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LONDON (AP) — The price of bitcoin fell below $20,000 for the first time since late 2020 on Saturday, in a fresh sign that the selloff in cryptocurrencies is deepening.

Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, fell below the psychologically important threshold, dropping as much as 9% to less than $19,000, according to CoinDesk.

The last time bitcoin was at this level was November 2020, when it was on its way up to its all-time high of nearly $69,000.

Bitcoin has now lost more than 70 percent of its value since reaching that peak.

Ethereum, another widely followed cryptocurrency that’s been sliding in recent weeks, took a similar tumble on Saturday.

It’s the latest sign of turmoil in the cryptocurrency industry amid wider turbulence in financial markets. Investors are selling off riskier assets because central banks are raising interest rates to combat quickening inflation.

A spate of crypto meltdowns have erased tens of billions of dollars of investors’ assets and sparked urgent calls to regulate the freewheeling industry.

Cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network said this month it was pausing all withdrawals and transfers, with no sign of when it would give its 1.7 million customers access to their funds.

Stablecoin Terra imploded last month, erasing tens of billions of dollars in a matter of hours.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) on Friday said its board of directors approved an $811 million loan guarantee to help finance the sale of Boeing wide-body aircraft to French-Dutch airline Air France-KLM SA.

EXIM said in a statement that the loan guarantee would support aircraft assembled at Boeing’s Everett, Washington, and North Charleston, South Carolina, factories, which produce 787 jetliners. It did not specify the number of aircraft involved, but KLM had ordered some 15 787-10 aircraft and began to take delivery of them in 2019.

Since then, Boeing experienced severe delays in 787 Dreamliner deliveries because of production flaws and has advised airlines and suppliers that deliveries would resume in the second half of 2022, but is still awaiting regulatory approvals.

EXIM said in a statement that the loan guarantee would support hundreds of small and medium-sized business suppliers and about 4,500 jobs in the United States.

“This transaction also helps a sector critical to U.S. economic security rebound from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said.

A Boeing spokesperson could not immediately be reached.

Boeing in December lost a major Air France-KLM order for 100 new narrow body jets to arch rival Airbus.

(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

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LIMA (Reuters) – Peru’s economic growth will likely be slightly lower this year, according to a new central bank forecast on Friday following disruptions to major mining projects in the Andean nation, the world’s second biggest copper producer.

Soaring consumer prices and creeping borrowing costs have clipped growth expectations across Latin America, with developing economies especially vulnerable to the economic volatility.

Peru’s central bank lowered its 2022 growth projection to 3.1% from 3.4% previously, while maintaining its estimate for 3.2% growth next year, bank president Julio Velarde said in a presentation.

Velarde cited persistent mining conflicts, in addition to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, as driving the downwardly revised growth projection.

Protests by indigenous people have disrupted Peru’s mining sector in recent months, including a 51-day shutdown at China-based MMG Ltd’s Las Bambas copper mine, a top global producer of the red metal.

“Other sectors are behaving better than we expected in March. What is falling is mining,” said Velarde.

The central bank slashed its 2022 growth expectation for the mining sector from 5.9% to 2.9%.

Velarde said he sees mining investment falling by nearly 5% this year, and a much steeper fall potentially in 2023.

“If no new projects appear next year … there will be a contraction in mining investment next year of almost 16%.”

The bank’s projections also include a lower fiscal deficit this year of 1.9% of gross domestic product compared to 2.5% previously projected in March, principally due to higher revenue, Velarde said.

The bank expects annual inflation of 6.4% for 2022 and 2.5% for 2023. In March, the bank said it expected 3.6% inflation this year.

Annual inflation in May reached 8.09%, its highest level in two dozen years, leading the bank to raise its benchmark interest rate to 5.5% earlier this month.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Grant McCool)

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By Divya Rajagopal and Ismail Shakil

TORONTO (Reuters) -Canada’s antitrust regulator said on Friday it remains opposed to Rogers Communications’ plan to purchase Shaw Communications, rejecting the companies’ argument that benefits to the economy would offset the harm to competition.

Proceedings to litigate the matter are due to start on June 23 and could continue until the end of the year.

The Competition Bureau has, however, not won a merger challenge before. Of eight that have gone before the competition tribunal, it lost or settled six, and two are pending, according to official data.

Canadian law allows for mergers that harm competition to be approved if the companies can prove the merger brings efficiency to the economy.

As part of the proposed C$20 billion ($15.4 billion) deal, Rogers has offered to sell Shaw’s Freedom mobile unit to allay competition concerns.

