Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves
Speaker 2: in the stock market, Harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Speaker 3: Time out to take a look at some stocks on
Speaker 3: the move in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll and I'm joined
Speaker 3: by Bloomberg's Breaking News editor Louise Moon.
Speaker 1: Louise, good morning.
Speaker 3: Let's start with Shell profit missing on lower crude prices,
Speaker 3: weaker oil trading, shares down one point seven percent.
Speaker 4: Indeed, yeah, so this is their fourth quarter results, as
Speaker 4: you say, profits slumping for those two reasons that you mentioned,
Speaker 4: as well as their struggling chemicals business, their chemicals unit.
Speaker 1: So it missed expectations.
Speaker 4: Well, not only did it miss expectations, but those expectations
Speaker 4: had already been lowered. So last month Shell warned of
Speaker 4: what they called significantly lower oil trading and as a result,
Speaker 4: unless lowered their forecasts. And then the results that came
Speaker 4: out today were even lower than that. So shares falling
Speaker 4: on the back of that news. And what it really
Speaker 4: highlights is the big task really that the CEO has.
Speaker 4: He's been trying to close Shells valuation gap with their
Speaker 4: US rivals. Like Chevron and others. That has become even
Speaker 4: harder this year. Those US rivals, their shares have sowed.
Speaker 4: They've had quite strong production in lower cost oil fields,
Speaker 4: and then at the same time Shell is seeing its
Speaker 4: own issues to that valuation gap.
Speaker 1: It's a big task to close that.
Speaker 4: So if you take the shares for example, last year,
Speaker 4: Shell was actually the best performer among the world's top
Speaker 4: five five oil companies. That's in Donna terms. That's now
Speaker 4: been fizzling out, and it's been lagging so far this year.
Speaker 4: And as I say, shares again the further this morning.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot more for the CEO to do.
Speaker 4: He's already been cutting cast he's already been shedding units,
Speaker 4: but a big task if he wants to close that
Speaker 4: gap and boost Shell again.
Speaker 3: That's moved to five cars next. Their share is down
Speaker 3: almost twenty three percent in Stockholm.
Speaker 1: What's going on, Yeah, that's the most on record.
Speaker 4: A similar story in the sense that it's fourth quarter
Speaker 4: results weaker than expected. They've been dealing with quite a
Speaker 4: host of issues, so weak demand, pricing, pressures, tariffs. There's
Speaker 4: also been relatively recently the removal of ev incentives in
Speaker 4: the US A lot of competition in China, obviously from
Speaker 4: China car makers, so that's all hitting sales. The CEO
Speaker 4: described it as, in his words, a very tough market.
Speaker 4: And what makes it even kind of more of a
Speaker 4: setback is that they had had quite a strong third
Speaker 4: quarter and that had kind of lifted confidence that things
Speaker 4: could be looking up and that the CEO's restructure could
Speaker 4: be kind of taking hold. But then the fourth quarters
Speaker 4: has potentially dampened those hopes. So as I say, he's
Speaker 4: been embarking on a bit of a restructuring since last
Speaker 4: year that's included, you know, thousands of jobs being slashed.
Speaker 4: But a bit of a setback today with their fourth quarter.
Speaker 4: But I always do do I like to add a
Speaker 4: bit of light, so there was a small bit. They
Speaker 4: have risen their sales targets and they're saying that they
Speaker 4: will have what they say clearly better cash flow, so
Speaker 4: a bit of positivity ahead as they're expecting demand for
Speaker 4: new models.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's a question of optism for Alouise. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about another share that's on the decline this morning, and
Speaker 3: that's say people are marsk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a bit of a trier of bad news
Speaker 4: say ality, So as you say, Musk, they have announced
Speaker 4: plans to cut job So that's about a thousand jobs,
Speaker 4: so fifteen percent of corporate roles. But in totally if
Speaker 4: you look at their total workforce, it's less than one percent,
Speaker 4: but still one thousand jobs. And they're going to be
Speaker 4: increasing their focus on costs, so predicting annual cost cuts
Speaker 4: of one hundred and eighty million dollars. And this all
Speaker 4: ties in with what they're calling a sharp focus on productivity. Essentially,
Speaker 4: they're trying to protect themselves as Red Sea roots are
Speaker 4: reopening and that is expected to lead to lower rates,
Speaker 4: lower freight rates, they're trying to protect themselves against this.
Speaker 4: The whole industry been benefiting from, you know, the longer
Speaker 4: taking the longer route round the South of Africa takes
Speaker 4: more time and that's coincided with competition lower capacity, So
Speaker 4: the whole industry has been benefiting. But as the Red
Speaker 4: Sea opens again, it's expected to have a bit of
Speaker 4: a hit on rates. So this is Musk dealing with that,
Speaker 4: and shares falling on the back of that quite sharply,
Speaker 4: down about five percent. Last time I looked at Analysa saying,
Speaker 4: you know, a bit of uncertainty ahead, which is weighing
Speaker 4: on that.
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