Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg Day Bake your podcast. Good morning,
Speaker 2: It's Friday, the seventh of August. I'm Caroline, Hepkitt in
Speaker 2: London and I'm Stephen.
Speaker 3: Carol and Brussels. Coming up today. European gas prices surge
Speaker 3: as uncertainty over the Straight of hor moves, fuels fheres
Speaker 3: over depleted storage.
Speaker 2: Open Ai cooks up a donut shape to AI gadget
Speaker 2: as it prepares to enter the device market.
Speaker 3: Plus driving into trouble. Why plans for a remote Scottish
Speaker 3: golf course face growing opposition from environmentalists.
Speaker 4: Let's start with the roundoff of our top stories.
Speaker 3: European natural gas prices are jumping as renewed tensions around
Speaker 3: the Strait of Horn moves add to concerns over winter supplies.
Speaker 3: Benchmark Future surged by as much as ten percent across
Speaker 3: two sessions, with prices now around double their January levels.
Speaker 3: Brent crude also rose above eighty three dollars a barrel,
Speaker 3: to gaining almost four percent in the previous session. The
Speaker 3: moves followed reports around struck hostile targets at the entrance
Speaker 3: to the Strait and are seeking to bar Us and
Speaker 3: Israeli ships from the waterway. Richard Has, President Emeritus of
Speaker 3: the Council on FIM Relations, says Iran is in a
Speaker 3: strong position that the goal.
Speaker 5: Is to get the Street of Horn moves open, which
Speaker 5: it should be. The idea that Iran would have a
Speaker 5: larger rule now that I think is inevitable. Wars of
Speaker 5: consequences will have to let them sell some oil as
Speaker 5: long as most of the other sanctions stay in place.
Speaker 5: I think that's probably as good as we can expect
Speaker 5: at this point.
Speaker 3: Richard Has, speaking on Bloomberg's Balance of Power. The war
Speaker 3: has already cut off around a fifth of global LNG,
Speaker 3: making it harder for Europe to replenish inventories that recently
Speaker 3: hit their lowest seasonal level since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: Extreme heats has killed more than twenty five thousand people
Speaker 2: across Europe this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Germany recorded the highest toll, with an estimated eleven nine
Speaker 2: hundred excess death link to heat since April. Here In
Speaker 2: the UK, Health Secretary Evett Cooper says thousands of excess
Speaker 2: deaths occurred over May and June.
Speaker 1: The NHS now has to work to prepare for summer
Speaker 1: pressures in the way that we have long had to
Speaker 1: do for winter pressures. That means trusts having to have
Speaker 1: plans in place to deal with higher levels of demand
Speaker 1: people coming through the door.
Speaker 4: Maybe because of the heat wave.
Speaker 2: That Cooper was speaking as heat waves across Europe have
Speaker 2: shattered records and dented economic output. The heat is also
Speaker 2: set to build again next week, with temperatures forecasts to
Speaker 2: reach thirty four degrees in London and thirty eight degrees
Speaker 2: in Paris.
Speaker 3: The United States is said to have blindsided the European
Speaker 3: Central Bank by selling euros as part of last week's
Speaker 3: intervention to prop up the EN. The Finacal Times reports
Speaker 3: that the ECB officials and Frankfurt were only informed after
Speaker 3: the trade, with some senior figures viewing the move as
Speaker 3: an unprecedented breach of longstanding conventions. The EN has since
Speaker 3: the nearly half of its intervention driven gains. Bloomberg David
Speaker 3: Finitshy says traders have no consensus on where the currency
Speaker 3: goes from here.
Speaker 6: The fact that dollian is back about one pin fifty eight,
Speaker 6: it just says a lot to the fundamentals. You can
Speaker 6: say it shouldn't be there, the market is going, but
Speaker 6: it is. It is there because we think it should
Speaker 6: be there. So I think whatever tools they use and
Speaker 6: rhetoric obviously is not enough for a question whether interventions
Speaker 6: even enough. The reality is that the market is so
Speaker 6: big and deep you are fighting this wave of basically
Speaker 6: sentiments saying we do think it's can be higher, but
Speaker 6: we're very wary that you're going to try and push
Speaker 6: it lower.
Speaker 3: Enterity points to US jobs data later today is the
Speaker 3: next big test for the currency pair. There we need
Speaker 3: slide raises the prospect of further intervention, with both US
Speaker 3: and Japanese officials warning this week they are prepared to
Speaker 3: act again if needed.
Speaker 2: The UK government has declined to rule out increasing bank
Speaker 2: taxes in its upcoming budget. Bumper profits among lenders are
Speaker 2: sparking speculation that the new administration we'll target the financial industry.
Speaker 2: Here is Bloomberg's James Wilcock with more.
