KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday urged his troops to take more prisoners, saying this would make it easier to secure the release of soldiers being held by Russia.

Zelenskiy made his remarks hours after the two sides carried out one of the biggest prisoner swaps so far, exchanging a total of 218 detainees, including 108 Ukrainian women.

“I thank everyone involved in this success, and I also thank all those who replenish our exchange fund, who ensure the capture of enemies,” he said in an evening address.

“The more Russian prisoners we have, the sooner we will be able to free our heroes. Every Ukrainian soldier, every front-line commander should remember this.”

Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy chief of staff, said there were 12 civilians among the freed women.

“It was the first completely female exchange,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, adding that 37 of the women had been captured after Russian forces took the giant Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol in May.

One of the women, medic Viktoria Obidina, said that up until the last moment the group had no idea they would be exchanged. Obidina had been with her young daughter when Mariupol fell but the two then became separated.

“I will go to see my daughter. I want to see her so bad,” she told reporters.

Separately, Ukraine’s interior ministry said some of the women had been in jail since 2019 after being detained by pro-Moscow authorities in eastern regions. Earlier, the Russian-appointed head of one of the regions said Kyiv was freeing 80 civilian sailors and 30 military personnel.

(Reporting by Max Hunder and David Ljunggren; Editing by Sandra Maler and Grant McCool)

By Arunima Kumar and Ruhi Soni

(Reuters) -Continental Resources Inc said on Monday it had agreed to a sweetened offer from founder Harold Hamm to take the U.S. shale oil producer private at a valuation of about $27 billion.

Hamm, a legendary oilman who once called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries a “toothless tiger,” said in June that he wanted to take the company private because public markets have not supported the oil and gas industry.

Hamm offered $74.28 per share for the stake not owned by him and the Hamm family trust. He had proposed $70 per share in June. The company’s shares jumped more than 8% to close at $74.14 on Monday and posted a total return of 67% so far in 2022.

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, U.S. oil companies have retrenched, pulling back on capital investment in response to investor demands for better returns and as investment managers have shifted to fast-growing renewable sectors. U.S. oil production is still short of its all-time record set in 2019.

Continental produced 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter. The company operates primarily in North Dakota’s Bakken region and Oklahoma’s Anadarko; those basins are still shy of their all-time record as other operators have concentrated on the biggest shale region, the Permian in Texas and New Mexico.

Hamm founded Continental, the largest oil and gas producer in the Bakken shale, as Shelly Dean Oil Company in 1967, and ran it as a private firm until 2007.

OIL AND GAS ADVOCATE

In a letter to employees in June detailing his offer, Hamm lamented that the public markets have not supported the oil and gas industry and limited its growth, especially since the pandemic.

An early supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, Hamm spoke at the 2016 Republican convention where he blasted environmental regulations for threatening U.S. oil production gains. He was reportedly considered for the role of Trump’s U.S. energy secretary.

Smead Capital Management, the largest shareholder after the Hamm family with a stake of about 2%, reiterated on Monday that the revised offer “undervalues” Continental.

“While we knew that Hamm would have to raise his price to get a deal done, this still undervalues the assets,” said Cole Smead, president and portfolio manager at Smead Capital.

Continental did not respond to a request for comment on Smead’s remarks.

U.S. crude and natural gas prices earlier this year hit multiyear highs as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further squeezed crude oil supplies and caught the shale industry ill-prepared to quickly increase production.

Hamm and his family own 83% of Continental’s common stock and the deal does not require a vote by shareholders. His large stake is unique among publicly traded producers, meaning the deal is not expected to be a harbinger of other activity.

“We believe E&Ps are broadly undervalued by public markets relative to the cash flow they are expected to generate next year,” said Andrew Dittmar, a director at market researcher Enverus. Closely held oil companies have greater flexibility than public rivals in to invest in higher production, he added.

Monday’s all-cash offer represents a premium of 8.9% to Continental’s closing price on Friday and 15% to the close before Hamm’s initial offer was announced.

The offer includes 28 cents per share in lieu of the anticipated dividend for the third quarter, the company said, adding it expected the deal to close before Dec. 31.

