Highlights for the morning: short-seller trial, HPE shares soar and new duties for Brazil

The U.S. has proposed imposing 25 percent duties on imports from Brazil following an investigation initiated by the Donald Trump administration. HPE shares soared by 30% after its quarterly report turned out to be much better than market expectations. On these and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of June 2.

Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise jumped 30% after the company reported results for the second quarter, which ended April 30, well above market expectations, CNBC reports. Adjusted earnings amounted to $0.79 per share against the forecast of $0.53, and revenue grew 40% year-on-year to $10.68 billion. The main driver was sales of servers for AI and cloud infrastructure: revenue from the server business reached $5.45 billion, significantly exceeding analysts' consensus forecast.

Amid strong demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, HPE raised its full-year fiscal 2026 earnings forecast by more than a dollar to $3.35 to $3.45 per share. CEO Antonio Neri said record order backlog and triple-digit growth rates in traditional server bookings.

The U.S. Trade Representative's Office has proposed imposing 25 percent duties on Brazilian goods following an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act, CNBC reports. The agency concluded that the actions of the Brazilian authorities, including measures to combat corruption, protect intellectual property, access to the ethanol market and control deforestation, create unreasonable barriers to U.S. trade. A meeting on this issue will be held on July 6.

The investigation was launched at the behest of Donald Trump. His earlier imposed 50% duties against Brazil were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, after which only the basic tariff of 10% remained in force.

Famous American short-seller Andrew Left, founder of Citron Research, was found guilty of 13 out of 17 counts of market manipulation through publications in social networks, Bloomberg writes. According to prosecutors, in 2018-2023, he published high-profile comments about companies to influence their stock prices and earned more than $20 million on trades with them.

Left faces more than 20 years in prison, although the final sentence will be determined by the court on August 31. The investor himself denies the charges, calls the case an attack on freedom of speech and intends to appeal the verdict. Experts believe that the court's decision may change the practices of the entire short-selling industry and increase pressure on investors who publish negative studies of companies, Bloomberg notes.

Restoring the launch pad of the New Glenn rocket, severely damaged in an explosion during testing last week, will take "significant time," NASA head Jared Isaacman said, CNBC reports. According to him, a realistic date for the return of the site to service could be 2028.

The incident jeopardizes Blue Origin's launch schedule, including NASA's Artemis lunar program and the launch of satellites for Amazon's Kuiper Internet project. Since Jeff Bezos's company has only one launch site for New Glenn so far, the accident increases the dependence of the heavy-lift launch market on SpaceX, Isaacman said.

- Japan's broad Topix index was down 0.8 percent, while the Nikkei 225 was down 1 percent.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was up 1.7 percent, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index was up 1.1 percent.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was down 1.7 percent and the Kosdaq was down 2.6 percent.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.2 percent.

- S&P 500 futures were down 0.3 percent, Nasdaq Composite futures were down 0.4 percent and Dow Jones Industrial Average exchange-traded contracts were down 0.4 percent.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor