Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, August 29, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
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Fuel to the fire Oil prices surged to their highest in over a year during Asian trading hours. Futures for West Texas Intermediate crude rallied around 1% to $94.61 while Brent added 0.86% to $97.38. The spike in price’s largely because of a report that crude inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma fell close to their operational minimum.
Meta doubles down on the metaverse Meta announced Quest 3, the latest version of its virtual reality headset. Available for $499 — $200 more expensive than the Quest 2 — the headset includes a feature called “passthrough” that allows users to see the world outside quickly. At the company’s event, Meta also announced new artificial intelligence software and digital assistants modeled by celebrities.
[PRO] Real yields, real losses It’s not just U.S. Treasury yields that have been hitting surging lately. Real yields — that is, the yield after factoring in inflation — are also at their highest in decades. That spells trouble for global stocks that have “long duration exposures,” according to Morgan Stanley.
The bottom line
September’s story hasn’t changed: High yields and oil prices are dragging down stocks. But a twist in the story — a potential and increasingly unavoidable U.S. government shutdown — is making it truly difficult for stocks to have any confidence to climb.
Let’s look at each factor in turn.
Yields on the U.S. 10-year Treasury breached 4.6%, while that of the 2-year Treasury inched up to 5.137% yesterday. If yields continue on their upward trend, it’s likely they’d trigger fresh fears of recession as the cost of borrowing increases.
Rising Treasury yields aren’t the only costs weighing on the economy — oil prices are surging again. As oil is an input cost for so many components of the economy — from the obvious like gasoline for vehicles, to the more unexpected like food and grocery prices — there’s a possibility companies and consumers will cut back on spending.
Last, a government shutdown means economic data will be delayed, hobbling a Federal Reserve that’s repeatedly said it’s “data-dependent.” With interest rates the highest they’ve been in more than 20 years, even the most careful calibration will have an outsized impact on the economy. Going at it blind — through no fault of the Fed’s — won’t inspire confidence in markets.
And a shutdown risks another downgrade by ratings agencies. Indeed, the U.S. is weaker now, fiscally speaking, than it was in 2011 when S&P Global Ratings downgraded the country’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+, said John Chambers, former chairman of S&P’s ratings committee.
Even though September’s already ending, things, as BTIG’s Jonathan Krinsky puts it, “are likely to remain messy.”
Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
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The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
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Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
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The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
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