The tender offer would be for about 58 million shares valued at around $4.3 billion, Continental said, based on the shares outstanding as of Oct. 12.

(Reporting by Ruhi Soni and Arunima Kumar in BengaluruEditing by David Gaffen, Gary McWilliams and Matthew Lewis)

(Reuters) – The Pentagon is considering paying for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network in war-torn Ukraine, Politico reported on Monday, citing two U.S. officials involved in the discussions.

The most likely source of funding would be the U.S. Department of Defense Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, designed to support the country as it fights Russia, the report added.

Musk had said on Friday that SpaceX could not indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine, but backtracked over the weekend to assert the rocket company would continue to fund the service in the country.

He said in a tweet on Monday that SpaceX had already withdrawn its request for funding, an acknowledgement that such a request was made.

A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department would not speculate on future security assistance announcements before they occur.

A separate report in the Financial Times said the European Union was also weighing funding Starlink in Ukraine, citing three officials with knowledge of the decision.

Musk, the world’s richest person and chief executive of Tesla Inc, recently said SpaceX spends nearly $20 million a month for maintaining satellite services in Ukraine and that the company has spent about $80 million to enable and support Starlink there.

“To be precise, 25,300 terminals were sent to Ukraine, but, at present, only 10,630 are paying for service,” Musk tweeted on Monday.

Starlink has helped Ukraine’s civilians and military stay online during the war, with Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov last week saying Starlink’s services helped restore energy and communications infrastructure in critical areas.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street jumped to robust gains on Monday as solid earnings and a financial policy reversal in Britain fueled risk appetite and boosted the sterling and euro against the greenback.

All three major U.S. stock indexes rallied to end the session 1.9% to 3.4% higher while and the dollar lost ground against a basket of world currencies.

“The catalysts that have triggered in the markets year-to-date are well-known,” said Joseph Sroka, chief investment officer at NovaPoint in Atlanta. “Now, investors are looking for green shoots of catalysts that can start to provide some improvement.”

Stocks were primed for a strong open after Britain’s new finance minister Jeremy Hunt scrapped Prime Minister Liz Truss’s proposed tax cuts and reined in her energy subsidies, while Bank of America Corp posted consensus-beating third quarter results, having benefited from a spate of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 550.99 points, or 1.86%, to 30,185.82, the S&P 500 gained 94.88 points, or 2.65%, to 3,677.95 and the Nasdaq Composite added 354.41 points, or 3.43%, to 10,675.80. [.N]

European stocks closed sharply higher on the UK’s financial policy reversal. [.EU]

That reversal has “lifted some clouds, but it doesn’t lift the political risk,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York, who added that the new government formed by British Prime Minister Liz Truss “has caused a lot of uncertainties.”

Meanwhile, the easing yuan weighed on Asian markets.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 1.83% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 2.09%.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.32%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.19% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.16%.

Long-dated Treasury yields turned higher late in a choppy session for the bond market, even as investor sentiment eased in the wake of the British policy about-face.

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 3/32 in price to yield 4.0166%, from 4.006% late on Friday.

The 30-year bond last fell 23/32 in price to yield 4.0214%, from 3.975% late on Friday.

The euro and sterling gained strength following Hunt’s announced policy announcement, causing the greenback to lose ground against a basket of major world currencies. [FRX/]

The dollar index fell 1.02%, with the euro up 1.19% to $0.9835.

The Japanese yen weakened 0.19% versus the greenback at 149.06 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.135, up 1.61% on the day.

Crude prices oscillated as markets juggled signs of looming recession and China’s continued loose monetary policy. [O/R]

U.S. crude settled down 0.18% to close at $85.46 per barrel, while Brent settled at $91.62 per barrel, essentially flat on the day.

Softness in the greenback gave a lift to gold prices. [GOL/]

Spot gold added 0.4% to $1,648.39 an ounce.

(Reporting by Stephen Culp Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London; Editing by Mark Potter, Will Dunham and Nick Zieminski)

(Reuters) -Shares of Medibank Private Ltd dived nearly 5% on Monday even after the Australian health insurer assured clients that normal business operations have resumed following an attempted ransomware attack on its network.

