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CNBC Daily Open: Soft landing hit by minor turbulence

Published

1 year ago

October 2, 2024

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Dockworkers strike at the Bayport Container Terminal in Seabrook, Texas, on October 1, 2024.

Mark Felix | Afp | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

U.S. stocks shaken as Hong Kong market rallies
U.S. stocks fell on fears over growing geopolitical tensions. The S&P 500 slipped 0.93%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.41% and the Nasdaq Composite retreated 1.53%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index popped around 5%, propelled by the year’s strongest rally in Hong Kong-listed Chinese property stocks.

Escalating Middle East conflict
Prices of WTI and Brent oil rose around 1.6% during Asian trading hours as conflict escalated in the Middle East. On Tuesday, Israel began a ground offensive in Lebanon and Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel. Analysts told CNBC there’s a chance Israel will hit Iran’s oil infrastructure, which could cause oil to spike to more than $100 a barrel.

Widespread effect of port strike
Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association started striking Tuesday, halting activity at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, which stretch from Maine to Texas. If the strike drags on, global supply chains and the economy could take a beating. That runs the risk of causing inflation to flare up again.

Risk-off on crypto
Amid this cautious atmosphere, investors pulled back from cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is currently trading at $61,407.21, down from nearly $66,000 on Sunday. Crypto-related companies also struggled on Tuesday. Coinbase tumbled 7.4% and fell around 1% in extended trading.

[PRO] Fund manager’s worst-performing stock
Ranmore Global Equity Fund managed to beat the S&P the past two years. But there have been slip-ups as well. Its fund manager shares with CNBC the worst-performing stock he’s picked: why he bought it, what went wrong and the lessons he learned.

The bottom line

Just when the coast appeared clear, geopolitical tensions and potential supply chain snarl-ups threaten to turn the soft-landing trajectory into a bumpy one.

Port workers along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast started striking Tuesday. At a port in the New York-New Jersey area, around 100,000 shipping containers “are literally in limbo in the port,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

“A disruption of a week or two will create some backlogs but the broader consequences will be minimal,” said Adam Kamins, economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Should the work stoppage go on for longer, however, “you’re running into businesses that have real shortages and, yeah, they’ll absolutely have to raise those prices,” said Christopher Ball, economics professor at Quinnipiac University.

(Fans of Rao’s pasta sauce need not fear, for now. Piper Sandler wrote that Campbell Soup, which bought Rao’s earlier this year, “has healthy levels of inventory on hand.”)

Meanwhile, oil prices spiked as markets feared Iran, a member of OPEC, would be dragged into a larger conflict in the Middle East. Higher oil prices pose a risk to inflation resurging, or at least slowing less than everyone is hoping for.

With those fears and uncertainties swirling, the Cboe Volatility Index, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, climbed to 19.3 on Tuesday. It closed at 15.4 a week ago. Major U.S. indexes fell, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq suffering the most as megacaps like Tesla, Nvidia and Apple dropped.

It’s just the first days of the port strike and flare-up in Middle East tensions, however. The classic safe-haven trades, like bonds, gold and the U.S. dollar, aren’t showing up in the prices of those assets yet, noted CNBC’s Steve Liesman.

The best-case scenario would be that recent events are just minor turbulence on the way to a soft landing.

– CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Fred Imbert, Lori Ann LaRocco, Sean Conlon, Alex Harring and Brian Evans contributed to this story.

Environment

Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]

Published

7 hours ago

November 26, 2025

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Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]

Just over a year after Uber announced a strategic partnership in the Middle East with autonomous vehicle specialist WeRide, the companies have officially begun offering the public robotaxi rides without a driver or safety operator present on board.

Today’s latest milestone involving robotaxi operations in the Middle East dates back to September 2024, when Uber and WeRide initially announced a strategic partnership to bring autonomous rides to the UAE.

Three months later, the partner officially launched autonomous rides in Abu Dhabi, but with a safety operator present in the vehicle. At the time, Uber and WeRide said the supervised rides were “laying the groundwork” for a true driverless commercial operations planned for 2025.

That day has come.

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WeRide and Uber have confirmed that commercial robotaxi operations are officially underway in Abu Dhabi without any safety operators on board – a first for the Middle East.