Speaker 7: Andy Burnham hasn't shied away from talking tax since becoming
Speaker 7: Prime Minister a few weeks ago. He's announced cuts to
Speaker 7: v eight or energy bills, reductions in business rates, and
Speaker 7: he's ruled out change is to stamp duty in the
Speaker 7: coming October budget. So when Bloomberg asked his treasury if
Speaker 7: they would rule out a bank tax, their refusal to
Speaker 7: comment marks a contrast. It's one that says he has
Speaker 7: noticed his Barkley ceocs Ben Katha Krishnan.
Speaker 8: We are indeed broad shoulders, not just in the size
Speaker 8: of our businesses, but in the capabilities which we offer.
Speaker 8: The question is how do you use it the right way.
Speaker 8: Every pound of capital that they keep in the banking
Speaker 8: system will be multiplied by eight or ten in terms
Speaker 8: of the lending which we can do. So the right
Speaker 8: thing to do is to continue to increase the capital
Speaker 8: in the banking system, not seek to remove it, and
Speaker 8: then to get us to lend, which is what we
Speaker 8: want to do anyway.
Speaker 7: The UK banking boss was speaking to Blue last week,
Speaker 7: where he announced more than two billion pounds in quarterly profits. Together,
Speaker 7: the biggest UK banks have netted thirty billions so far
Speaker 7: this year. Already their CEOs are starting to talk about
Speaker 7: not making them a target. In London.
Speaker 4: James Wilcock Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Radio Meta has been ordered to pay five hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty seven million dollars to the US state of New
Speaker 3: Mexico and make changes to protect underage users. After losing
Speaker 3: a landmark court case, The judge likened the social media
Speaker 3: giant to a polluting factory and ordered measures including time
Speaker 3: limits and a halt to night time push notifications for miners.
Speaker 3: Meta plans to appeal, with its total exposure in the
Speaker 3: New Mexico case now at more than nine hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3: The ruling could also clear the way for other states
Speaker 3: and school districts to argue that social media addiction is
Speaker 3: a public nuisance contributing to a broader mental health crisis.
Speaker 2: Open AI's first consumer device will have a unique look,
Speaker 2: and the new product is expected to be released into
Speaker 2: a twenty seven bluebog Cima and a bio has More.
Speaker 9: Open AI's newest offering will look like a doughnut and
Speaker 9: likely costs more than three hundred dollars. Bloomberg understands the
Speaker 9: device will be a smart speaker without a display, featuring
Speaker 9: microphones and lights to demonstrate when it's listening. It's thought
Speaker 9: the unusual design will help the product stand out from
Speaker 9: other smart speakers, a category currently dominated by Amazon and Google.
Speaker 9: Users are expected to rely on the new hardware throughout
Speaker 9: the day, and it will function similarly to the company's
Speaker 9: Chat GPT voice mode on smartphone apps.
Speaker 4: The speaker is seen as.
Speaker 9: A way to ease into the market for open Ai,
Speaker 9: who eventually plans to offer a family of devices in
Speaker 9: London to you, added Bio Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: FIFA is looking to keep lucrative World Cup water breaks
Speaker 3: as part of its next media deal. Bloomberg understands football's
Speaker 3: governing body is exploring selling US media rides for the
Speaker 3: next two tournaments, maintaining the controversial hydration breaks, which had
Speaker 3: boosted AD revenue. Sources tell us that negotiations are still
Speaker 3: in the very early stages, but the tournament organizers also
Speaker 3: interested in bundling rights for English and Spanish broadcast together.
Speaker 3: The news comes as FIFA faces turmoil over President Gianni
Speaker 3: and Fantinos now canceled plans to raise money from commercial investors.
Speaker 3: FIFA has declined to comment on the reports.
Speaker 2: Those are our top stories then for you today, let's
Speaker 2: look at the markets, so a little bit edgy. All
Speaker 2: markets are heading hard brink crude features up by one
Speaker 2: and a half percent, lack of clarity on a whole
Speaker 2: Moo's reopening deal, fueling that the cost is also heading
Speaker 2: for a seventh weekly drop. The cosp is now down
Speaker 2: by half of one percent, bonds falling with inflation concerns.
Speaker 2: We've got the US job support to come today, eighty
Speaker 2: thousand jobs expected to have been created in July. US
Speaker 2: and European stock futures are a bit mixed. European USOX
Speaker 2: fifty futures are down by almost two tenths of one percent.
Speaker 2: One earnings report out of Note Alian's second quarter operating
Speaker 2: profit comes in as a B four point eighty seven
Speaker 2: billion euros.
Speaker 4: So those are the markets.
Speaker 3: In a moment, we'll bring you the latest on what's
Speaker 3: driving oil and gas prices higher, plus how golfers are
Speaker 3: being pitted against sand dunes in a planning fight in Scotland.
