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BERLIN (Reuters) – Electric carmaker Tesla will pause production for two weeks at its new manufacturing plant outside Berlin starting from Monday July 11, Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Friday, citing a top German union.

Employees at the company’s so-called Gigafactory in Gruenheide were informed about the production break some time ago, IG Metall union told the newspaper, adding that the break would be used to maintain the factory.

Tesla was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Jan Harvey)

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OTTAWA (Reuters) – Montreal-based Quebecor Inc, through its unit Videotron, will intervene in the antitrust review of Rogers Communications Inc’s C$20 billion ($15.5 billion) purchase of Shaw Communications Inc, according to a notice posted Friday on the website of Canada’s competition tribunal.

($1 = 1.2940 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa and Divya Rajagopal in Toronto)

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By Ananya Mariam Rajesh

(Reuters) -Levi Strauss & Co’s denim jeans and jackets were swept off the racks in the second quarter as people returning to work and social events stuck to the comfortable styles that had dominated during lockdowns.

That, along with higher prices, helped Levi’s trump results estimates and raise its quarterly dividend, sending its shares about 4% higher in extended trading.

Like its peers, Levi’s also hiked prices to counter surging costs of raw material and labor, but the company is yet to see much impact from that on demand as its loose-fitting clothes such as baggy jeans are still being snapped up.

“At the moment, a consumer is likely to decide to put their dollars towards (Levi’s product),” Jane Hali and Associates senior analyst Jessica Ramírez said, adding that there is a denim boom.

Still, revenue from Levi’s value brands including Signature were down mid-single digits in the quarter, signaling that lower-income consumers are starting to feel the pinch from rising inflation, Chief Executive Officer Charles Bergh said.

Those brands represent a small part of Levi’s total revenue.

In the quarter ended May 29, the Dockers and Denizen owner’s total revenue rose 15% to $1.47 billion, above analysts’ expectation of $1.43 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Levi’s also reaffirmed its revenue and profit forecasts for 2022 and bumped up its quarterly dividend by 20% to 12 cents per share.

Net income fell 23% though, as the jeans maker recorded $60 million in charges related to the suspension of its operations in Russia.

Excluding items, the 169-year-old company earned 29 cents per share, beating estimates of 23 cents.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

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(Reuters) – Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk and an executive at one of his companies had twins last year, Business Insider reported this week, citing court records.

It is unclear whether the revelation about the relationship will affect Musk’s position at any of his companies. Musk did not respond to Reuters’ request for comments.

Several high profile leaders of U.S. companies have made headlines in recent years over relationships with employees. Below is a list of some of them:

Leader Company Year Details

Vince McMahon WWE 2022 Steps down

following

allegations

of a secret

$3 million

settlement

to hide

affair with

employee.

Jeff Zucker CNN 2022 Resigns

citing

failure to

disclose a

consensual

relationshi

p with a

colleague

Steve McDonald’s 2019 Dismissed

Easterbrook Corp over

employee

relationshi

p that

board found

“demonstrat

ed poor

judgment.”

[https://reut.rs/3yriH5Q

]

Brian Krzanich Intel Corp 2018 Resigns

after

investigati

on found

relationshi

p with

employee,

in breach

of company

policy [https://reut.rs/3NPdTgy

]

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Sam Holmes)

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By Brendan O’Boyle and Gabriel Araujo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s annual inflation accelerated in June to a level not seen since early 2001, official data showed on Thursday, leaving the central bank little choice but to continue its monetary tightening to tame spiraling consumer prices.

Mexican consumer prices rose 7.99% in the year through June, the national statistics agency said, slightly above a 7.95% consensus forecast of economists polled by Reuters.

That was also far above the central bank’s target of 3%, plus or minus a percentage point, and marked the highest level since January 2001, when Mexico’s 12-month inflation stood at 8.11%.

The latest inflation figures are expected to lead Banxico, as the central bank is known, to keep raising rates after a record 75-basis points hike last month, when it warned it would hike rates again and by as much to curb inflation.

The bank, which has increased rates by 375 basis points since mid-2021, will announce its next monetary policy decision on Aug. 11.

