Global Grain Trade Adapts to Avert Wheat Crisis Amid Ukraine War.
The war in Ukraine has sent grain prices soaring and countries that depend on the region's supply are struggling to find work arounds.
The market is already telling farmers to plant more of these crops and there's going to be real limits.
What that means for the global grain trade and what the surge of the 10 year treasury yield means for borrowers. Plus going back to the office after COVID-19. Why you might have to adjust your social skills.
The European Union is preparing a ban on Russian oil with a decision on the matter expected as early as this week. According to two senior diplomats, the 27 member block is expected to propose ending purchases of Russian crude before the end of the year. A major hurdle to a broader EU ban was removed when Germany, Europe's biggest economy and a major holdout, said it was ready to sign on to the sanctions.
All 27 EU member states need to agree for the ban to be put in place. The yield on the 10 year treasury hit 3% today for the first time, since late 2018, before ultimately settling just below the milestone. Markets reporter Sam Goldfarb says rates have been rising quickly this year due to inflation and on expectations that the federal reserve will continue raising interest rates in the coming months.
Treasury yields are hugely important in the economy, and for average people. They basically set a floor on a lot of different types of debt or loans, the most important probably being mortgages. So, as the 10 year US treasury yield rises, every day that it rises, that means that mortgage rates basically are going to rise. And so now we have mortgage rates at the highest level that they've been in a few years, and that's basically because treasury yields are rising.
Meanwhile, the major indexes rallied this afternoon to end the day higher. The Dow was up 0.3%. The NASDAQ gained 1.6% and the S and P 500 rose 0.6%. On Friday, stocks closed out their worst month since 2020. In New York, Amazon workers at a facility on Staten Island have voted against unionizing. The results are a blow to organizers who were hoping to build on the success of a similar vote last month that established the first US union inside the e-commerce giant. Amazon is contesting that vote saying it believes unions slow down the company's ability to make changes that benefit workers.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company is glad employees' voices were heard. A lawyer who has represented Amazon labor unions says the union is considering whether to file objections against Amazon related to the vote, and that organizing efforts will continue. Spirit airlines has rejected Jet Blue's $3.6 billion cash takeover bid saying it'll stick with plans to merge with rival carrier Frontier. Jet Blue's offer for Spirit came with a higher price tag than Frontier's cash and stock offer, originally valued at $2.9 billion, but Spirit's board says it believes the risk of regulators blocking the JetBlue merger is too great, despite JetBlue pledging to unload assets to win regulatory approval, and offering to pay a $200 million breakup fee if it wasn't able to complete a deal over antitrust concerns.
Antitrust authorities in the EU are accusing Apple of abusing its dominant market position by restricting mobile wallet app developers from accessing the technology underpinning Apple's own contactless mobile payment system, Apple Pay. The EU's charges are the latest in a series of actions targeting alleged anti-competitive behavior among tech companies. Apple could be subject to a fine of up to 30% of the revenue generated from its mobile wallets and related services.
The company says its payment system is one of many options available to consumers and that it has insured equal access to its tech. And we report exclusively that user location data from millions of people on the Grindr dating app, which is geared toward the LGBTQ community, were collected and sold via digital advertising networks since at least 2017. That's according to people familiar with the matter. Sources say the data didn't contain personal information, like names or phone numbers, but in some cases it was detailed enough to give clues to users identities, like workplaces and home addresses, or infer romantic connections between specific users based on their proximity to one another.
So the war in Ukraine is having a huge impact on farmers and the agriculture industry in Ukraine itself. Ukraine is one of the world's biggest producers of crops like wheat and barley and sunflower oil, and agricultural regions there have just, many of them have been consumed in heavy fighting in recent weeks.
We've heard stories about tanks rolling over farm fields. And there are farmers who say that Russian forces have left behind their fields just strewn with mines and destroyed equipment. Farmers are dealing with things like shortages of fuel and fertilizer and even workers who have left to join the fight. So there's a lot of uncertainty in Ukraine about farmers and whether they will be able to plant and harvest and ship their crops.
And I should say in Ukraine, wholly aside from what's going on in the farm fields, Russia's naval blockade and fighting around Ukrainian ports has all but halted shipping out of these really important Black Sea ports like Odesa. Even the crops that are there, just aren't getting out of the country by any maritime route.
Russia, farmers are actually in some ways reaping the benefits because some of the countries that typically import from Ukraine are now turning to Russia for supplies. So their farming activity is still going on, and companies are also still shipping grain for now from Russia. In fact, Russia has picked up some business from Ukraine, but going forward, the expectation is that export taxes and high shipping costs may limit exports from Russia in the months to come.
How dependent is the world on grain supplies from this region? How widespread is the impact?
The world is very dependent on grain supplies from Russia and Ukraine. I mean, farmers in that area have turned those countries into some of the most productive farming regions in the world. It's just about 50 countries that depend on Russia and Ukraine for more than 30% of their wheat imports. And so you've got countries like Egypt and Turkey and Bangladesh, they're some of the biggest importers from the region. Those countries source at least 60% of their imported wheat from Russia and Ukraine. So the impact of reduced harvest and exports is just huge.
Markets everywhere are affected by this Onyee.
