Cathay CEO says labour shortages limit airline to 70% of pre-Covid capacity
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific has said manpower constraints are holding the airline back from raising its target of returning to 70 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 pandemic capacity by the end of this year.
“We are facing various constraints, mainly in manpower,” chief executive Ronald Lam said during the carrier’s annual general meeting on Wednesday. “I don’t see much room for us to further increase the 70 per cent capacity goal.”
The airline said it returned to 50 per cent of pre-Covid capacity in March and expects full capacity by the end of 2024. Lam added he hoped air fares would fall “bit by bit” as capacity grew.
Asian equities dip as investor mood hinges on US inflation figures
Asian equities declined on Wednesday morning, as traders looked ahead to the release of US inflation data later in the day.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.3 percent, China’s CSI 300 lost 0.5 per cent and Japan’s Topix declined 0.4 per cent. The moves followed a muted day in the US on Tuesday, where investors sat on the sidelines as they awaited the release of consumer price index data.
Those figures will form part of the Federal Reserve’s calculus on the future direction of interest rates, with investors split on whether the central bank will continue to tighten policy.
Oil edges downwards as stockpiles grow and investors await Fed reaction
Oil prices edged lower on Wednesday after US weekly crude inventories data showed an increase in stockpiles and investors looked ahead to inflation figures that will influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, lost 0.2 per cent to trade at $77.27 per barrel, while US marker West Texas Intermediate fell by the same margin to $73.53.
Data from the American Petroleum Institute showed crude inventories rose by about 3.6mn barrels last week, possibly signalling weak demand.
US consumer price index data released later on Wednesday will influence the Fed’s monetary policy meeting next month and is expected to show headline CPI rose at an annual rate of 5 per cent in April.
UK citizen pleads guilty in hacking case that hijacked celebrity Twitter accounts
A British citizen pleaded guilty on Tuesday to US computer hacking charges, including a 2020 attack on Twitter that took over dozens of celebrity accounts to solicit more than $115,000 in cryptocurrency.
Joseph James O’Connor, known online as PlugwalkJoe, was extradited from Spain to the US on April 26.
“O’Connor used his sophisticated technological abilities . . . to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency, hacking Twitter, conducting computer intrusions to take over social media accounts and even cyberstalking two victims, including a minor,” said US attorney Damian Williams.
He gained unauthorised access to Twitter accounts including those of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Kanye West and Elon Musk. O’Connor, 23, was arrested on the Costa del Sol in 2021.
What to watch in Asia today
India: Voters go to the polls in state elections in Karnataka, which includes India’s technology capital of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore. The contest has been unusually closely fought with the ruling Bharatiya Janata party pouring in resources and committing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to five days of campaigning in an effort to avoid losing its last southern foothold to the opposition Congress.
Earnings: It’s a big day for Japanese companies, as Toyota, SoftBank, Panasonic, Nippon Steel and others report today.
Markets: Futures in Japan edged lower while contracts in Hong Kong pointed slightly higher on Wednesday morning. US stocks slipped on Tuesday but traders were mostly on the sidelines ahead of the release of crucial inflation data. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 ended the day down 0.5 per cent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6 per cent.
Culture: The Sovereign Art Foundation Asian Art Prize exhibition opens in Hong Kong. The Financial Times is a media partner for the exhibit, which is open until May 18 at 80 Queen’s Road Central.
Kevin McCarthy says ‘no new movement’ in White House debt ceiling talks
US president Joe Biden and congressional Republicans failed to reach a breakthrough after their first big meeting to avert a crisis over the debt ceiling, but agreed to continue talks and hold a new summit on Friday.
Speaking outside the White House on Tuesday afternoon, Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, said there had been “no new movement” after the gathering of America’s top political leaders. “Everybody reiterated the positions they were at,” McCarthy said.
Despite the lack of immediate progress, the meeting set the stage for negotiations that will dominate US politics and potentially reverberate around global financial markets over the coming weeks.
Read what top Republicans are demanding.
Tucker Carlson plans to relaunch show on Twitter after ousting from Fox
Tucker Carlson plans to relaunch his show on Twitter after being fired from Fox, telling followers that they are “being manipulated” by television news and that Elon Musk’s social media site is the last remaining big platform that “allows free speech”.
In a three-minute video on his Twitter page, Carlson announced that a new version of the show would be “starting soon”, but did not provide further details.
“At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie”, Carlson said in a tirade against the US media. “You are being manipulated.”
Read more about Carlson’s media plans.
Occidental misses Wall Street forecasts as Berkshire buybacks begin
Occidental Petroleum reported earnings that fell short of Wall Street expectations as it began buying back Berkshire Hathaway’s roughly $10bn worth of preferred stock.
The Houston-based oil and gas producer known as Oxy reported revenue of $7.3bn and net income of $983mn for the first three months of 2023. Analysts had expected $7.4bn and $1.2bn respectively, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Oxy also said it would begin to buy back the preferred stock, which commands a hefty dividend payout, four years after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made a substantial investment in the company to support its dramatic takeover of Anadarko Petroleum.
Shares slipped 2 per cent in after-market trading in New York.
Airbnb shares slide 10% after weak bookings outlook
Shares in Airbnb fell more than 10 per cent in extended trading after the company said it expected its bookings in the current quarter to underperform compared with last year.
The company reported $1.82bn in sales, representing 20 per cent annual revenue growth, while surpassing Wall Street’s profit forecasts by nearly 150 per cent, earning $117mn, its first-ever profitable first quarter.
Gross bookings value, a key company metric, grew 19 per cent to $20.4bn.
The earnings were overshadowed by Airbnb’s guidance for the current quarter, which projected a slowdown in bookings. “We expect year-over-year growth in Nights and Experiences Booked in Q2 2023 to be lower than our revenue growth during the quarter,” the company said.
