US Business

The euro slumped to a near two-year low on Thursday after the European Central Bank remained vague about when it will raise interest rates in the face of soaring inflation.

The drop in the single currency helped boost European stocks, while Wall Street equities resumed a downward slide amid worries over tightening US monetary policy.

The ECB stood still in the face of record eurozone inflation, keeping its stimulus plans and rates unchanged, as the war in Ukraine cast a pall over the eurozone economy.

Meeting for the second time since the outbreak of the conflict, the bank’s 25-member governing council stuck to a plan that “should” see its bond-buying scheme come to an end in the third quarter.

An interest rate hike would follow “some time” after the stimulus program comes to an end, and any increases “will be gradual.” 

The decision leaves the ECB further out of step with many of its peers. Central banks such as the Bank of England, US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada have already triggered their first interest rate rises in response to soaring inflation.

The euro took a knock after the ECB’s decision, slipping under $1.08 for the first time since May 2020, falling as low as $1.0758.

The ECB “continues to show little sign of looking to hike rates after leaving rates unchanged at their policy meeting today, while being even handed over the risks facing the eurozone economy,” said market analyst Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK. 

The ECB announcement provided a boost for eurozone stocks, however, which moved into positive territory and ended the day higher.

– Musk Twitter bid –

Wall Street meanwhile retreated, concluding a holiday-shortened week on a weak note, as the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note surged above 2.8 percent. Treasury yields are seen as a proxy for interest rates.

“Right now, we’re tied to this correlation between rising yields and falling tech shares,” said Art Hogan, strategist at National Securities.

All three major indices fell, with the Nasdaq leading the group by falling 2.1 percent.

Large banks were mixed following a deluge of earnings, with executives describing the US economy as in solid condition, but warning of uncertainty over the Ukraine invasion, inflation and shifting monetary policy.

Citigroup gained 1.6 percent, while Goldman Sachs dipped 0.1 percent and Wells Fargo tumbled 4.5 percent.

Elsewhere on the corporate front, Tesla chief Elon Musk launched a hostile takeover bid for Twitter, offering to buy 100 percent of its stock and take it private, according to a stock exchange filing.

The move follows Musk’s criticism of the platform. Some analysts expressed skepticism about the bid, noting Musk’s history of outrageous and unpredictable conduct

Oil prices, meanwhile, pushed higher following a New York Times report that European officials were drafting a plan for an embargo on Russian crude products.

– Key figures around 2100 GMT –

New York – Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 34,451.23 (close)

New York – S&P 500: DOWN 1.2 percent at 4,392.59 (close)

New York – Nasdaq: DOWN 2.1 percent at 13,351.08 (close)

Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.6 percent at 14,163.85 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.7 percent at 6,589.35 (close)

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.5 percent at 7,616.38 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.5 percent at 3,848.68 (close)

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.2 percent at 27,172.00 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng: UP 0.7 percent at 21,518.08 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.2 percent at 3,225.64 (close)

Brent North Sea crude: UP 2.7 percent at $111.70 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 2.6 percent at $106.95 per barrel

Euro/dollar – DOWN at $1.0832 from $1.0888 at 2100 GMT

Pound/dollar – DOWN at $1.3076 from $1.3117

Euro/pound – DOWN at 82.77 pence from 83.01 pence

Dollar/yen – UP at 125.87 from 125.62

President Joe Biden hailed US innovation Thursday on a visit to the south to promote his efforts to combat inflation, jumpstart high-tech manufacturing and return the United States to pole position in the global economy.

The president said his top priority from his first day in office had been to promote products “made in America” as he met students at the country’s largest historically Black university in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“More is going to change in the next 10 years than has changed in the last 50 years,” Biden told aspiring engineers at a new research complex opened by the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

“Science and technology is moving so incredibly rapidly. It’s all part of a broader vision that Vice President (Kamala) Harris and I ran on — to build back a better America than even before the pandemic.”

The visit came with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting inflation at a 40-year high of 8.5 percent — mainly due, it said, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rent hikes and gas prices.

Biden met faculty and students reading robotics and cybersecurity to discuss how his Bipartisan Innovation Act could boost the economy by improving manufacturing.

“That means stronger supply chains, more manufacturing jobs and lower prices for consumers as we break up the bottlenecks, like semiconductor chips, that have driven inflation over the last year,” the White House said ahead of the trip. 

Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One that Greensboro was an example of the kind of “regional manufacturing ecosystem” that Biden envisions building across America, to create an industry that can counter China’s growing influence.

One of the administration’s top priorities, the legislation would offer funding to the city of 300,000 and places like it, to promote job creation and business growth.

Biden’s trip — which came with Washington’s political elite bracing for November’s midterm elections — was the political equivalent of a fixture on neutral ground.

North Carolinians have voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since the Reagan era except 2008, when the state went for Barack Obama over John McCain.

But five out of its seven governors over the same period have been Democrats, and statistical analytics website FiveThirtyEight described North Carolina in 2020 as a “perennial” swing state.