The company, which reaffirmed that there was no evidence that customer data had been removed from the network, is on track to mark its worst day in 2-1/2 years. Shares of Medibank fell as much as 4.8% to A$3.350, their lowest level since July 19.

That was the latest in a string of cyber attacks in recent weeks to rock corporate Australia including a breach at second-largest telecoms provider Optus, which compromised data of up to 10 million customers and at a Woolworths unit that exposed data of nearly 2.2 million users.

Medibank said last Thursday it would isolate and remove access to some customer-facing systems after it detected unusual activity on its network.

The company said its investigation indicated that its cyber security systems had detected activity “consistent with the precursor to a ransomware event” but that its systems were not encrypted by ransomware.

There was no indication that the incident was caused by a “state-based threat actor”, the company said, adding that an investigation into the incident would continue.

It said its business was tracking in line with its fiscal 2023 forecast and would be unaffected by the incident.

(Reporting by Shashwat Awasthi and Roushni Nair; editing by Diane Craft, Will Dunham and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

By Zeba Siddiqui and Christopher Bing

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Domestic disinformation campaigns and homegrown threats to poll workers are emerging as bigger concerns ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. congressional elections than foreign interference, according to U.S. cybersecurity and law enforcement officials. Russia and Iran, accused of meddling in past U.S. elections using disinformation campaigns, are enmeshed in their own crises – the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Iranian mass protests – and have not yet been found to have targeted this election, said two senior U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to information disclosed as part of criminal cases, Russian and Iranian intelligence units deployed hackers and fake social media accounts in recent U.S. elections to try to influence the vote and sow discord. Election integrity has been a contentious issue in the United States, particularly in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Republican former President Donald Trump continues to make false claims that the election was stolen from him by Democrat Joe Biden through widespread voting fraud. “At this time, we are not aware of any specific or credible threats to compromise or disrupt election infrastructure,” top U.S. cybersecurity official Jen Easterly told reporters last week during a video conference on election security. “That said, the current election threat environment is more complex than it has ever been,” added Easterly, who heads the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Republicans are aiming to win back control of the Senate and House of Representatives from Biden’s fellow Democrats in the midterm elections, a development that would imperil major parts of his legislative agenda. Since 2020, there have been numerous reported incidents of poll workers being threatened, harassed or assaulted by Trump supporters, as detailed by Reuters. Opinion polls have shown that a large majority of Republican voters believe Trump won that election.

“There is a lot of rhetoric about violence against poll workers,” said one of the U.S. officials, who is involved in efforts to prevent the spread of election-related disinformation. “So we have made it a point … to aggressively investigate all of those threats.” The official noted that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment safeguard for free speech would protect certain types of comments. “First Amendment-protected is, ‘Oh, I wish so-and-so can die.’ However, if you say, ‘I’m going to come to his house and kill so-and-so,’ then we can open an investigation. Even though it’s a small minority of people who are putting out all of this type of language, it gets amplified on social media. So I would say that is kind of my biggest concern,” the official added.

The Election Integrity Partnership, a non-partisan group that has helped the CISA combat election disinformation, said the vast majority of disinformation and false rumors about the 2020 election spread primarily through far-right influencers catering to Trump voters.

‘TROUBLING CHANGES’

“One of the most troubling changes since 2020 is how widespread disinformation about the election has become,” said Edward Perez, an expert in election infrastructure policy and technology at the California-based election research group OSET, who has also worked at Twitter Inc. “Past efforts by foreign actors to sow division in the U.S. appear to be bearing fruit because now much of the work of spreading falsehoods that undermine public confidence in elections is being carried out by domestic actors,” Perez added.

U.S. officials have found that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election with a campaign of hacking and propaganda intended to sow strife in the United States, harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and boost Trump’s chances, with a number of Russian individuals and companies facing criminal charges.

In July of this year, U.S. prosecutors charged a Russian man with orchestrating a multi-year effort to use political groups in Florida, Georgia and California to cause discord, spread Russian propaganda or interfere in American elections.

The two U.S. officials who described to Reuters the current election-related threats said they were not aware of any ongoing foreign information operations aimed at misleading Americans about the voting process.

