By Timothy Gardner and Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. imposed fresh sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank on Thursday, the Treasury Department said, wielding its most powerful sanctioning tool against the bank as President Joe Biden steps up actions to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine before leaving office in January.

The move effectively kicks Gazprombank – one of Russia’s largest banks – out of the U.S. banking system, bans their trade with Americans and freezes their U.S. assets.

Gazprombank is partially owned by Kremlin-owned gas company Gazprom (MCX:GAZP). Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has been urging the U.S. to impose more sanctions on the bank, which receives payments for natural gas from Gazprom’s customers in Europe.

The fresh sanctions come days after the Biden administration allowed Kyiv to use U.S. ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory. On Tuesday, Ukraine fired the weapons, the longest range missiles Washington has supplied for such attacks on Russia, on the war’s 1,000th day.

The Treasury also imposed sanctions on 50 small-to-medium Russian banks to curtail the country’s connections to the international financial system and prevent it from abusing it to pay for technology and equipment needed for the war. It warned that foreign financial institutions that maintain correspondent relationships with the targeted banks “entails significant sanctions risk.”

“This sweeping action will make it harder for the Kremlin to evade U.S. sanctions and fund and equip its military,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “We will continue to take decisive steps against any financial channels Russia uses to support its illegal and unprovoked war in Ukraine.”

Along with the sanctions, Treasury also issued two new general licenses authorizing U.S. entities to wind down transactions involving Gazprombank, among other financial institutions, and to take steps to divest from debt or equity issued by Gazprombank.

The sanctions were imposed under a Biden executive order. It was not immediately clear whether President-elect Donald Trump could remove them if he decided to take a different stance on Russia.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Treasury placed debt and equity restrictions on 13 Russian firms, including Gazprombank, Sberbank and the Russian Agricultural Bank.

The U.S. Treasury has also worked to provide Ukraine with funds from windfall proceeds of frozen Russian assets.

Gazprombank is a conduit for Russia to purchase military materiel in its war against Ukraine, the Treasury said. The Russian government also uses the bank to pay its soldiers, including for combat bonuses, and to compensate the families of its soldiers killed in the war.

The administration believes the fresh sanctions improve Ukraine’s position on the battlefield and ability to achieve a just peace, a source familiar said.

Investing.com – Greece stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Banking, Construction and Travel sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Athens, the Athens General Composite gained 0.94%.

The best performers of the session on the Athens General Composite were Elvalhalcor Hellenic Copper and Aluminium Industry SA (AT:ELHA), which rose 9.36% or 0.15 points to trade at 1.80 at the close. Meanwhile, Titan Cement International SA (AT:TITCr) added 4.36% or 1.55 points to end at 37.10 and Ideal Group SA (AT:IDEr) was up 3.49% or 0.19 points to 5.64 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Cenergy Holdings SA (AT:CENEr), which fell 2.14% or 0.18 points to trade at 8.24 at the close. Quality and Reliability SA (AT:QUAr) declined 1.92% or 0.02 points to end at 1.02 and Elton S.A. (AT:ELNr) was down 1.76% or 0.03 points to 1.79.

Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the Athens Stock Exchange by 78 to 45 and 16 ended unchanged.

Shares in Titan Cement International SA (AT:TITCr) rose to all time highs; up 4.36% or 1.55 to 37.10.

Gold Futures for December delivery was up 0.70% or 18.60 to $2,670.30 a troy ounce. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Crude oil for delivery in January rose 1.82% or 1.25 to hit $70.00 a barrel, while the January Brent oil contract rose 1.72% or 1.25 to trade at $74.06 a barrel.

EUR/USD was unchanged 0.26% to 1.05, while EUR/GBP unchanged 0.00% to 0.83.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.04% at 106.66.

Investing.com – Israel stocks were higher after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Banking, Financials and Technology sectors led shares higher.

At the close in Tel Aviv, the TA 35 added 0.33%.

The best performers of the session on the TA 35 were ICL Israel Chemicals Ltd (TASE:ICL), which rose 2.80% or 46.00 points to trade at 1,689.00 at the close. Meanwhile, Bank Hapoalim (TASE:POLI) added 2.13% or 88.00 points to end at 4,210.00 and Israel Discount Bank Ltd (TASE:DSCT) was up 1.79% or 42.00 points to 2,394.00 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Shapir Engineering Industry (TASE:SPEN), which fell 2.78% or 72.00 points to trade at 2,520.00 at the close. Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Corp Ltd (TASE:BEZQ) declined 2.71% or 14.50 points to end at 520.00 and Phoenix Holdings Ltd (TASE:PHOE) was down 2.23% or 106.00 points to 4,654.00.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange by 240 to 213 and 85 ended unchanged.

Shares in Israel Discount Bank Ltd (TASE:DSCT) rose to all time highs; rising 1.79% or 42.00 to 2,394.00.

