By David Shepardson and Rajesh Kumar Singh

(Reuters) -Spirit Airlines Inc on Friday urged its shareholders to back a merger deal with Frontier Group Holdings at a meeting next week after Frontier boosted its offer for the ultra-low-cost carrier.

Spirit is the subject of a bidding war between Frontier and JetBlue Airways Corp.

Both bidders view Spirit as an opportunity to expand their domestic footprints at a time when the U.S. airline industry is dogged by labor and aircraft shortages. Either of the deals would create the fifth-largest U.S. airline.

Under the revised terms, Frontier will bump up the cash component of the deal by $2 per share to $4.13 per share, along with 1.9126 Frontier shares in the cash-and-stock deal. Frontier will prepay $2.22 per share as a cash dividend to Spirit stockholders following approval of the transaction.

Denver-based Frontier has also increased its reverse termination fee to Spirit by $100 million to $350 million.

Spirit shareholders are due to vote on the merger deal with Frontier on June 30.

Florida-based Spirit has repeatedly rejected JetBlue’s offer, saying it has a low likelihood of winning approval from U.S. regulators.

Yet, JetBlue has not given up on its quest, and has been trying to persuade Spirit shareholders to vote against the deal with Frontier.

On Monday, New York-based JetBlue sweetened its offer for Spirit by $2 to $33.50 per share in cash. Frontier’s offer, at its closing price on Friday, is worth $24.29 in stock and cash.

“A JetBlue transaction faces significantly greater regulatory impediments than a Frontier transaction,” Spirit said.

In a statement late on Friday, JetBlue said it continued to believe its proposal was superior to Frontier’s, but said it will “more thoroughly” review and assess the revised terms of Frontier’s proposal.

Both the deals are expected to face intense regulatory scrutiny. But JetBlue’s Northeast Alliance partnership with American Airlines is a sticking point with Spirit.

The Justice Department has sued JetBlue and American to unwind the partnership. Spirit has asked JetBlue to drop the partnership if it wants a deal, but JetBlue declined.

Frontier stock closed up 6.6% on Friday at $10.54, while Spirit finished up 2.9% to $24.52. JetBlue shares gained 5.8% to close at $8.62.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON – Sales of new U.S. single-family homes unexpectedly rose in May, but the rebound is likely to be temporary as home prices continue to increase and the average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage approaches 6%, reducing affordability.

While the report from the Commerce Department on Friday also showed new home supply hitting a 14-year high last month, overall housing inventory remains significantly low. The rise in sales after four straight monthly declines, likely reflected buyers rushing to lock in mortgage rates in anticipation of further increases. A survey this month suggested homebuilders expected weaker sales in June.

“We suspect May’s surprisingly strong new home sales will prove to be the last hurrah for new home sales this year,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

New home sales jumped 10.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 696,000 units last month. April’s sales pace was revised higher to 629,000 units from the previously reported 591,000 units. Sales surged in the West and the densely populated South, but declined in the Midwest and Northeast.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that new home sales, which account for 11.4% of U.S. home sales, would fall to a rate of 588,000 units. Sales dropped 5.9% on a year-on-year basis in May. They peaked at a rate of 993,000 units in January 2021, which was the highest level since the end of 2006.

The average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased this week to more than a 13-1/2-year high of 5.81%, from 5.78% last week, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac. The rate has risen more than 250 basis points since January, amid a surge in inflation expectations and the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes.

There was, however, some encouraging news on the inflation front. While a survey from the University of Michigan on Friday confirmed consumer confidence plunged to a record low in June, consumers’ inflation expectations moderated a bit.

The University of Michigan said its final consumer sentiment index fell to 50.0 from a preliminary reading of 50.2 earlier this month. It was down from 55.2 in May.

The survey’s one-year inflation expectation was unchanged from May at 5.3%, but ticked down from a preliminary June reading of 5.4%. The five-year inflation outlook edged up to 3.1% from 3.0% in May, but was down from 3.3% earlier in June.

The increase in the preliminary inflation expectations and jump in annual consumer prices were behind the Fed’s decision last week to raise its policy rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, its biggest hike since 1994.

“Fed officials will breathe a sigh of relief,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS in New York. “There is nothing in today’s data to change market expectations for another 75-basis-points rate hike in July.”

Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher. The dollar fell against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields rose.

HOUSING COOLING

Data this week showed sales of previously owned homes fell to a two-year low in May. Housing starts and building permits also declined last month, though they remained at high levels. But cooling demand could help to bring housing supply and demand back into alignment and slow price growth.

The median new house price in May accelerated 15.0% from a year ago to $449,000. There were 444,000 new homes on the market at the end of last month, the highest number since May 2008 and up from 437,000 units in April.

Houses under construction made up roughly 65.8% of the inventory, with homes yet to be built accounting for about 25.9%. At May’s sales pace it would take 7.7 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, down from 8.3 months in April.

“Going forward, we expect homebuilders to be willing to offer more incentives and discounts to support sales in a rising mortgage rate environment,” said Doug Duncan, chief economist at mortgage finance agency Fannie Mae.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani, additional reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Mark Porter and Paul Simao)

By Ann Saphir and Lindsay Dunsmuir

(Reuters) -A pair of U.S. central bankers said on Friday they supported further sharp interest rate hikes to stem rapid price rises, even as investors cheered economic data showing inflation expectations to be less worrisome than initially feared.

Last week, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point – its biggest hike since 1994 – to a range of 1.50% to 1.75%, and signaled its policy rate would rise to 3.4% by the end of this year.

Markets quickly priced in even more aggressive rate hikes, with interest-rate futures reflecting expectations for a policy rate of 3.5%-4% by year end. A stream of analysts and at least one former Fed policymaker raised the alarm on recession risks.

But on Friday, fresh data from the University of Michigan showed longer-term inflation expectations had not broken above their recent range, as a preliminary reading out just before the Fed’s June policy-setting meeting had suggested.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell had cited the initial read of 3.3% — a possible early warning that months of 8%-plus consumer price inflation were beginning to undermine public faith in the Fed’s ability to contain price pressures — as one reason policymakers supported the big rate increase in June.

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly on Friday said she would still have supported a 75 basis point hike in June even had she known the revised 3.1% figure.

And she believes another 75 basis point interest rate hike will be needed next month, with further increases to follow to deal with prices pressures that in her view probably have not peaked.

Daly’s remarks are particularly striking because she is not known as an especially hawkish policymaker. She said that by year end rates should get to 3.1%, her view of a neutral level, though if inflation worsens the Fed may need to do more.

Speaking earlier in the day, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said the Fed must “act forthrightly and aggressively to get inflation to turn around and get it under control,” repeating his call to frontload hikes to bring inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target.

Bullard since last summer has been one of the Fed’s most vocal hawks.

Both Daly and Bullard expressed confidence the Fed will be able to avoid recession, citing the strength of the labor market and economy’s momentum, helped by excess household savings that Daly said had not been spent down as quickly as she forecast.

Interest rate futures traders pared their expectations for Fed rate hikes and though they continue to price in a 75-basis point hike in July, ended the day reflecting expectations for a year-end Fed policy rate of 3.4%, exactly what Fed policymakers’ own forecasts suggest.

U.S. stocks ended the week up, with the S&P 500 Index marking its biggest one-day jump since May 2020.

(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir and Dan Burns; Editing by Paul Simao and Sam Holmes)

By Jorgelina do Rosario

(Reuters) -The executive board of the International Monetary Fund on Friday completed the first review of its $44 billion Extended Fund Facility for Argentina, its managing director said.

The approval allows for the disbursement of about $4 billion.

Kristalina Georgieva said on Twitter the approval marked the conclusion of an initial step under the program to support the country’s “ongoing economic recovery and strengthen stability.”

A source familiar with the matter had previously confirmed the information to Reuters.

In a statement, the IMF said that notwithstanding shocks such as inflation pressures and challenging fiscal and reserve

accumulation goals, Argentine authorities have met “all end-March 2022 quantitative targets and have made progress toward implementing the structural commitments under the program.”

It added that it maintained the end-year program objectives with some flexibility in the quarterly paths to accommodate those shocks.

Also on Twitter, Argentine Economy Minister Martin Guzman said the country will continue to implement macroeconomic policies in order to strengthen growth with “job creation and stability.”

The IMF announced on June 8 that it had reached a staff-level agreement on an updated macroeconomic framework with authorities in Argentina – the fund’s biggest debtor. It said at the time that “all quantitative program targets” for the first quarter of the year had been met.

Argentine authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Tuesday, Argentina’s government approved two payments to the IMF for some $2.75 billion.

(Reporting by Jorgelina do Rosario in London; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York and Nicolas Misculin in Buenos Aires; Writing by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Leslie Adler, Matthew Lewis and Sandra Maler)

(Reuters) -A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday put on hold the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on sales of Juul Labs Inc’s e-cigarettes, after the company appealed the health agency’s order and said the ban would cause it “irreparable harm”.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Of Columbia Circuit said the purpose of the stay was to allow the court sufficient time to consider Juul’s briefing for an emergency review and not a ruling on the merits of that motion.

The once red-hot vape company has also been working with its legal advisers on options that include a possible bankruptcy filing if it is unable to get relief from the government’s ban, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (https://on.wsj.com/3zZKXiz)

Juul’s counsel Kirkland & Ellis is advising on the contingency plans, according to the report.

The FDA said on Thursday Juul failed to show the sale of its products would be appropriate for public health, following a nearly two-year-long review of data provided by the company.

Juul, partly owned by tobacco giant Altria Group Inc, said it disagreed with the agency’s findings.

The temporary freeze on the FDA order lasts at least until July 12, according to the court’s scheduling order.

The pause gives Juul time to argue for why the order should be placed on hold for a longer amount of time pending the court’s review of it. The D.C. Circuit can extend the pause on the agency’s order, or it can let the order take effect while Juul’s appeal is pending.

The FDA and Juul declined to comment.

Juul said the FDA’s decision to block sales of its products was “extraordinary and unlawful”, citing, among other things, the agency authorizing similar e-cigarette products made by competing manufacturers.

BAT’s Vuse Solo was the first e-cigarette to get the agency’s clearance in October.

Juul also said the FDA’s ban was a departure from the agency’s normal practices, which typically involve allowing a transitional period, and questioned the agency’s “immense political pressure from Congress”.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia and Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Maju Samuel and Shounak Dasgupta)

By Elizabeth Howcroft, Tom Wilson and Hannah Lang

LONDON -U.S. crypto firm Harmony said on Friday that thieves stole around $100 million worth of digital coins from one of its key products, the latest in a string of cyber heists on a sector long targeted by hackers.

Harmony develops blockchains for so-called decentralised finance – peer-to-peer sites that offer loans and other services without the traditional gatekeepers such as banks – and non-fungible tokens.

The California-based company said the heist hit its Horizon “bridge”, a tool for transferring crypto between different blockchains – the underlying software used by digital tokens such as bitcoin and ether.

Thefts have long plagued companies in the crypto sector, with blockchain bridges increasingly targeted. Over $1 billion has been stolen from bridges so far in 2022, according to London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

Harmony tweeted that it was “working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds”, without giving further details.

In a statement, Harmony added that it had a global team “working around the clock to address the issue”.

“We are currently narrowing down the potential attack vectors while working to identify the culprit,” a spokesperson said, adding that Harmony had already tried to contact the hacker via a transaction to their crypto wallet address.

Elliptic, which tracks publicly visible blockchain data, said the hackers stole a number of different cryptocurrencies from Harmony, including ether, Tether, and USD Coin, which they later swapped for ether using so-called decentralised exchanges.

In March, hackers stole around $615 million worth of cryptocurrency from Ronin Bridge, used to transfer crypto in and out of the game Axie Infinity. The United States linked North Korean hackers to the theft.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft and Tom Wilson in London and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Alison Williams and Nick Macfie)

By Jeffrey Dastin

PALO ALTO, Calif. – The technology industry is bracing for the uncomfortable possibility of having to hand over pregnancy-related data to law enforcement, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to overturn the Roe v. Wade precedent that for decades guaranteed a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

As state laws limiting abortion kick in after the ruling, technology trade representatives told Reuters they fear police will obtain warrants for customers’ search history, geolocation and other information indicating plans to terminate a pregnancy. Prosecutors could access the same via a subpoena, too.

The concern reflects how the data collection practices of companies like Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc and Amazon.com Inc have the potential to incriminate abortion-seekers for state laws that many in Silicon Valley oppose.

“It is very likely that there’s going to be requests made to those tech companies for information related to search histories, to websites visited,” said Cynthia Conti-Cook, a technology fellow at the Ford Foundation.

Google declined to comment. Representatives for Amazon and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Technology has long gathered – and at times revealed – sensitive pregnancy-related information about consumers. In 2015, abortion opponents targeted ads https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-reaches-settlement-with-advertising-company-prohibiting-geofencing-around-massachusetts-healthcare-facilities saying “Pregnancy Help” and “You Have Choices” to individuals entering reproductive health clinics, using so-called geofencing technology to identify smartphones in the area.

More recently, Mississippi prosecutors charged a mother with second-degree murder after her smartphone showed she had searched for abortion medication in her third trimester, local media reported https://www.starkvilledailynews.com/infant-death-case-heading-back-to-grand-jury/article_cf99bcb0-71cc-11e9-963a-eb5dc5052c92.html. Conti-Cook said, “I can’t even imagine the depth of information that my phone has on my life.”

While suspects unwittingly can hand over their phones and volunteer information used to prosecute them, investigators may well turn to tech companies in the absence of strong leads or evidence. In United States v. Chatrie, for example, police obtained a warrant https://www.nacdl.org/Content/United-States-v-Chatrie,-No-3-19-cr-130-(E-D-Va-) for Google location data that led them to Okello Chatrie in an investigation of a 2019 bank robbery.

Amazon, for instance, complied at least partially with 75% of search warrants, subpoenas and other court orders demanding data on U.S. customers, the company disclosed for the three years ending in June 2020. It complied fully with 38%. Amazon has said it must comply with “valid and binding orders,” but its goal is to provide “the minimum” that the law requires.