Uber rolls out Middle East robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi

Uber shared details of its latest milestone late this evening or in the afternoon in the Middle East, depending on where you are.

Beginning today (Wednesday) customers in Abu Dhabi can select an UberX or Uber Comfort ride that enables them to be matched with a fully autonomous WeRide robotaxi without a driver inside. Riders in the Middle East can also increase their chances of hailing one of these driverless rides by select the “Autonomous” option in the Uber app.

In order to qualify, the prosepctive rider’s route must be part of WeRide’s operating territory in Abu Dhabi and a dedicated WeRide GXR Robotaxi vehicle (seen in the featured image above) must be available.

Similar to Uber’s partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta, the global rideshare network will oversee fleet operations for WeRide vehicles, handling end-to end rider support. It has tapped Tawasul Transport to facilitate vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, charging, and depot management. WeRide will remain responsible for vehicle testing.

As you may recall last spring, Uber and WeRide announced an expansion to their strategic partnership beyond the Middle East (although Dubai will be the city for its next robotaxi rollout). Over the next five years, Uber and WeRide intend to deploy true driverless public rides in 15 additional cities, some of which will be in Europe.

As promised, here’s some b-roll footage from Uber showing how riders in Abu Dhabi can order a WeRide robotaxi:

Source: Uber

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Environment

ChargePoint brings 40+ new fast-charging ports to metro Detroit

Published

14 hours ago

November 26, 2025

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ChargePoint brings 40+ new fast-charging ports to metro Detroit

ChargePoint metro Detroit — Photo: ChargePoint

Metro Detroit is about to get a big boost of fast EV chargers, with more than 40 new ChargePoint ports set to come online across multiple sites owned by the Dabaja Brothers Development Group.

The first ultra-fast charging site just opened in Canton, Michigan. It’s owned and operated by Dabaja Brothers, who plan to follow it with additional ChargePoint-equipped locations in Dearborn and Livonia.

“We started this project because we saw a gap in our community – there was almost nowhere to charge an EV in Canton, and a similar lack of charging across metro Detroit,” said Yousef Dabaja, owner/operator at Dabaja Brothers.

Each metro Detroit site will feature ChargePoint Express Plus fast charging stations, which can deliver up to 500 kW to a single port, can fast-charge two vehicles at the same time, and are compatible with all EVs. The stations feature a proprietary cooling system to deliver peak charging speeds for sustained periods, ensuring that charging speed remains consistent.

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The stations operate on the new ChargePoint Platform, which enables operators to monitor performance, adjust pricing, troubleshoot issues, and gain real-time insights to keep chargers running smoothly.

Rick Wilmer, CEO at ChargePoint, said, “This initiative will rapidly infill the ‘fast charging deserts’ across the Detroit area, allowing drivers to quickly recharge their vehicles when and where they need to.”

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Environment

Mercedes-Benz opens its first DC fast charging hub at Starbucks

Published

18 hours ago

November 25, 2025

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Mercedes-Benz opens its first DC fast charging hub at Starbucks

Mercedes-Benz charging Starbucks — Photo: Mercedes-Benz HPC North America

Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging and Starbucks have officially opened their first DC fast charging hub together, off the I-5 in Red Bluff, California.

The 400 kW Mercedes-Benz chargers are capable of adding up to 300 miles in 10 minutes, depending on the EV, and every stall has both NACS and CCS cables – they’re fully open DC fast chargers.

Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Mercedes-Benz Group and renewable energy producer MN8 Energy, first announced in July 2024 that it would install DC fast chargers at Starbucks stores along Interstate 5, the main 1,400-mile north-south interstate highway on the US West Coast from Canada to Mexico. Ultimately, Mercedes plans to install fast chargers at 100 Starbucks stores across the US.

Mercedes-Benz HPC opened its first North American charging site at Mercedes-Benz USA’s headquarters in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in November 2023 as part of an initial $1 billion charging network investment. As of the end of 2024, Mercedes had deployed over 150 operational fast chargers in the US, but it hasn’t disclosed an official number of how many chargers are currently online.

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Andrew Cornelia, CEO of Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, is leaving the company at the end of the month to become global head of electrification & sustainability at Uber.

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