Crude oil for January delivery was up 1.82% or 1.25 to $70.00 a barrel. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Brent oil for delivery in January rose 1.73% or 1.26 to hit $74.07 a barrel, while the December Gold Futures contract rose 0.69% or 18.25 to trade at $2,669.95 a troy ounce.

USD/ILS was down 0.47% to 3.71, while EUR/ILS fell 0.73% to 3.91.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.06% at 106.68.

(Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday argued to a judge that Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) must sell its Chrome browser, share data, and search results with rivals, and take a range of other measures to end its monopoly on online search.

The proposals are wide-ranging, including barring Google from re-entering the browser market for five years and insisting Google sell its Android mobile operating system if other remedies fail to restore competition.

Here are some of the demands that the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) lawyers have made in the case:

DIVEST CHROME BROWSER

Google must promptly and fully divest its Chrome browser to a buyer approved by the U.S. government.

Google’s ownership of Chrome and the Android operating system poses a significant challenge to entrants and competitors, as they are the “key methods” for the distribution of search engines to consumers.

ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM

Google may elect to fully divest Android to a buyer approved by the U.S. government. If Google chooses to retain control of Android but fails to comply with presented remedies, the government may petition the court to order the divesture of Android.

BROWSER OWNERSHIP

Google should be prohibited from owning a browser or having any investment in a search or search text ad rival, search distributor, or rival query-based AI product or ads technology for five years after the divestiture of Chrome.

GOOGLE SEARCH CONTRACTS

Google should be prohibited from making payments to third parties to make Google the default general search engine in their products, including ending exclusive agreements in which Google pays billions of dollars annually to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).

AGREEMENTS WITH PUBLISHERS

Google should not enter into a contract with a publisher to license data that provides the search engine giant with exclusivity to the publisher’s content.

GOOGLE SEARCH PREFERENCE

Google should not use any assets it owns or operates to give preference to its own search engine, search text ads, or AI products.

DATA SHARING

Google would be required under the proposals to license search results to competitors at nominal cost and share data it gathers from users with competitors for free. It would be barred from collecting any user data that it cannot share due to privacy concerns.

Investing.com – Goldman Sachs downgraded Xpeng Inc (NYSE:XPEV). to “neutral” from “buy”, citing rising competitive challenges in China’s new energy vehicle (NEV) market and stock already significant outperformed in recent months leaving less room for growth.

US listed XPeng shares were last trading at 3.6% $12.2 in New York.

 XPeng’s shares have surged by 67% in the U.S. and 83% in Hong Kong over the past two months, driven by strong orders and deliveries for its new models, including the M03 and P7+.

Goldman anticipates XPeng’s vehicle deliveries will increase by 81% year-on-year in 2025, supported by at least four new model launches. However, intensifying price cuts, particularly in the first quarter of 2025, and uncertainty over government trade-in subsidies weigh on the outlook.

Goldman raised its 2024-2026 revenue forecasts for XPeng by 5%-9%, reflecting sales growth expectations.

The investment bank adjusted its 12-month price target for XPeng to $12.50 per U.S. ADR and HK$49 per Hong Kong share, representing a slight downside from current levels, note added.

Goldman’s downgrade follows its initial “Buy” rating in July, during which XPeng’s U.S. ADRs have underperformed the S&P 500 by 49 percentage points, amid heightened domestic competition.

While XPeng has shown recent strength with improving margins and order volumes, Goldman remains cautious on potential risks, including intensified market competition and production challenges.

On Thursday, Reddit experienced a significant outage that impacted thousands of its users. This service disruption occurred just one day after the company implemented a fix for a software bug that had previously prevented tens of thousands from accessing the platform.

The outage tracking website Downdetector.com recorded over 70,000 reports of outages from Reddit users. Downdetector compiles data on service disruptions by gathering status reports from multiple sources, including direct user feedback.

Reddit, which is a popular social media platform, had addressed a software bug on Wednesday. This bug fix was aimed at resolving an issue that had been a barrier to user access. However, the following day, users encountered a new set of challenges as they were unable to reach the site.

The number of reported outages on Downdetector.com indicated a widespread problem, with the peak of reports showing that the issue was significant and affected a large portion of the Reddit community.

The company has not yet released a statement regarding the cause of Thursday’s outage or the measures being taken to resolve the issue. Users seeking to engage with the Reddit platform were left waiting for a resolution to the service interruption.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German auto parts supplier Robert Bosch (NS:BOSH) will reduce the hours, and consequently the pay, of 450 employees in Germany from next spring, citing the difficult economic situation, a company spokesperson said on Thursday.

Those employees, whose contracts stipulated that they work 38-40 hours a week, will work only 35 hours a week starting March 1, the spokesperson said.

Several locations are affected, primarily in Stuttgart and Gerlingen, said the spokesperson.