Speaker 3: But first, another story that's caught our eye this morning,
Speaker 3: and what this summer's wildfires in Europe mean for wine
Speaker 3: producers and drinkers. Bloomberg Companions Howard twy one has been
Speaker 3: writing about this and looking at past experiences. So the
Speaker 3: last comparable fire in Bordeaux was in nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 3: That's not a good guide. More recent wildfires in Australia
Speaker 3: and in twenty nineteen in California and twenty twenty were
Speaker 3: described by Howard's Wine Affiicionado friends as like drinking barbecue.
Speaker 3: So the effect, Howard says, means that the wine tastes
Speaker 3: more like charcoal than tobacco and has a lingering, ashy aftertaste.
Speaker 3: There are ways that wine producers have worked to try
Speaker 3: and filter the wine, but that can affect the collar.
Speaker 3: For example, now we still don't know what exactly this
Speaker 3: wine season is going to look like. In Bordeaux. The
Speaker 3: length of the wildfires has been shorter than some of
Speaker 3: those other examples that I just gave, and they have
Speaker 3: no technology to be able to test the grapes to
Speaker 3: see how they've been affected. For what it's worth, the
Speaker 3: Bordeaux Wine Produce Association has said that the grapes so
Speaker 3: far have seen no impact from the fires. But this
Speaker 3: could be huge for what is such an important wine
Speaker 3: producing region.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean the taste of wine is affected by far,
Speaker 2: absolutely horrible. But on the other hand, as you say
Speaker 2: how much the wildfires will have affected you know, wine producers,
Speaker 2: we're not yet sure. Look, maybe even and I mean
Speaker 2: for any wine doing This is probably heresy, but I'll say, look,
Speaker 2: maybe it doesn't matter because France is moving towards what
Speaker 2: California and Cape down Where do you do, which is
Speaker 2: tourism without necessarily the wine tasting. Having said that, obviously
Speaker 2: Bordeaux exports, you know, huge amount of its wine abroad,
Speaker 2: and so do many regions in France. So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really difficult.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Also, Howard writes so beautifully. He really gets across the
Speaker 2: love of wine, even if he isn't drinking himself, and
Speaker 2: so the kind of desperation, the sadness of, you know,
Speaker 2: a year that might be ruined by these terrible events.
Speaker 3: I mean, Howard's some man going to a wine tasted
Speaker 3: evening with friends, even though it doesn't actually drink the
Speaker 3: wine to begin with. It's a really great piece. As always,
Speaker 3: you recommend that you read it. You'll find it a
Speaker 3: linked in our podcast show Notes or at Bloomberg dot
Speaker 3: Com Forward Slash Opinion. Well, let's turn back to our
Speaker 3: top story this morning, and that jump in European natural
Speaker 3: gas prices, oil prices rising as well after a report
Speaker 3: that Iran attacked targets in the Strait of Horror moves.
Speaker 3: This after several days where we had seen energy prices
Speaker 3: falling on hopes of a deal to restart shipping through
Speaker 3: the waterway. Our oil and shipping reporter Whale and soon
Speaker 3: joins us now for more, well in what first of all,
Speaker 3: do we know about these attacks in the Strait.
Speaker 10: So far, we have not had any form of external
Speaker 10: confirmation on what Iran has seen. They have a very
Speaker 10: central out the war suggested that they have attack ships
Speaker 10: only for those who be disproven. But for now things
Speaker 10: are silent on this sprint. But definitely the news of
Speaker 10: this strikes, even as the war is waiting for a
Speaker 10: peace deal, is really shaking a lot of people's nerves
Speaker 10: and that's why we are seeing prices rising.
Speaker 4: Yeah, also the local media a pause.
Speaker 2: I'm talking a bit about the deal between Iran and
Speaker 2: Oman to reopen the strait that essentially it would try
Speaker 2: to bar us and it's really shit from using that waterway.
Speaker 4: Is that a realistic plan?
Speaker 10: It remains to be seen how how Iran really wants
Speaker 10: to execute on this thread right, because just to be sure,
Speaker 10: throughout this whole war, they have repeatedly said that they
Speaker 10: don't want American it's relationships inside the waterway. So this
Speaker 10: just follows on from that threat, and of course now
Speaker 10: it's framed around this issue of having tools. But this
Speaker 10: issue of nationalities being added to this profile of the
Speaker 10: vessel is really complicated because you have the flex which
Speaker 10: ships are registered too, and then you have several other
Speaker 10: ways of looking at ownership or associations, which is true,
Speaker 10: maybe the stakes on investments that companies have in shipping companies,
Speaker 10: or even the crew, or even whether the company is
Speaker 10: listed in the US. So if you go by that logic,
Speaker 10: there's a lot of different ways that possibly Iran can
Speaker 10: carry out on this threat.