The bureau said the sale would weaken Freedom’s operations, taking out “competitive discipline” for the national carriers. The merger would also lead to a transfer of wealth from low and middle income groups to the wealthy families of Rogers-Shaw, it said.

Rogers declined to comment.

The companies had planned to close the transaction by July 31.

Shaw shares ended 1.5% higher at C$34.64, a 14.7% discount to Rogers’ offer price, reflecting uncertainty surrounding the deal. Rogers shares rose 1.9% to C$59.01, while the benchmark Canadian share index fell 0.4%.

($1 = 1.3026 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal and Ismail Shakil in Toronto; Editing by Alistair Bell and Edwina Gibbs)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Retailers and marketers have been quick to commemorate Juneteenth with an avalanche of merchandise from ice cream to T-shirts to party cups.

But many are getting backlash on social media for what critics say undermines the day, designated as a federal holiday last year to honor the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. A search for Juneteenth items among online sellers like Amazon and J.C. Penney produced everything from toothpicks with pan-African flags to party plates and balloons.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, apologized last month after getting slammed for a Juneteenth ice cream flavor — swirled red velvet and cheesecake — under its store label Great Value. Walmart said it’s reviewing its product assortment and will remove items “as appropriate.” As of Thursday, Walmart’s site was still offering lots of T-shirts and party plates.

Meanwhile, the Indianapolis Children’s Museum removed a Juneteenth watermelon salad from its menu and issued a mea culpa earlier this week. In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the museum blamed a lapse in vendor oversight, noting the label and salad were not reviewed by museum staff.

“We are an imperfect institution, but we are committed to improvement and will work tirelessly to regain your trust,” the museum wrote on its Facebook page.

The backlash comes as companies promised after the police killing of George Floyd in May of 2020 to no longer stay silent and vowed to take an active role in confronting and educating customers and employees on systemic racism. According to the preliminary results of a survey by Mercer of 200 employers, 33% are offering Juneteenth as a paid holiday to their staff. That’s up from 9% last year in a survey of more than 400 companies conducted shortly before Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday.

At the same time, many have cashed in on a holiday that Black Americans have observed since June 19, 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, in alignment with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

Many experts believe that if retailers and other marketers plan to recognize the day, they should either sell merchandise from Black-owned businesses or invest in campaigns that would help Black communities. Amazon. for instance, does have a Black-owned business storefront that’s live all year-round for customers who want to support and shop Black-owned businesses selling on the site.

“This is a serious and reflective moment — I am excited and grateful for the recognition,” said Ramon Manning, chairman of the board at Emancipation Park Conservancy, a nonprofit organization aimed to restore the park, which was purchased in 1872 by a group of former enslaved people to commemorate the anniversary of their emancipation.

“However, I feel like it is also brought back everybody else out of the woodwork who are opportunists more so than folks who are looking at the history of this country and looking at where a group of people have come from,” he added.

Manning, who is also founder and chairman of Ridgegate Capital, a private investment fund, further wondered: “Who is this going to benefit?”

Sheryl Daija, founder and CEO of Bridge, a group of marketing and diversity, equity and inclusion executives, noted there’s a disconnect between the seriousness of the holiday and the merchandise on display.

“A lot of companies have good intentions, but unfortunately good intentions can go awry, and this is what we have seen,” said Daija, who found Walmart’s Juneteenth ice cream particularly egregious because it used the holiday moniker to brand a new ice cream flavor.

Companies have a long history of commercializing holidays and other moments in order to cash in. Take Cinco de Mayo, which has become in the U.S a celebration of all things Mexican, with companies selling everything from beans to beer to sombrero hats. The holiday has spread from the American Southwest, even though most have no idea about its original ties to the U.S. Civil War, abolition and promotion of civil rights for Blacks. In fact, it’s often mistaken for Mexican Independence day.

Meanwhile, every October, retailers are awash in pink merchandise to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness month, but critics say many make misleading claims about supporting cancer groups. And Memorial Day, a federal holiday day designated to mourn the U.S. military who have died while serving in the U.S. armed forces, has morphed into all-day mattress sales at stores.

But what makes the move by companies to cash in on Juneteenth worse is that it comes as the U.S. remains fraught with racial tensions, said Darnise Martin, clinical associate professor of African American studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

“It is weird to merchandise around it, but that’s what America does,” Martin said.

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Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

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BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary has discounted the price of gasoline at the pump. But not if you have a foreign license plate.

It’s also taxing what it calls “extra profits” of industries including airlines, with carriers like Ryanair and EasyJet increasing ticket prices to cope.