U.S. government agencies, including the CISA and the FBI, have been collaborating with social media companies including Twitter and Meta Platforms Inc, the Facebook and Instagram parent company, to clamp down on election-related disinformation arising from domestic sources. A Twitter spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said the company has taken steps to prevent foreign interference and domestic “information operations,” or disinformation campaigns.

“The growing threats posed by malicious actors need to be addressed holistically,” the spokesperson added, “which is why we regularly engage outside experts, as well as law enforcement, to improve our understanding of the actors involved and to develop a collaborative strategy.” Meta spokesperson Corey Chambliss declined to comment on the company’s election security efforts.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in San Francisco and Christopher Bing in Washington; Edited by Will Dunham and Kenneth Li)

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – More than 40 European rivals to Google’s shopping service urged EU antitrust regulators on Monday to use newly adopted tech rules to ensure the Alphabet unit complies with a 2017 EU order to allow more competition on its search page.

The European Commission fined Google 2.4 billion euros ($2.33 billion) five years ago and told the firm to stop favouring its shopping service.

The company subsequently said it would treat its own shopping service the same as competitors when they bid in an auction for adverts in the shopping box that appears at the top of a search page.

But in a letter to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, the 43 companies – which include British firm Kelkoo, France’s LeGuide Group, Sweden’s PriceRunner and Germany’s idealo – said the proposal was legally insufficient and had not led to them benefitting from the advert auctions.

“The Commission needs to re-open space on general search results pages for the most relevant providers, by removing Google’s Shopping Units that allow no competition but lead to higher prices and less choice for consumers and an unfair transfer of profit margins from merchants and competing CSSs to Google,” the companies said in the letter seen by Reuters.

CSSs refer to Comparison Shopping Services.

They said Google’s mechanism breaches the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Vestager’s new rules aimed at reining in the power of tech giants, which will apply in May next year.

“Google’s prominent embedding of Shopping Units is a prima facie infringement of the DMA’s ban on self-preferencing,” they said.

“Considering the unambiguous new legal framework, it is now time to walk the talk. The most paramount case at the heart of the calls for the DMA needs to be brought to an effective end,” the companies, from 20 European countries, said.

($1 = 1.0289 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Helen Popper)

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal judge to sentence former President Donald Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon to six months behind bars, saying he pursued a “bad faith strategy of defiance and contempt” against the congressional committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Bannon, 68, an influential far-right political figure, was convicted in July on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena.

Each count is punishable by between 30 days to one year in prison and a fine ranging between $100 to $100,000.

He is due to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Friday morning.

Prosecutors told Nichols in their sentencing recommendation on Monday that Bannon’s actions, including his refusal to this day to produce “a single document” to the congressional committee, led them to recommend a prison sentence at the top of the U.S. guidelines range.

They also urged the judge to impose the maximum fine of $200,000, which they said they based on Bannon’s “insistence on paying the maximum fine rather than cooperate with the Probation Office’s routine pre-sentencing financial investigation.”

“Throughout the pendency of this case, the defendant has exploited his notoriety — through courthouse press conferences and his War Room podcast — to display to the public the source of his bad-faith refusal to comply with the committee’s subpoena: a total disregard for government processes and the law,” prosecutors wrote in their filing.

“The defendant’s statements prove that his contempt was not aimed at protecting executive privilege or the Constitution, rather it was aimed at undermining the committee’s efforts to investigate an historic attack on government.”

Bannon’s attorneys filed a sentencing memo on Monday saying their client should be sentenced to probation only. If the judge insists on incarceration, then Bannon should be permitted to serve his sentence at home, and not in prison, they said.

In their memo, they argued that Bannon was convicted on statutes governed by “outdated” caselaw, and that he relied on his attorney’s legal advice by not appearing before the committee.

“The facts of this case show that Mr. Bannon’s conduct was based on his good-faith reliance on his lawyer’s advice,” they wrote.

During the trial, Nichols limited the scope of Bannon’s defense.

He was barred from arguing that he believed his communications with Trump were subject to a legal doctrine called executive privilege that can keep certain presidential communications confidential. He was also prohibited from arguing he relied upon an attorney’s legal advice in refusing to comply.