“A 75bp hike in the policy rate in August to 8.5% looks almost certain, and the risks to our forecast that the policy rate will end the year at 9.5% increasingly look skewed to the upside,” said William Jackson, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

Consumer prices rose 0.84% in June, non-seasonally adjusted figures showed, ahead of a market forecast of a 0.81% increase.

The closely watched core index, which strips out some volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.77% during the month, below expectations of a 0.8% rise.

Minutes released Thursday from the central bank’s June monetary policy meeting showed that most of the bank’s five board members agreed that expectations for inflation for 2022 and 2023 had again increased considerably.

Analysts predicted inflation will stop rising before the year’s end, but will remain around their current high.

“We believe that inflation will peak in August or September, and should stay more or less stable around 7.5% and 8.0% for the rest of the year,” Adrian de la Garza, chief economist at Citibanamex, said in a call with reporters Thursday.

Andres Abadia, Latin America economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, called the data a bad end to the second quarter, with pass-through from higher commodity prices the key issue.

“That said, we still expect a gradual downtrend in inflation over the second half of the year, thanks to the lagged effect of tighter monetary policy, and the impact of recent government policies to put a lid on key prices,” Abadia said in a note to clients.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Boyle and Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Diane Craft)

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DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s data privacy regulator moved a step closer to a ruling that could halt EU-U.S. data transfers by Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram when it shared an updated draft order with other EU regulators on Thursday, a spokesperson said.

Europe’s highest court ruled in 2020 that an EU-U.S. data transfer agreement was invalid, citing surveillance concerns. That prompted Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) to issue a provisional order to block the mechanism Meta uses to transfer data.

While the European Union and U.S. have since announced a preliminary data transfer deal in a bid to end the limbo, the DPC’s probe has continued in parallel and it informed its EU counterparts of the draft decision on Thursday, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson would not comment on the content of the draft decision.

Under EU privacy rules introduced in 2018, regulators around the bloc have one month to give their input before a final decision is reached. Any objections, which have regularly been lodged in such cases, could add months to the timeline.

The DPC is the EU’s lead regulator of Meta and many other of the world’s largest technology companyies due to the location of their EU headquarters in Ireland.

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Conor Humphries)

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(Reuters) – Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk and Shivon Zilis, a top executive at his brain-chip startup Neuralink, had twins in November 2021, Insider reported.

In April, Musk and Zilis filed a petition to change the name of the twins to “have their father’s last name” and contain their mother’s last name as part of their middle name, Insider said on Wednesday, citing court documents.

A court docket summary on the Westlaw legal research service showed a judge signed an “Order Changing the Names Of Multiple Children” on May 11 after the name change petition from Musk and Zilis made on April 25 this year.

On Thursday, Musk tweeted, “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.” He did not refer to the Insider report.

“A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” he said.

The twins bring Musk’s total count of children to nine. Musk shares two children with Canadian singer Grimes, and another five children with his ex-wife Canadian author Justine Wilson.

Musk and Grimes welcomed their second child via surrogate in December, a month after Musk and Zilis reportedly had twins.

The billionaire said that he and Grimes were “semi-separated,” according to a report by Page Six in September last year.

Musk and Zilis did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comments.

The report, without citing a source, said Zilis has been floated as one of the people Musk could have run Twitter Inc after his $44 billion acquisition deal.

Zilis, 36, is identified on her LinkedIn profile as director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, which is co-founded and chaired by Musk, 51. She started working at the company in May 2017, the same month she was named a project director in artificial intelligence at Tesla, where she worked until 2019.

She also serves as a board member at artificial-intelligence research firm OpenAI, which was co-founded by Musk, according to her profile on LinkedIn.

(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco and Mike Scarcella in Silver Spring, Maryland; Editing by Sandra Maler and Howard Goller)

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By Herbert Lash

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar traded little changed against the euro and other trading currencies on Thursday, though sterling held on to gains after Boris Johnson said he was quitting as British prime minister.

Investors are waiting for U.S. jobs data on Friday and consumer price data next week that should signal the pace of inflation and whether the Federal Reserve continues to aggressively hike interest rates when policymakers meet on July 26-27.

“What’s being priced into the July Fed meeting is predicated on that inflation print coming in reasonably elevated. We suspect that it will,” said Bipan Rai, North America head of FX strategy at CIBC Capital Markets in Toronto.

