REUTERS/Mandel Ngan
President Obama delivering the State of the Union address Tuesday.
Oil Sold Off Again In US Trading Hours Yesterday. In late-afternoon trade on Tuesday, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down more than 5% to below $46.50 a barrel. Tuesday's decline comes after last week saw oil prices rise for the first time in almost two months. Brent fell by about 1%, and both are up by just less than 1% early Wednesday.
BHP Is Closing Nearly Half Its US Shale Rigs. In an announcement on Tuesday night (well, Wednesday morning in Australia), Australian mining giant BHP said it would shut down 40% of its US shale oil rigs over by the end of its fiscal year.
SpaceX Raised $1 Billion From Google And Fidelity For A One-Tenth Share Of The Firm. Elon Musk's SpaceX has raised $1 billion from Google and Fidelity, confirming earlier reports from The Information and The Wall Street Journal. The two new investors will now own just less than 10% of the company. This new funding round is more than four times bigger than all its other rounds combined.
Netflix Earnings Came In Higher Than Expected And Shares Surged After Hours. Earnings per share hit $0.72, up from the $0.44 expected, and shares rose by as much as 14% in after-hours trading.
The Bank Of Japan Strengthened A Credit Scheme But Left QE Unchanged As Inflation Plunges. The Bank of Japan cut next fiscal year's inflation forecast on Wednesday and expanded a loan scheme aimed at boosting lending, hoping to deflect criticism it is sitting idly by as a slump in oil prices pushes inflation further away from its target.
Toyota Was The World's Top Auto-Maker Again In 2014. Toyota sold 10.23 million vehicles last year, it said Wednesday, outpacing General Motors and Volkswagen (which logged 10.14 million) to remain the world's biggest automaker, but a shaky outlook for 2015 could see it lose the title to its German rival.
Almost Everyone Is Expecting QE From The ECB Tomorrow. After President Francois Hollande's slip-up earlier this week, in which he declared that QE would be announced on Thursday, Kit Juckes at Societe Generale outlined the results of a recent client survey showing that about 70% of the 176 clients polled expect the ECB to announce QE this week.
Asian Shares Are Mixed. Investors in Japan didn't take much comfort from the country's monetary policy announcements, and the Nikkei closed down 0.46%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng is currently up 1.52% and the Shanghai Composite is up 4.18%, erasing a huge chunk of Monday's collapse which was the worst day in six and a half years for the index.
President Barack Obama's State Of The Union Address Pushed For "Middle Class Economics". Obama called for ia $3,000 tax cut to provide childcare for middle class and lower income families, as well as a congressional vote on paid sick leave. Additionally Obama said he wants laws passed to ensure equal pay for women and an increased minimum wage.