Bannon was a key adviser to the Republican Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then served as his chief White House strategist during 2017 before a falling out between them that was later patched up.

While he was awaiting sentencing for his contempt of Congress conviction, he was separately indicted by a New York state grand jury on money laundering and conspiracy charges for allegedly deceiving donors to an effort to help Trump build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bannon, who pleaded not guilty, could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted on those charges.

The state charges are similar to federal charges filed against Bannon and several others in August 2020.

Bannon was never convicted in the federal case, after Trump pardoned him during the final hours of his presidency.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Noel Randewich

(Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband sold call options in chipmakers Micron Technology and Nvidia for a loss of under $1 million, according to a new transparency filing.

In a periodic transaction report dated Friday, the senior Democrat disclosed that her husband, financier Paul Pelosi, lost $392,575 in the sale of Micron call options he had purchased in December 2021. The report also showed he sold Nvidia call options bought in July 2021 for a loss of $361,476.

The same report also shows Paul Pelosi exercised 200 call options to buy shares of Google-parent Alphabet in a transaction worth $2 million, while allowing call options in Walt Disney to expire for a loss of $132,824.

All of those events occurred on Sept. 16, according to the transaction report.

Paul Pelosi frequently trades shares of companies popular with many investors, including Apple, Microsoft and other tech companies.

A 2012 law makes it illegal for lawmakers to use information from their work in Congress for their personal gain. The law requires them to disclose stock transactions by themselves or family members within 45 days.

Senior House Democrats have yet to allow a vote on legislation restricting members of Congress and other government officials from trading stocks. Such legislation has been introduced in response to allegations that some lawmakers may have taken advantage of their positions for personal gain.

Pelosi initially voiced skepticism of changes to the current law, but later allowed legislation to advance toward consideration by the chamber.

In July, Paul Pelosi sold Nvidia shares days before the House approved legislation providing subsidies and tax credits worth over $70 billion to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry.

An analysis by Unusual Whales, a service selling financial data, concluded that congressional lawmakers last year traded $290 million in stocks, options, cryptocurrency and other assets, and that they outperformed the market, on average.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Josie Kao)

By John Revill

ZURICH (Reuters) -Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $495 million to settle a case related to mortgage-linked investments in the United States, the latest pay-out related to past blunders that have battered the Swiss bank’s reputation.

The lender has been paying out billions of dollars to resolve legal cases linked to its residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) business in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The decline in mortgage payments reduced the value of the assets, leading to huge losses for investors.

Switzerland’s second biggest bank is trying to move on from these legacy issues which have dogged its performance and cost it billions of dollars.

The bank is also trying to recover from other missteps, including losing more than $5 billion from the collapse of investment firm Archegos last year, when it also had to suspend client funds linked to defunct financier Greensill Capital.

The latest RMBS case, brought by the New Jersey Attorney General, alleged Credit Suisse had “misled investors and engaged in fraud or deceit in connection with the offer and sale of RMBS.”

The attorney general’s office had claimed more than $3 billion in damages in a case filed in 2013.

“Credit Suisse is pleased to have reached an agreement that allows the bank to resolve the only remaining RMBS matter involving claims by a regulator,” the bank said in a statement.

“The settlement, for which Credit Suisse is fully provisioned, marks another important step in the bank’s efforts to pro-actively resolve litigation and legacy issues.”

The New Jersey case was the largest of its remaining exposure on its legacy RMBS business, Credit Suisse said, with five remaining cases at various stages of litigation.

These are expected to be resolved in the next six months, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The total cost likely to be much less than $100 million, the source added.

RMBS are a debt-based securities, seen as similar to bonds, which are backed by the interest paid on home loans packaged together to sell to investors.

But poorly constructed RMBS’s contributed to the financial crisis in 2008 – when wider groups of mortgages defaulted leading to big losses.

Credit Suisse, whose share price has more than halved in the last 12 months, has already paid out huge sums to resolve claims related to the products, including a $5.3 billion deal with the Department of Justice in 2017.

It said at that time products it sold did not meet underwriting guidelines.