The strength of non-farm payrolls on Friday should also point to how fast wages are increasing, while the U.S. central bank doesn’t appear to be as encumbered as other major central banks, he said.

“To us that suggests the U.S. dollar is still going to be the currency that outperforms,” Rai said.

The dollar index, which measures the currency against six counterparts, fell 0.047% after Wednesday’s peak of 107.27, a level not seen since late 2002. The euro was down 0.07% to $1.0176 after sliding to a two-decade low of 1.01615 on Wednesday.

Investors are grappling with the risks of a recession and whether interest rate hikes will be paused as global demand is under pressure.

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model estimates seasonally adjusted GDP growth on an annual basis in the second quarter was -2.1%.

Implied volatility remains near its highest levels since late March 2020 at 11.2%, reflecting a nervous market as investors contemplate parity between the euro and dollar.

“Parity is within reach, and one can expect the market to want to see it now,” said Moritz Paysen, currency and rates advisor at Berenberg.

According to George Saravelos, global head of forex research at Deutsche Bank, “if Europe and the U.S. slip-slide into a recession in Q3 while the Fed is still hiking rates, these levels (0.95-0.97 in EUR/USD) could well be reached.”

Commodity-linked currencies strengthened as copper prices climbed. Some investors returned to the market on Thursday after heightened recession fears sent the red metal to its lowest level in nearly 20 months.

The Australian dollar rose 0.7% to 0.6830 against the dollar after recently hitting its lowest level since June 2020 at 0.6762.

GRAPHIC: Australian dollar https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/lbvgnxqlzpq/Pasted%20image%201657190411529.png

The Swiss Franc eased from its seven-year high, with the dollar up 0.2% at 0.9727.

Sterling rose after Johnson said he would resign. It was last up 0.62% at $1.1993.

Analysts said the pound was mostly moving on broader economic concerns about a global recession, rather than Britain’s political turmoil.

Bitcoin last rose 0.86% to $20,723.85.

Currency bid prices at 10:17AM (1417 GMT)

Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid

Previous Change

Session

Dollar index 107.0000 107.0600 -0.05% 11.851% +107.1600 +106.7000

Euro/Dollar $1.0176 $1.0183 -0.07% -10.49% +$1.0221 +$1.0165

Dollar/Yen 135.7600 135.9000 -0.10% +17.94% +136.2200 +135.5500

Euro/Yen 138.14 138.39 -0.18% +6.00% +139.0700 +138.0800

Dollar/Swiss 0.9727 0.9710 +0.20% +6.65% +0.9741 +0.9685

Sterling/Dollar $1.1993 $1.1922 +0.62% -11.31% +$1.2023 +$1.1912

Dollar/Canadian 1.3004 1.3036 -0.24% +2.86% +1.3055 +1.2980

Aussie/Dollar $0.6830 $0.6783 +0.70% -6.03% +$0.6848 +$0.6765

Euro/Swiss 0.9897 0.9883 +0.14% -4.55% +0.9931 +0.9875

Euro/Sterling 0.8484 0.8536 -0.61% +1.00% +0.8554 +0.8482

NZ $0.6179 $0.6147 +0.50% -9.74% +$0.6195 +$0.6144

Dollar/Dollar

Dollar/Norway 10.1015 10.1300 +0.10% +15.10% +10.1505 +10.0835

Euro/Norway 10.2824 10.3224 -0.39% +2.69% +10.3434 +10.2747

Dollar/Sweden 10.5414 10.5327 +0.05% +16.89% +10.5644 +10.4938

Euro/Sweden 10.7282 10.7230 +0.05% +4.83% +10.7483 +10.7165

(Reporting by Herbert Lash, additional reporting by Stefano Rebaudo; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Tomasz Janowski and Paul Simao)

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By Florence Tan

(Reuters) -Brent crude futures extended declines for a third session on Thursday, slipping under $100 a barrel, as fears of a potential global recession spurred concerns about oil demand.

Brent crude futures fell 94 cents, or 0.9%, to $99.75 a barrel by 0231 GMT after tumbling to a session low of $98.50 earlier. WTI crude futures slid 79 cents, or 0.8%, to $97.74 a barrel.

