come here and get the same thing.'”

Susan MacManus, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida, believes Republicans are simply better than Democrats at keeping up with the Sunshine State’s ever-shifting demographic landscape.

“A lot of younger people with families moved here because they did not agree with (pandemic) lockdown for the children… They probably didn’t come here as Republicans, the younger ones with kids,” she told AFP.

“But the policies on schools are such that when they got here, they probably lean more Republican than Democrat because of their kids in the schools.”

Biden has been relatively quiet during the campaign for the midterms, which are expected to hand the House of Representatives back to the Republicans, who would also take the evenly-divided Senate with just one pick-up. 

Reproductive rights once appeared to be the issue that would decide the election. Voter registrations, particularly among women, surged after the US Supreme Court ended federal protections for abortion access in June. 

But it has lost salience as a campaign issue, sparking concern among Democrats that they may have relied too heavily on the subject to the detriment of “kitchen table” fare like inflation and crime.

The party has tried to pivot in the closing weeks of the campaign, but soaring consumer prices — up 8.2 percent in a year — have undermined Biden’s attempt to sell himself as the president for the American worker.

The Democrats have called on former president Barack Obama, still the party’s biggest draw, to mobilize the troops. 

The pair are scheduled to appear together Saturday for a rally in Pennsylvania, one of the most hotly contested states in this cycle.