Key transactions & industry news Weekly Update 03/21/2025

Metals & Mining

GCC imposes anti-dumping duties on Chinese aluminum imports to limit $1 billion foreign goods. More anti-dumping duties are on the way to Chinese aluminum products. After India, now the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are imposing duties on China for flooding their countries with aluminum products at unfair prices.

Century Aluminum insider trading: SVP cashes out $49K in stock sale. In recent developments at Century Aluminum Company, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Accounting Officer Robert Hoffman executed a stock sale totalling $49,974. This transaction involved the sale of 2,500 shares at an average price of $19.99 per share.

Transportation & Logistics

Trump picks Boeing over Lockheed for fighter jet contract. US President Donald Trump awarded Boeing the contract to build the US Air Force’s most sophisticated fighter jet yet, handing the company a much-needed win and boosting its shares. The Next Generation Air Dominance program will replace Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor with a crewed aircraft built to enter combat alongside drones.

FedEx prepping LTL unit ahead of spinoff. FedEx continues to pretty up the nation’s largest less-than-truckload business, FedEx Freight, ahead of a 2026 spinoff. However, a lackluster industrial complex continued to present a headwind during its recent fiscal quarter ended Feb. 28. Revenue at FedEx Freight declined 5.3% year over year to $2.09 billion as tonnage fell 7.6% and revenue per hundredweight, or yield, increased just 2.2%. The tonnage decline was the combination of a 4.7% decline in shipments and a 3.1% decline in weight per shipment. A weak industrial economy along with lower fuel surcharge revenues were cited as the culprits.

Energy

Oil prices rise for second consecutive week on expected tighter supply. Oil prices settled higher on Friday and recorded a second consecutive weekly gain as fresh US sanctions on Iran and the latest output plan from the OPEC+ producer group raised expectations of tighter supply. Brent crude futures rose 16 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $72.16 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 21 cents, or 0.3%, to $68.28.

Others

Fed in no rush to cut rates; Trump disagrees. The Trump administration’s initial policies, including extensive import tariffs, appear to have tilted the US economy toward slower growth and at least temporarily higher inflation, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, drawing the ire of President Donald Trump. Trump posted late on Wednesday on his Truth Social platform: “The Fed would be MUCH better off CUTTING RATES as U.S. Tariffs start to transition (ease!) their way into the economy. Do the right thing.”