Both benchmarks closed on Wednesday at their lowest since April 11. The declines follow a dramatic fall on Tuesday despite tight global supplies. WTI slid 8% while Brent tumbled 9% – a $10.73 drop that was the third biggest for the contract since it started trading in 1988.

“Oil is getting decimated with little new information about production or consumption,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management.

“Still, with commodity traders turning very risk-averse due to growing demand and still hawkish (U.S.) Fed policy concerns, the recessionary headline risk is like an anvil around the market’s neck.”

Oil prices have slid alongside other commodities such as metals and palm oil as central banks across the world raised interest rates to battle inflation, fanning fears of recession that could dampen demand for commodities.

“It seems as though the market is starting to price in that scenario,” Warren Patterson, ING’s head of commodity research said, referring to recession.

However, he added that it’s hard to be overly bearish on oil prices as the Brent monthly spreads remain in wide backwardation, indicating tight supplies. Prompt prices are higher than those in future months in a backwardated market.

Traders are watching for possible oil supply disruption at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which has been told by a Russian court to suspend activity for 30 days. Exports at CPC, which handles about 1% of global oil supplies, were still flowing as of Wednesday morning.

In addition, investors awaited U.S. government data due on Thursday that will shed light on the state of domestic oil and fuel inventories.

Industry data on Wednesday showed that U.S. crude inventories rose by about 3.8 million barrels last week, according to market sources. Gasoline inventories fell by 1.8 million barrels, while distillate stocks fell by about 635,000 barrels. [API/S] [EIA/S]

(Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore and Stephanie Kelly in New York; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell & Simon Cameron-Moore)

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By Kevin Buckland

TOKYO (Reuters) – The euro hovered near a two-decade low against the dollar on Thursday as Europe’s energy woes cast a long shadow over the economic outlook.

The euro was about flat at $1.01845 after sinking as low as $1.01615 on Wednesday, for the first time since late 2002.

The dollar index – which measures the currency against six peers including the euro, sterling and yen – held close to a 20-year peak at 107.27 reached overnight, last changing hands at 107.03.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the country must move faster in its green energy transition with Russia using energy as a political weapon amid the war in Ukraine.

“U.S recession risk will periodically undercut the dollar, but Europe’s energy cost squeeze is a greater threat to the Eurozone growth outlook,” Westpac strategists wrote in a client note.

“The DXY’s (dollar index’s) broader medium-term uptrend likely persists a while yet, with scope for further unwinding of pricing for ECB policy tightening.”

Thickening clouds over the European economy come just as the European Central Bank is preparing to raise borrowing costs for the first time since 2011.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been hiking rates aggressively, and minutes of June’s meeting – when policy makers tightened by 75 basis points, the most since 1994 – revealed their concern that worsening inflation would erase faith in the Fed’s ability to control it.

Investors had been paring bets for a prolonged aggressive tightening campaign since that meeting, as recession worries flared, but data overnight showed U.S. job openings fell less than expected in May, pointing to a still tight labor market that could keep the Fed on the offensive.

The next major U.S. economic release will be Friday’s jobs report for June. Economists polled by Reuters expect employers to have added 268,000 non-farm payrolls during the month.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields slipped to 2.904% in Tokyo trading on Thursday from as high as 2.935% overnight, when the yield also tumbled to a more than one-month low of 2.746% due to conflicting signals over the policy outlook.

The dollar-yen rate, which is extremely sensitive to changes in long-term U.S. yields, eased 0.07% to 135.79 yen, consolidating around that level after pulling back from a 24-year high at 137.00 at the end of last month.

Analysts expect the pair to stay above 130 by year-end, although only seven of the 61 respondents expect it to be weaker than it is now, with four of those predicting a surge to 140, a Reuters poll showed.

Sterling languished near a two-year trough with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson fighting to keep his job amid a mounting rebellion within his party.

Investors also digested balanced comments from Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill, who said he was willing to step up the pace of rate hikes depending on the economic data, but preferred a “steady-handed” approach to “one-off bold moves,” which can “be disturbing.”

Sterling was little changed at $1.1924, after an overnight dip to the lowest since March 2020 at $1.1877. [GBP/]

(Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Sonali Desai)

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