The nationalist government argues that it’s trying to ease an economic downturn and the highest inflation in nearly 25 years amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, but the unusual moves by the central European country are alienating companies and threatening a renewed standoff with the European Union.

With these interventionist measures, which also include price caps on some food items, right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is jettisoning the conservative financial model of deregulation and free market capitalism.

The policies have helped lower some prices for Hungarians, but some multinational and domestic companies say they are damaging their bottom lines and competitiveness. Meanwhile, the EU has raised questions of whether the policies comply with its rules, following clashes between the 27-nation bloc and Hungary over rule-of-law concerns and corruption.

The EU takes issue with a requirement introduced in May that drivers with foreign license plates pay market prices for fuel at Hungarian gas stations, blocking them from purchasing gas and diesel that has been capped at 480 forints ($1.25) per liter since November.

Representing a price hike of as much as 60% for drivers with vehicles registered in other countries, the EU asked Hungary to scrap the requirement until it could determine if it complies with the bloc’s rules or face legal action, calling it “discriminatory.”

The fuel price cap gave Hungary among the lowest fuel prices in the EU, leading to fuel tourism and increased demand that caused lagging supply and shortages.

“The government had to act, but instead of opting for a more market-friendly solution, they have opted for something which goes straight against the values of the European Union,” Gyorgy Suranyi, an economist and former governor of Hungary’s central bank told The Associated Press.

In a radio interview last week, Orban blamed the war in neighboring Ukraine and EU sanctions against Russia for Hungary’s economic woes: its currency has weakened to record levels and core inflation soared to 12.2% in May. In comparison, consumer prices rose 8.1% in the 19 countries using the euro.

“We’re now in a wartime situation, and this must be resolved,” Orban said. “(Companies) will have to shoulder more of the burden than they normally do because Hungarian families cannot pay the price for this.”

His government, also facing a spiraling budget deficit after spending billions on handouts ahead of elections in April, said industries from banking to insurance to airlines that have enjoyed “extra profits” arising from soaring demand after the pandemic should contribute to the economic recovery.

It’s imposing a windfall profits tax July 1 that lasts through next year, hoping to raise 815 billion forints ($2.1 billion) to maintain a flagship program that reduces people’s utility bills and bolster Hungary’s military.

Some targeted industries like fossil fuels and banking are making higher-than-usual profits, but most are not, Suranyi said.

“This is not a windfall tax, this is a confiscation of the capital of these companies, which goes against the rule of law,” he said. “The airlines have definitely no windfall revenue.”

Several commercial airlines agree. The CEO of Ireland-based budget carrier Ryanair called the tax “highway robbery.”

“We call on (Hungary’s government) to reverse this idiotic ‘excess profits’ tax, or at least confine it to industries like oil or gas who are making windfall profits, and not airlines who are reporting record losses,” CEO Michael O’Leary said in a statement.

Ryanair, along with British low-cost airline EasyJet and Hungary-based budget carrier Wizz Air, said they would add around 10 euros (dollars) to each ticket to cover the costs of the new tax.

Hungarian commercial bank K&H Bank said it too would raise its fees.

A government statement said companies should not pass along the costs to customers because “Hungarian families should not have to pay the price of the war.”

“The government has already indicated that it will carry out a thorough investigation of each suspected case and will take firm action against harmful practices,” the statement reads.

Hungary has launched a consumer protection investigation against Ryanair for increasing ticket prices.

Some Hungarians, who earn among the lowest wages in the EU, say the reduced fuel prices are keeping them afloat as costs of other goods, especially food, keep rising.

“I think it’s good for us, but I’m not sure it’s sustainable in the long term,” Nikoletta Palhidi, a nurse from the village of Hetes, said recently as she fueled her car. “I don’t know that the state can keep this all up.”

Jozsef Toth, a retired farmer from a small village in southwest Hungary, said that alongside his meager pension of around $250 per month, the gasoline price cap has eased the burden. But he wasn’t sure about charging foreign vehicles more for fuel.

“It’s good for us, but it’s a bit strange that the foreigners have to pay more. If we would go (to their countries), they’d sell it to us for more,” he said.

While drivers have experienced relief, the owners of small gas stations are seeing significant shortfalls as they make no profit, said Janos Baintner, owner of a small filling station in Somogyvar in southwest Hungary.

Baintner said the price cap has caused him a deficit of around 2 million forints ($5,200) per month since November and that it has endangered the livelihoods of around 10,000 families that rely on work at small filling stations.