– Deep underwater –

Biden is deep underwater in recent polling, however, with inflation seen as the Democrats’ biggest challenge if they are to pull off the unlikely feat of holding on to Congress.

A poll released last week by High Point University gave the president a job approval rating of 35 percent in North Carolina, while 53 percent said they disapprove.

His lowest marks were for his handling of inflation (19 percent), including rising gas prices (18 percent), and his stewardship of the economy in general (26 percent).

Nationally, a new Quinnipiac University poll has the president at just 33 percent approval, while 54 percent disapprove of his job performance.

Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate have been discussing the contours for launching formal negotiations on Biden’s legislation as early as April, with a floor vote expected in May or June.

The Senate passed its own package with a decisive bipartisan 68-32 margin last summer, but that needs to be synced up with a more contentious equivalent passed mostly along party lines in the House.

Republicans argued that the 2,900-page House version wasn’t tough enough on China and overly focused on unrelated issues such as climate change and social equity. 

Biden implored Congress to “take action quickly” to support innovation, saying the “incredibly rapid” changes taking place in manufacturing required an urgent approach.

“Congress: get this bipartisan bill on my desk… national security is on the line,” he said.

Germany has officially confiscated the world’s largest superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, as part of sanctions against Moscow following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, police sources said Thursday.

The 156-metre (1,680-feet) long “Dilbar” has an estimated value of $600 million ((555 million euros) according to Forbes magazine.

Since last October the boat has been docked for repairs in a Hamburg shipyard.

German customs had been eyeing the superyacht for several weeks, but could not formally seize it earlier due to a legal imbroglio over its ownership.

Eventually the German Federal Judicial Police indicated that they had succeeded “after lengthy investigations, and in spite of concealment via offshore companies, in identifying the owner of the M/S Dilbar and it is Gulbakhor Ismailova, the sister of Alisher Usmanov”.

“The luxury yacht is now under the sanctions regime and so could be confiscated in Hamburg,” police added on Twitter.

The Russian billionaire and his sister are both targeted by European sanctions against Russian oligarchs as well as members of their families.

Usmanov, 68, was ranked sixth in the Sunday Times’ list of the richest people in the UK in 2021.

He is one of dozens of Russian oligarchs hit by Western sanctions since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.

On Wednesday, English Premier League football club Everton suspended its sponsorship agreements with several companies in which Usmanov held shares.  

The confiscation of the “Dilbar” is just the latest in a string of seizures of Russian superyachts under the Western sanctions. 

Tesla chief Elon Musk said Thursday he’s not sure his $43 billion bid to buy Twitter will succeed, but asserted he has a “plan B” in case of failure.

In his first spoken comments since the shock offer became public, Musk downplayed his concerns over money, though assembling the funding for an all-cash offer of this size is never simple.

The world’s richest person would need to part with some of his mountains of Tesla stock if his offer gets board backing — which is not guaranteed.  

“I’m not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it,” Musk told a conference in Canada, referring to Twitter. He went on to note that money wasn’t the primary issue, saying “I could technically afford it.”

Musk acknowledged he has a “plan B” if his offer fails, but refused to elaborate when pressed.

“For another time, I think,” the billionaire said.

Musk’s filing to US authorities on the proposal offered an idea of what he’d do if rejected: “My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”

Musk last week disclosed a purchase of 73.5 million shares — or 9.2 percent — of Twitter’s common stock, which ignited a roller-coaster of events, including his refusal to join the company’s board.

In his comments Thursday, Musk reiterated his statements that the aim of his bid was to promote freedom of speech on Twitter. 

“This is not a way to make money,” he said.

“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don’t care about the economics at all,” he added.

The serial entrepreneur’s endeavors include driving a shift to electric vehicles through his automaker Tesla, private space exploration, and linking computers with brains.

His behavior, however, has raised eyebrows, prompted laughs, and sometimes drawn condemnation or even litigation.

US President Joe Biden traveled to North Carolina on Thursday to tout his efforts on combating inflation and jumpstarting high-tech research and manufacturing to make the United States more competitive in the global economy.

The president is due to visit a new engineering research and innovation complex at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest historically Black university in the country.

The visit comes with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting inflation at a 40-year high of 8.5 percent — mainly due, it says, to Russia’s invasion to Ukraine, rent hikes and gas prices.

The White House said Biden would meet faculty and students studying robotics and cybersecurity and discuss how the Bipartisan Innovation Act can boost the economy by improving American manufacturing.

“That means stronger supply chains, more manufacturing jobs, and lower prices for consumers as we break up the bottlenecks, like semiconductor chips, that have driven inflation over the last year,” said Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki. 

She added that the initiative would “create more good-paying jobs and lower prices for working families.”

Psaki’s deputy Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One that Greensboro was an example of the kind of “regional manufacturing ecosystem” that Biden envisions building across America, to create an industry that can counter China’s growing influence.

One of the administration’s top priorities, the legislation would offer funding to the city of 300,000 and places like it, to promote job creation and business growth.

North Carolinians have voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since the Reagan era except 2008, when the state went for Barack Obama over John McCain.