It also paid $600 million to MBIA Inc last year after the New York based-municipal bond insurer paid out hundreds of millions to compensate investors.

The bank, one of the largest in Europe and one of Switzerland’s global systemically important banks, is scheduled to release details of a much anticipated strategic review alongside third-quarter results on Oct. 27.

In June, the bank was convicted of failing to prevent money laundering by a Bulgarian cocaine trafficking gang, while a Bermuda court ruled that a former Georgian Prime Minister and his family were due damages of more than half a billion dollars from Credit Suisse’s local life insurance arm.

The U.S. Justice Department is also investigating whether Credit Suisse continued helping U.S. clients hide assets from authorities, eight years after the Swiss bank paid a $2.6-billion tax evasion settlement.

(Reporting by John Revill and Oliver Hirt; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Mark Potter and Jane Merriman)

By Karen Brettell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar dipped against a basket of major currencies and sterling jumped on Monday after Britain’s new finance minister ditched most of the government’s “mini-budget”, while better than expected earnings from Bank of America helped to boost risk appetite.

Investors are also focused on whether the Bank of Japan would intervene as the Japanese currency falls to its weakest level against the dollar in 32 years.

Jeremy Hunt, who was appointed finance minister by Prime Minister Liz Truss on Friday, reversed swathes of the 45-billion pound “mini-budget” that sparked market turmoil in which the pound hit record lows and the Bank of England was forced to intervene.

“The pound has been the driver of the FX market this month so far, and the big change the UK government has announced has restored faith in the pound and taken the bid on the U.S. dollar out,” said Adam Button, chief currency analyst at ForexLive.

British gilts rallied sharply after the news. Hunt replaced Kwasi Kwarteng, whose package of unfunded tax cuts on Sept. 23 unleashed a bond market sell-off.

“For now, the market seems happy to give the new chancellor time and space to put the government’s house back in order,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG.

Sterling was last up 1.54% at $1.1348, after earlier reaching $1.1440, the highest since October 5.

Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, says its likely that the pound bottomed at the record low of $1.0327 reached on September 26, which he called “an exaggeration.”

The next major resistance level for the British currency is $1.15, he added.

Risk sentiment also improved after Bank of America reported a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly profit and said that its U.S. consumer client spending remained strong, even if it was slowing.

The dollar index against a basket of currencies fell 0.82% to 112.11. It is holding just below a 20-year high of 114.78 hit on September 28.

The Federal Reserve’s rapid interest rate increases have contributed to the strength of the dollar, but that may ease once the U.S. central bank reaches the point of pausing the hikes, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on Saturday.

The euro gained 1.19% against the greenback to $0.9838, the highest since October 6.

Traders are also on watch for any intervention from the Bank of Japan after the yen fell to a 32-year low of 148.97.

Japan last month intervened to buy the yen for the first time since 1998, after the Bank of Japan stuck to its policy of maintaining ultra-low interest rates, which has battered the currency this year.

Japanese authorities kept up their warnings to the market on Monday of a firm response to overly rapid yen declines, after last week’s fall and meetings of global financial leaders that acknowledged currency volatility.

========================================================

Currency bid prices at 3:14PM (1914 GMT)