Eva Galperin, cybersecurity director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said on Twitter on Friday, “The difference between now and the last time that abortion was illegal in the United States is that we live in an era of unprecedented digital surveillance.”

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin and Katie Paul in Palo Alto, Calif., Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif., and Stephen Nellis; Editing by Anna Driver and Matthew Lewis)

(Reuters) – A handful of U.S. companies were quick to outline their policies for employees after the nation’s top court decided to overturn the landmark ruling that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and legalized it nationwide.

Several companies were already offering reproductive healthcare benefits, including abortion coverage or travel benefits for out-of-state abortion, before Friday’s decision as some state legislatures had imposed tighter restrictions.

Reaction from U.S. companies:

Company Name Comment

WALT DISNEY The company said it will cover travel benefits for employees seeking family planning or

reproductive care.

META PLATFORMS The social media company said it intends to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the

extent permitted by law, for employees who will need them to access out-of-state health care

and reproductive services. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the

legal complexities involved.”

MICROSOFT The software giant reiterated that it would cover travel expense for abortion and other

lawful medical services where access to care is limited in an employee’s home geographic

region, a company spokesperson said.

CVS HEALTH The company said it had made out-of-state care accessible for employees residing in states

that have instituted laws that limit access. “With the new decision, we are evaluating how

we can best support the coverage needs of colleagues, clients and customer.”

NETFLIX The streaming pioneer reiterated it offers a travel reimbursement coverage for full-time

U.S. employees and their dependents who need to travel for abortion through its health

plans. The coverage is a $10,000 lifetime allowance per employee and/or their dependents per

service.

BUMBLE The dating app owner said it will continue to support its employees to get access to the

healthcare services that they need.

UNITEDHEALTH The largest U.S. health insurer said it was reviewing the court’s opinion.

BLOCK The payments company will cover expenses for U.S. employees who must travel more than 100

miles for abortions, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The policy will come

into effect starting July 1, according to the source.

(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

By Lewis Krauskopf, Sruthi Shankar and Anisha Sircar

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes soared on Friday in a broad rally as signs of slowing economic growth and a recent pullback in commodity prices tempered expectations for the Federal Reserve’s rate-hike plans.

The S&P 500 rose over 3% for its biggest one-day percentage rise since May 2020. All 11 of the benchmark index’s sectors ended at least 1.5% higher.

Stocks rebounded this week as financial markets have been roiled over worries that rapid rate hikes by the Fed to rein in 40-year-high inflation could cause a recession.

Still, investors have been gauging when the market might hit its bottom after the benchmark S&P 500 earlier this month recorded a 20% drop from its January closing peak, confirming the common definition of a bear market.

“Some of the moves, the sellers just get exhausted so you don’t have as much capital moving out,” said Shawn Cruz, head trading strategist at TD Ameritrade.

“This might be a little bit of a relief rally,” Cruz said. “But I think I would not encourage anyone to start going in with both hands at the moment, because we have seen this repeatedly where these things can reverse themselves pretty quickly.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 823.32 points, or 2.68%, to 31,500.68, the S&P 500 gained 116.01 points, or 3.06%, to 3,911.74 and the Nasdaq Composite added 375.43 points, or 3.34%, to 11,607.62.

For the week, the S&P 500 rose 6.4%, the Dow added 5.4%, the Nasdaq gained 7.5%.

Volume surged towards the end of the session as the close of trading marked the completion of FTSE Russell’s reconstitution of its indexes that are tracked by trillions of dollars in investor funds.

U.S. consumer sentiment fell to a record low in June, but Americans saw a marginal improvement in the outlook for inflation, a survey showed on Friday. Data on Thursday pointed to slowing U.S. business activity in June.

Helping ease inflation fears was a sharp drop in commodity prices this week. The Refinitiv/CoreCommodity Index, which measures prices for energy, agriculture, metals and other commodities, fell to a roughly two-month low on Thursday after hitting a multi-year peak earlier in June.

Fed funds futures traders are now pricing for the benchmark rate to rise to about 3.5% by March, down from expectations last week that it would increase to around 4%.

“The expectation of future rate hikes coming down is part of the equation that makes today’s equity market so strong,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Bank stocks rallied, with the S&P 500 banks index rising 3.7%, after the Fed’s annual “stress test” exercise showed that the lenders have enough capital to weather a severe economic downturn.

In company news, FedEx Corp shares jumped 7.2% after the parcel delivery company issued a stronger-than-expected full-year profit forecast.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 4.66-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.15-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 1 new 52-week high and 29 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 34 new highs and 86 new lows.

More than 19 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges, compared with the 12.9 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York, Sruthi Shankar and Anisha Sircar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Grant McCool)