But five out of its seven governors over the same period have been Democrats, and statistical analytics website FiveThirtyEight described North Carolina in 2020 as a “perennial” swing state.

– Deep underwater –

Biden is deep underwater in recent polling, however, with inflation seen as the Democrats’ biggest challenge ahead of November’s midterm elections.

A poll released last week by High Point University gave the president a job approval rating of 35 percent in North Carolina, while 53 percent said they disapprove.

His lowest marks were for his handling of inflation (19 percent), including rising gas prices (18 percent), and his stewardship of the economy in general (26 percent).

Nationally, a new Quinnipiac University poll has the president at just 33 percent approval, while 54 percent disapprove of his job performance.

Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate have been discussing the contours for launching formal negotiations on Biden’s legislation as early as April, with a floor vote expected in May or June.

The Senate passed its own package with a decisive bipartisan 68-32 vote last summer but that needs to be synched up with a more contentious equivalent passed mostly along party lines in the House.

Republicans argued that the 2,900-page House version wasn’t tough enough on China and overly focused on unrelated issues like climate change and social equity. 

North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Bobbie Richardson said in a statement Biden had been “laser-focused” on lowering costs for voters still recovering from the pandemic.  

But Thom Tillis, one of the state’s two Republican senators, said North Carolinians were “sick of inflation and tired of President Biden’s excuses.” 

“President Biden’s only answer to date is blaming everyone else for his decisions and pushing a multitrillion-dollar tax and spending spree,” Tillis said in a statement, according to Fox News.

Sending miniature robots deep inside the human skull to treat brain disorders has long been the stuff of science fiction — but it could soon become reality, according to a California start-up.

Bionaut Labs plans its first clinical trials on humans in just two years for its tiny injectable robots, which can be carefully guided through the brain using magnets.

“The idea of the micro robot came about way before I was born,” said co-founder and CEO Michael Shpigelmacher.

“One of the most famous examples is a book by Isaac Asimov and a film called ‘Fantastic Voyage,’ where a crew of scientists goes inside a miniaturized spaceship into the brain, to treat a blood clot.”

Just as cellphones now contain extremely powerful components that are smaller than a grain of rice, the tech behind micro-robots “that used to be science fiction in the 1950s and 60s” is now “science fact,” said Shpigelmacher. 

“We want to take that old idea and turn it into reality,” the 43-year-old scientist told AFP during a tour of his company’s Los Angeles research and development center.

Working with Germany’s prestigious Max Planck research institutes, Bionaut Labs settled on using magnetic energy to propel the robots — rather than optical or ultrasonic techniques — because it does not harm the human body.

Magnetic coils placed outside the patient’s skull are linked up to a computer that can remotely and delicately maneuver the micro-robot into the affected part of the brain, before removing it via the same route.

The entire apparatus is easily transportable, unlike an MRI, and uses 10 to 100 times less electricity.

– ‘You’re stuck’ –

In a simulation watched by AFP, the robot — a metal cylinder just a few millimeters long, in the shape of a tiny bullet — slowly follows a pre-programed trajectory through a gel-filled container, which emulates the density of the human brain.

Once it nears a pouch filled with blue liquid, the robot is swiftly propelled like a rocket and pierces the sack with its pointed end, allowing liquid to flow out.

Inventors hope to use the robot to pierce fluid-filled cysts within the brain when clinical trials begin in two years.

If successful, the process could be used to treat Dandy-Walker Syndrome, a rare brain malformation affecting children.

Sufferers of the congenital ailment can experience cysts the size of a golf ball, which swell and increase pressure on the brain, triggering a host of dangerous neurological conditions.

Bionaut Labs has already tested its robots on large animals such as sheep and pigs, and “the data shows that the technology is safe for us” human beings, said Shpigelmacher.

If approved, the robots could offer key advantages over existing treatments for brain disorders.

“Today, most brain surgery and brain intervention is limited to straight lines — if you don’t have a straight line to the target, you’re stuck, you’re not going to get there,” said Shpigelmacher.

Micro-robotic tech “allows you to reach targets you were not able to reach, and reaching them repeatedly in the safest trajectory possible,” he added.

– ‘Heating up’ –

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year granted Bionaut Labs approvals that pave the way for clinical trials to treat Dandy-Walker Syndrome, as well as malignant gliomas — cancerous brain tumors often considered to be inoperable.

In the latter case, the micro-robots will be used to inject anti-cancer drugs directly into brain tumors in a “surgical strike.”

Existing treatment methods involve bombarding the whole body with drugs, leading to potential severe side effects and loss of effectiveness, said Shpigelmacher.

The micro-robots can also take measurements and collect tissue samples while inside the brain.

Bionaut Labs — which has around 30 employees — has held discussions with partners for the use of its tech to treat other conditions affecting the brain including Parkinson’s, epilepsy or strokes.

“To the best of my knowledge, we are the first commercial effort” to design a product of this type with “a clear path to the clinic trials,” said Shpigelmacher.

“But I don’t think that we will be the only one… This area is heating up.”