Speaker 3: Now we're watching the price reaction to these latest headlines,
Speaker 3: particularly in European natural gas prices at a time when
Speaker 3: reserves for this time of year are they're lowest since
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. Are the price rises likely to
Speaker 3: cause significant disruption?
Speaker 10: I think it's getting more and more urgent for the
Speaker 10: Europeans because it's normally restocked during summer when natural gas
Speaker 10: prices are low, but because of the Iran war, those
Speaker 10: have stayed high and traders have actually held off on buying,
Speaker 10: on restocking. And then now we don't see this situation
Speaker 10: ending anytime soon. So it just becomes more and more
Speaker 10: urgent for Europe to restock those guests inventories, and at
Speaker 10: the same time they're also fighting with Asian bias for
Speaker 10: a very very limited pool of lerg guess so all
Speaker 10: in all, it's it's not looking good and I think
Speaker 10: sooner or later Europe will have to buy the PULA
Speaker 10: and start stocking up those inventories again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, interesting whale and thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being with us. Are all again shipping reporter whyland Son,
Speaker 2: thank you stay with us.
Speaker 4: More from Bloomberg Day Bakeuobe coming up after this.
Speaker 3: Now to Scotland, were years long saga pitting environmentalist against
Speaker 3: plans for a remote golf course targeting rich Americans is
Speaker 3: coming to a head. A decision on the project and
Speaker 3: cool Links north of Inverness is expected in the coming weeks.
Speaker 3: Our reporter Laura Avatasi and joins us now for more
Speaker 3: on this story. Laura, first of all, tell us a
Speaker 3: bit more about this project. What's the proposal?
Speaker 11: At the heart of this year's long stude is essentially
Speaker 11: a debate whether a golf course should go ahead and
Speaker 11: be built in the Scottish Islands.
Speaker 3: So just to give you some context.
Speaker 11: This is a land that has a strip of sand
Speaker 11: dunes and is site of special scientific significance, and for
Speaker 11: ten years various groups have been trying to put forward
Speaker 11: and get over the line this proposal to get a
Speaker 11: golf course there. But there is a very strong campaign
Speaker 11: environmentalist campaign against it, as you would understand, because the
Speaker 11: site is of scientific significance. So this is the conflict
Speaker 11: that the Scottish ministers have to find a way to
Speaker 11: make a decision on.
Speaker 2: So tell us a bit more about who is objecting
Speaker 2: to it and why.
Speaker 11: So up in Scotland there's a group called not Cool
Speaker 11: who are objecting the golf course proposal. Their main argument
Speaker 11: is obviously the environmental argument. The habitat over there is
Speaker 11: very diverse. There are species like the Baltic rush, which
Speaker 11: is quite rare in all of the UK, actually just
Speaker 11: found in one other place in northern England. And the
Speaker 11: other argument is that they don't believe it's going to
Speaker 11: bring the economic benefits that the proposal promises. In terms
Speaker 11: of the local population, it's quite mixed. The land sits
Speaker 11: next to another town called door Knock, where there already
Speaker 11: is a championship level golf course, and people in door
Speaker 11: Knock are quite mixed about this project because they've seen
Speaker 11: the impact of tourism and you know, all the rest
Speaker 11: of it. But in Ambo, which is the most immediate
Speaker 11: village next to the side, people would quite like a
Speaker 11: project like this because frankly, there isn't much there in
Speaker 11: terms of economic life, so it would breathe some life
Speaker 11: into the area and also hopefully solve the depopulation issue
Speaker 11: that's quite alive up there.
Speaker 3: This beautiful picture is accompanying this piece as well of
Speaker 3: the dramatic windswept landscape and the kind of atmospheric moodiness
Speaker 3: of the mountains and the myths there as well. But
Speaker 3: this is something that is coming now to the Scottish
Speaker 3: government to make a decision on in the coming weeks.
Speaker 3: What are the politics around us.
Speaker 11: That's what makes the story very interesting because this is
Speaker 11: not a new topic for the Scottish government. Just about
Speaker 11: two decades ago there was a similar proposal down in
Speaker 11: Aberdeen and it was project by a company called Trump
Speaker 11: International Donald Trump Company, and it was also a side
Speaker 11: of special scientific significance and the Scottish government's own advisors
Speaker 11: were against this project based on environmental grounds However, the
Speaker 11: ministers approved it for the economic benefit and what happened
Speaker 11: later on is that the project did not bring the
Speaker 11: economic benefits it promised the jobs and the infrastructure, but
Speaker 11: it also stripped the lands of scientific significance. So the
Speaker 11: Scottish government has to understand what they prioritize this time round.
Speaker 11: And what's changed in the Scottish Parliament after the recent
Speaker 11: parliamentary elections is that the Scottish Green Party has a
Speaker 11: much more significant presence and they might have more of
Speaker 11: a say over the final decision.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Daybreak Europe.
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