The chairman of Bosch, Stefan Hartung, in October told Der Tagesspiegel newspaper that he cannot rule out further job cuts in Germany in addition to the 7,000 it has already announced.

The reduced hours come as a gloom has beset the auto industry that underpins Europe’s largest economy.

In a sign of the troubles, Europe’s largest carmaker, Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p), is demanding a 10% pay cut to slash costs and boost profit to defend market share in the face of cheap competition from China and a drop in European car demand.

(Reuters) -Payments firm PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) said on Thursday it had resolved an issue that led to a global outage affecting thousands of users for nearly two hours.

The company experienced a system issue that affected multiple products including account withdrawals, peer-to-peer payment service Venmo, online checkout and crypto.

PayPal said the issue, which started at 1053 GMT, had been resolved as of 1259 GMT.

Exchanges Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Kraken had also posted about outages with PayPal transactions and deposit delays, respectively, on their websites.

The outage occurred on a day bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has surged to levels to over $98,000 and pulled other crypto stocks along with it.

PayPal allows its clients to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrency.

Downdetector, which tracks user-submitted reports, had said there were nearly 9,000 reports of problems with PayPal transactions as of 1226 GMT.

Investing.com — Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported earnings for the fiscal first quarter, and the “flawless” results are a nod for investors to own the stock heading into 2025, Wedbush analysts said Thursday.

The AI chipmaker topped expectations with a $2 billion revenue beat, reporting $35 billion in sales, a sequential increase of $5 billion fueled by strong data center performance.

“We would characterize results as another earnings press release from Nvidia that should be framed and hung in the Louvre given these eye-popping results and unprecedented growth from the Godfather of AI Jensen and Nvidia,” Wedbush analysts led by Daniel Ives wrote.

The company’s next-generation Blackwell chips are ramping up production faster than anticipated, analysts highlight, with no overheating issues reported.

For the fourth quarter, Nvidia projected revenues of $37.5 billion, with a margin of plus or minus 2%. Wedbush analysts noted that on the higher end, this could imply revenue exceeding $39 billion as trends develop.

Although the guidance midpoint fell below some “whisper numbers” and triggered a negative investor reaction in after-hours trading, Wedbush believes the outlook is “conservative (as usual) and just starting the next stage of the AI Revolution.”

They think that the path to $4 trillion market cap is “now laid out by Nvidia,” which is bullish for the broader tech sector rally into year-end and 2025.

“In a nutshell, Nvidia’s jaw-dropper print/guidance is a bright green light to own this AI Revolution theme into the next year in our view,” Ives and his team emphasized.

Nvidia’s data center segment saw a 154% increase in sales, reaching $26.3 billion in the second quarter ending July 28, surpassing expectations of $25.15 billion. This marked a 16% growth compared to the first quarter.

Adjusted earnings per share came in at 81 cents, also above analysts’ projections of 75 cents per share.

Investing.com — Palo Alto Networks reported strong first-quarter results, but initial market reactions to its conservative guidance may not fully capture the company’s positive trajectory, according to Wedbush analysts.

While revenue of $2.14 billion slightly beat the Street’s $2.12 billion estimate, and operating margins of 28.8% exceeded expectations, it “was overshadowed by its conservative guidance with Street expectations on its platformization strategy to reaccelerate RPO, ARR, and billings,” said Wedbush.

The firm emphasized that the company’s platformization strategy is gaining traction, as seen in a 6% increase in Next-Gen Security (NGS) ARR per platformized customer compared to FY24.

They explained that NGS ARR grew 40% year-over-year to $4.52 billion, surpassing the Street’s estimate of $4.37 billion. Additionally, 53% of NGS ARR now comes from platformized accounts, up 300 basis points from the same quarter last year, keeping Palo Alto on track to meet its $15 billion NGS ARR target by 2030.

Growth in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) market and increasing ARR from Cortex and XSIAM, which each hit $1 billion this quarter, are said to underscore Palo Alto’s strong positioning in the cybersecurity sector.

Wedbush also highlighted the company’s approved 2:1 stock split, set to take effect on December 16, aimed at improving share accessibility.

For FY25, Palo Alto raised its revenue guidance to $9.12-$9.17 billion, aligned with the Street’s $9.13 billion estimate, and increased EPS expectations to $6.26-$6.39, above consensus at $6.28.

The company anticipates robust AI-driven cybersecurity spending to sustain growth.

Wedbush remains bullish, maintaining an Outperform rating and a $400 price target on the stock.

“While we believe the stock negative initial reaction was overblown, we believe PANW’s efforts on platformization are just beginning to hit its stride as it generates a more stable pipeline of platformization deals with cloud penetration still acting as a major driver going forward,” wrote Wedbush. “PANW remains one of our favorite cyber security names to own over the next 12-18 months.”