“If our profit margins are guaranteed, then we agree that fuel should be cheap in the interests of protecting families,” Baintner said. “But we shouldn’t be the ones to pay the price.”

Suranyi, the former governor of Hungary’s central bank, agreed.

“I do have sympathy, if there is room for maneuvering, for reducing the burden on individual households once such external shocks arrive,” he said. “But to reduce the burden, the reasonable approach is definitely not a price cap.”

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GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Trade Organization’s 164 members approved a series of trade agreements early on Friday that included commitments on fish and pledges on health and food security after more than five gruelling days of negotiations. [L1N2Y400M]

Here are details on those agreements

PANDEMIC RESPONSE

India and South Africa and other developing countries have sought a waiver of intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for over a year, but faced opposition from several developed nations with major pharmaceutical producers.

A provisional deal between major parties – India, South Africa, the United States and the European Union – limited to vaccines emerged in May and this is largely what has been adopted.

Developing countries will be allowed to authorise the use of a patent for production and supply without the patent holder’s consent for five years, subject to a possible extension. The production need not be predominantly for the domestic market, meaning more exports are allowed to ensure equitable access.

Within six months, WTO members are to consider extending the waiver to therapeutics and diagnostics.

China has voluntarily opted out of the waiver, something the United States had insisted on.

Campaign groups had urged members to reject the text, saying it was too narrow and was not a real IP waiver at all.

The WTO also agreed a declaration on its response to COVID-19 and preparedness for future pandemics, stressing the needs of least developed countries.

Members further recognised that any emergency trade measures should be proportionate and temporary and not cause unnecessary disruptions to supply chains. Members should also exercise restraint in imposing export restrictions on essential medical goods.

FISHING

WTO members struck an agreement to reduce subsidies that contribute to over-fishing, a step that environmentalists say is vital to helping fish stocks recover.

Talks have been going on for 20 years and the deal is only the second multilateral agreement on new global trade rules that the WTO has agreed in its 27-year history. The fisheries outcome was seen as a critical test of the WTO’s own credibility.

The agreement says that no WTO member shall grant any subsidy for vessels or operator engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing or for fishing of an over-fished stock.

Developing countries will be exempt for two years.

Members themselves will carry out investigations into activities off their coasts and all member will be required to notify the WTO of their fishing subsidy schemes.

India had earlier been one of the biggest critics.

Talks will however continue to achieve a more comprehensive agreement to crack down further on fisheries subsidies, ideally for the next ministerial conference, likely to be in 2023.

FOOD SECURITY

The WTO sought to respond to a food supply and price hike crisis exacerbated by export disruptions from major cereal producers Ukraine and Russia.

WTO members agreed in a declaration that they would take concrete steps to facilitate trade of food and agriculture, including cereals, fertilizers and other agricultural inputs, and reaffirmed the importance of limiting export restrictions.

WTO members also agreed to a binding decision not to curb exports to the World Food Programme (WFP), which seeks to fight hunger in places hit by conflicts, disasters and climate change. Members would still be free to adopt measures to ensure their own food security.

E-COMMERCE MORATORIUM

WTO members have extended a moratorium on placing customs duties on electronic transmissions, from streaming services to financial transactions and corporate data flows, worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

The moratorium has been in place since 1998. South Africa and India had initially opposed an extension, saying they should not be missing out on customs revenues.

The extension runs to the next ministerial conference, which would normally be held by the end of 2023, but in any case will expire on March 31, 2024.

WTO REFORM

All WTO members say the organisation’s rule book needs updating, although they disagree on what changes are required.

Most pressingly, its dispute appeals court has been paralysed for nearly two years since then-U.S. president Donald Trump blocked new adjudicator appointments, which has curbed the WTO’s ability to resolve trade disputes.

Members committed to work towards necessary reforms of the WTO to improve its functions. This work should be transparent and address the interests of all members, including developing countries, which are afforded special treatment.

The WTO committed to conduct discussions so as to have a fully functioning dispute settlement system by 2024.

The declaration highlighted the growing importance of services trade and the need to increase the participation of developing countries.

The members also recognised global environmental challenges including climate change and related natural disasters, loss of biodiversity and pollution. Some experts believe issues about the environment have the potential to give the body a new vitality and purpose.

(Reporting by Emma Farge and Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Volkswagen AG’s top U.S. executive said on Thursday the United States faces major challenges in ramping up battery production to facilitate a shift to electric vehicles including attracting skilled workers, mining for key metals and supply chain issues.

