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Time out to take a look at some stocks on the move in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll and I'm joined by Bloomberg's Breaking News editor Louise Moon.
Louise, good morning.
Let's start with Shell profit missing on lower crude prices, weaker oil trading, shares down one point seven percent.
Indeed, yeah, so this is their fourth quarter results, as you say, profits slumping for those two reasons that you mentioned, as well as their struggling chemicals business, their chemicals unit.
So it missed expectations.
Well, not only did it miss expectations, but those expectations had already been lowered. So last month Shell warned of what they called significantly lower oil trading and as a result, unless lowered their forecasts. And then the results that came out today were even lower than that. So shares falling on the back of that news. And what it really highlights is the big task really that the CEO has. He's been trying to close Shells valuation gap with their
US rivals. Like Chevron and others. That has become even harder this year. Those US rivals, their shares have sowed. They've had quite strong production in lower cost oil fields, and then at the same time Shell is seeing its own issues to that valuation gap.
It's a big task to close that.
So if you take the shares for example, last year, Shell was actually the best performer among the world's top five five oil companies. That's in Donna terms. That's now been fizzling out, and it's been lagging so far this year. And as I say, shares again the further this morning. So there's a lot more for the CEO to do. He's already been cutting cast he's already been shedding units, but a big task if he wants to close that gap and boost Shell again.
That's moved to five cars next. Their share is down almost twenty three percent in Stockholm.
What's going on, Yeah, that's the most on record.
A similar story in the sense that it's fourth quarter results weaker than expected. They've been dealing with quite a host of issues, so weak demand, pricing, pressures, tariffs. There's also been relatively recently the removal of ev incentives in the US A lot of competition in China, obviously from China car makers, so that's all hitting sales. The CEO described it as, in his words, a very tough market.
And what makes it even kind of more of a setback is that they had had quite a strong third quarter and that had kind of lifted confidence that things could be looking up and that the CEO's restructure could be kind of taking hold. But then the fourth quarters has potentially dampened those hopes. So as I say, he's been embarking on a bit of a restructuring since last year that's included, you know, thousands of jobs being slashed. But a bit of a setback today with their fourth quarter.
But I always do do I like to add a bit of light, so there was a small bit. They have risen their sales targets and they're saying that they will have what they say clearly better cash flow, so a bit of positivity ahead as they're expecting demand for new models.
Okay, that's a question of optism for Alouise. Let's talk about another share that's on the decline this morning, and that's say people are marsk.
Yeah, it's a bit of a trier of bad news say ality, So as you say, Musk, they have announced plans to cut job So that's about a thousand jobs, so fifteen percent of corporate roles. But in totally if you look at their total workforce, it's less than one percent, but still one thousand jobs. And they're going to be increasing their focus on costs, so predicting annual cost cuts of one hundred and eighty million dollars. And this all
ties in with what they're calling a sharp focus on productivity. Essentially, they're trying to protect themselves as Red Sea roots are reopening and that is expected to lead to lower rates, lower freight rates, they're trying to protect themselves against this. The whole industry been benefiting from, you know, the longer taking the longer route round the South of Africa takes more time and that's coincided with competition lower capacity, So
the whole industry has been benefiting. But as the Red Sea opens again, it's expected to have a bit of a hit on rates. So this is Musk dealing with that, and shares falling on the back of that quite sharply, down about five percent. Last time I looked at Analysa saying, you know, a bit of uncertainty ahead, which is weighing on that.
This morning the Stock Movers Report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with us throughout the day for the latest roundup of companies making news on Wall Street and for the latest market moving headlines. Listen to Bloomberg Radio Live, catch us on YouTube, Bloomberg dot com, and on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.