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

Previous Change

Session

Dollar index 112.1100 113.0500 -0.82% 17.193% +113.2000 +111.9100

Euro/Dollar $0.9838 $0.9723 +1.19% -13.45% +$0.9852 +$0.9715

Dollar/Yen 148.9250 148.7850 +0.09% +29.36% +148.9550 +148.4000

Euro/Yen 146.52 144.65 +1.29% +12.43% +146.6200 +144.4200

Dollar/Swiss 0.9960 1.0053 -0.93% +9.19% +1.0045 +0.9944

Sterling/Dollar $1.1348 $1.1178 +1.54% -16.08% +$1.1438 +$1.1175

Dollar/Canadian 1.3729 1.3881 -1.10% +8.58% +1.3878 +1.3699

Aussie/Dollar $0.6285 $0.6203 +1.38% -13.49% +$0.6312 +$0.6208

Euro/Swiss 0.9799 0.9774 +0.26% -5.50% +0.9808 +0.9743

Euro/Sterling 0.8666 0.8692 -0.30% +3.17% +0.8686 +0.8580

NZ $0.5625 $0.5562 +1.20% -17.76% +$0.5649 +$0.5553

Dollar/Dollar

Dollar/Norway 10.5300 10.6750 -1.50% +19.35% +10.6700 +10.5075

Euro/Norway 10.3585 10.3921 -0.32% +3.50% +10.4031 +10.2918

Dollar/Sweden 11.1538 11.2994 +0.02% +23.69% +11.3305 +11.1356

Euro/Sweden 10.9702 10.9676 +0.02% +7.24% +11.0142 +10.9530

(Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London; Editing by Paul Simao and Angus MacSwan)

By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s YouTube will expand ways for advertisers to reach music and podcast listeners and viewers on connected televisions, the company said on Monday.

The announcements come as the advertising industry has struggled amid record-high inflation and supply-chain disruptions, which have caused some brands to pull back on marketing budgets.

That has led advertisers to become “laser-focused” on the types of marketing that will reach new customers and drive product sales, said Debbie Weinstein, vice president of global advertiser solutions for Google and YouTube, in an interview.

“They want to know what works and how they can double down,” she said.

The streaming video platform said it will expand audio advertising globally to allow brands to market to people who use YouTube to listen to music or podcasts.

Although YouTube is better known for watching video, the platform is the second-most popular service for listening to podcasts, the company said, citing a report by Edison Research.

The platform will also sell a new package of advertising placements called “Moment Blast” which will allow a brand to have prime positioning on some of the most popular content on YouTube when users are watching videos on internet-connected TVs or other devices. Brands can purchase the package to “own” major moments, such as sporting events or product launches, Weinstein said.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

(Reuters) – South African state-owned logistics firm Transnet said on Monday it had agreed a three-year wage deal with the union representing the majority of its workers, ending a two-week strike that had hit commodities exports and piled up millions in losses.

“Transnet and the company’s majority union United Transport and Allied Trade Union (UNTU) reached a three-year wage agreement today,” it said in a statement, adding the deal would bring most of its employees back to work.

UNTU members, who represent more than half of the company’s workforce, went on strike on Oct.6, demanding an increase linked to South Africa’s year-on-year inflation rate, which was 7.6% in August.

Transnet said it had agreed on a 6% wage increase for the current financial year, a 5.5% raise next year and a further 6% boost in 2024. The deal is effective from April 2022, it said.

“The company’s priority in the immediate is clearing any backlogs across the port and rail system – prioritising urgent and time-sensitive cargo,” Transnet said.

UNTU officials were not immediately available for comment.

A spokesperson for the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) told Reuters the minority union had not yet agreed to a deal with Transnet.

The strike has hobbled Transnet’s freight rail and port operations including the Durban harbour, one of Africa’s busiest, impacting mineral and agricultural commodity exports.

Last week, the Minerals Council of South Africa said mining companies were losing 815 million rand ($45.27 million) per day in export revenue due to the strike, as major mineral export harbours were operating at between 12% and 30% of their daily averages due to the strike.

The strike also affected the horticulture sector as fruit exporters struggled to send produce to overseas markets.

($1 = 18.0020 rand)

(Reporting by Nelson Banya in Harare; Editing by Promit Mukherjee, Matthew Lewis and David Evans)

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump’s recent comments that American Jews have offered insufficient praise of his policies toward Israel were “insulting” and “anti-Semitic”, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday.

“Donald Trump’s comments were anti-Semitic, as you all know, and insulting both to Jews and our Israeli allies,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Trump on Sunday warned that American Jews need to “get their act together” before “it is too late!”

The suggestion of disloyalty, made on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, plays into the antisemitic trope that U.S. Jews have dual loyalties to the U.S. and to Israel, and it drew immediate condemnation.

“No President has done more for Israel than I have,” Trump wrote before adding that it was somewhat surprising that “our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.”

Last week, President Joe Biden told CNN in an interview that “I believe I can beat Donald Trump again” if both men run for president in 2024.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw and Jeff Mason; Editing by David Gregorio)