Scott Keogh, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America, told an Automotive News forum in Washington that the move to EVs is the single biggest “industrial transformation in America.”

Automakers and battery companies are committing tens of billions of dollars to building new battery plants and EV assembly plants throughout North America as they scale up electric vehicle production. This move, focusing on vehicles powered by advanced new batteries rather than gasoline, requires the United States to overcome a series of challenges, Keogh said.

These challenges include attracting enough skilled workers, dramatically boosting and facilitating U.S. mining for critical minerals to produce the lithium batteries for EVs, supply chain issues and more broadly addressing healthcare, education and infrastructure, Keogh said.

Keogh told Reuters on the sidelines of the forum that potentially hundreds of thousands of people could be employed by 2030 in U.S. battery industry production.

“It comes down to labor, it comes down to the infrastructure, it comes down to the investment,” Keogh said.

President Joe Biden has set a goal of 50% of new-vehicle sales being electric or plug-in electric by 2030, but has not endorsed phasing out gasoline-powered vehicle sales by any specific date.

Keogh estimated that the United States is making 150,000-200,000 batteries a year and that seven years from now “we need to be making 8.5 million batteries” annually.

“This is a scale of investment that honestly is going to make the industrial revolution look like a cake walk. It’s massive,” Keogh said.

Keogh also said the United States needs to do more to boost manufacturing capacity. The U.S. manufacturing sector has fallen from than 17 million jobs in 2000 to 12.8 million today, which has rebounded to about pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

“We need to build a collective ecosystem turning America into a manufacturing society again. I think America has become a service economy,” Keogh said. “The challenge of getting somebody who’s been working at a Starbucks taking 20-minute breaks, smoking a cigarette out back and is now jumping into a factory … is a whole new world.”

Keogh said long shifts for factory workers are much different.

“This is brutal, difficult, challenging work,” Keogh said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Will Dunham)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. housing finance giant Freddie Mac said on Thursday the average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose by more than half a percentage point to 5.78%, the greatest one-week jump in 35 years.

Rates on the most popular type of U.S. home loan surged after the Federal Reserve announced it was raising interest rates by 75 basis points in an attempt to slow the economy and quell inflation, which is at 40-year-highs.

“These higher (mortgage) rates are the result of a shift in expectations about inflation and the course of monetary policy,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Higher mortgage rates will lead to moderation from the blistering pace of housing activity that we have experienced coming out of the pandemic, ultimately resulting in a more balanced housing market.”

Mortgage rates have risen sharply since this time last year when the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 2.93%.

Still, more homebuyers sought properties compared to a week earlier, perhaps signaling a flurry of activity before aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve further impacts the sector, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said on Wednesday.

The MBA’s Purchase Composite Index, which covers mortgage loan applications for single family homes, increased 8.1% from a week ago. The MBA’s Refinance Index rose 3.7%.

Purchase applications, however, were down more than 15% from last year as low housing stock and lack of affordability, alongside climbing rates, appeared to have impacted demand.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall; Editing by David Gregorio)

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By Jody Godoy and Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) -Lyft Inc has reached a $25 million settlement to resolve shareholder claims that the ride-hailing company concealed safety problems, including sexual assaults by drivers, prior to its 2019 initial public offering.

The preliminary all-cash settlement was filed on Thursday with the federal court in Oakland, California, and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr.

Lyft denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

The San Francisco-based company raised $2.34 billion in its IPO, becoming the first ride-hailing business to go public.

But its share price fell below the $72 IPO price less than two weeks after trading began on March 29, 2019, and never recovered.

Shareholders accused Lyft of trying to appear more socially responsible than rival Uber Technologies Inc by failing to disclose known problems in its IPO registration statement, and that its share price fell as the problems surfaced.

The shareholders said dozens of people brought claims against Lyft related to driver sexual misconduct in the months after the IPO, an “existential risk” to its brand that should have been disclosed.

Lyft was also accused of concealing braking issues plaguing its bike-share program, which surfaced in April 2019 when the company pulled its electric bike fleet from the New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. markets.

Shareholders said Lyft also concealed its dependence on promotions to boost market share, resulting in a price war that saw Uber reclaim market share it had lost.

The shareholders’ lawyers called the settlement an “excellent” result given the “exceedingly unlikely” prospect of recovering up to $777 million of potential damages at trial.

They expect to seek up to $6.25 million from the settlement for legal fees.

Lyft shares closed Thursday down 8.4% at $13.88. They have fallen 78% since last July, as tight labor supply forces greater spending to hire drivers.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in Santa Ana, California and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker)

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