BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) will likely face an EU investigation next year into whether it favours its own brand products on its online marketplace as European antitrust regulators build up a case under landmark rules, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The U.S. online retailer could face a fine of up to 10% of its global annual turnover if it is found guilty of breaching the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) which seeks to rein in the power of Big Tech.

The timing and decision on whether to go ahead with an investigation will be taken by incoming EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera in the coming months, the people said. The Spaniard is set to take up her post next month, replacing outgoing Margrethe Vestager.

    Amazon said it is compliant with the DMA and has engaged constructively with the Commission on its plans since the designation of two of its services as important gateways between businesses and consumers and thus subject to the new rules.

The DMA, which came into effect last year, prohibits Amazon and six other Big Tech companies from giving preference to their products and services on their platforms, among other requirements.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU antitrust enforcer, in March said it was gathering facts and information on Amazon’s treatment of its own brand products on the Amazon Store.

It declined to comment on Thursday.

In its compliance report published in March, Amazon said its ranking models do not differentiate on whether the product is sold by Amazon Retail or a Seller or whether it is an Amazon product or a third-party product.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) are currently being investigated under the DMA, with Ribera set to decide on the outcomes and not Vestager, one of the people said.

(This story has been refiled to correct Teresa Ribera’s name in paragraph 3)

Investing.com – HSBC in a note said the recent 79% surge Bloom Energy Corp (NYSE:BE) shares driven by a record data center order and expectations of additional deals has made its valuation “fair”.

Brokerage raised its price target for Bloom Energy to $24.50 from $17.20, citing a stronger long-term outlook fueled by demand from AI data centers. However, the revised target represents a modest 3.2% upside, prompting the downgrade.

HSBC downgraded Bloom Energy Corp to “hold” from “buy,”

Bloom Energy announced a long-term contract with American Electric Power (NASDAQ:AEP), including an initial order of 100 megawatts (MW) of its solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) to power an AI data center. The deal could expand up to 1 gigawatt (GW) as AEP explores additional customer contracts for Bloom’s technology, the brokerage noted.

HSBC expects Bloom’s installed base to grow by about 300 MW in 2024 and 400 MW in 2025, surpassing previous records. Despite the accelerated growth, the brokerage flagged near-term concerns over working capital drag and capacity expansion at Bloom’s Fremont facility.

“Our estimates assume the company adds capacity gradually to its existing roofline while working capital continues to be a drag in the near term,” HSBC analysts wrote in a note.

Bloom is forecasted to generate positive free cash flow by 2026, a year earlier than previously expected, with HSBC attributing this to increasing demand and operational efficiencies.

Shares of Bloom Energy, were trading down 2% at $24.35 on Thursday, have surged over 100% year-to-date.

(Reuters) – A grand jury has indicted Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) for illegally discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of industrial wastewater into Los Angeles County’s sewer system, and failing to report the violations to authorities.

The indictment against the Houston-based energy company includes four counts of knowingly violating the federal Clean Water Act and two counts of negligently violating that law, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada in Los Angeles said on Thursday.

Phillips 66 is expected to be arraigned in the coming weeks in Los Angeles federal court.

It faces a maximum sentence of five years probation on each count, and $2.4 million in fines.

Phillips 66 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to Wednesday’s indictment, the discharges came from Phillips 66’s refinery in Carson, California.

In the first discharge, the refinery released 310,000 gallons of non-compliant wastewater, containing about 64,000 pounds of oil and grease, into Los Angeles’ sewers over 2-1/2 hours on Nov. 24, 2020.

The oil-and-grease concentration was as high as 24,700 milligrams per liter, far higher than the 75 milligrams per liter allowed under Phillips’ permit, the indictment said.

In the second discharge, the refinery released 480,000 gallons of wastewater containing at least 33,700 pounds of oil and grease, for a concentration of 12,900 milligrams per liter, over six hours on Feb. 8, 2021.

Estrada said Phillips 66 acknowledged the discharges only after being contacted by county regulators, and promised in writing after the first discharge to “retrain operations personnel” on how to manage and report discharges.

(Reuters) – Citron Research has taken a short position in MicroStrategy, the company said in a post on social media platform X on Thursday.

Shares of the largest corporate holder of bitcoin were last down more than 8%. They opened sharply higher on a rally in bitcoin prices, which were nearing $100,000 after crypto-friendly Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election.

“Now, with Bitcoin investing easier than ever (ETFs, $COIN, $HOOD), $MSTR’s volume has completely detached from BTC fundamentals,” Citron wrote while stating it was bullish on bitcoin.

“Much respect to (Michael Saylor), but even he must know (MicroStrategy) is overheated.”

MicroStrategy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Under Executive Chairman Saylor, the company has raised capital all through the year to acquire more bitcoin, with a $2.6 billion debt offering on Wednesday the latest.

Its shares have surged more than 600% so far this year.

(Reuters) – Reddit was down for thousands of users on Thursday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, a day after it rolled out a fix for a software bug that prevented tens of thousands of people from accessing the social media platform.

Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including users, showed more than 70,000 reports of outages.

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.