Wall Street Breakfast Podcast: Beryl Leaves Houston Dark

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Beryl hits Texas: Houston sees widespread power outage, heat alert issued (CNP). (00:20) Tesla (TSLA) rival BYD (OTCPK:BYDDF) to build $1B EV plant in Turkey. (01:18) Stellantis (STLA) to have 30 hybrid models available in Europe this year. (02:08)

This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.

Most of Houston remains without power after Beryl made landfall along the Texas coast on Monday, and the blackout may be extended for days in the hardest-hit areas.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP), the Houston area’s main electric utility, said close to 2.3M customers lost power during the storm. It restored power to nearly 285,000 customers by Monday night, and expects 1M customers’ power to be restored by the end of Wednesday.

Beryl is now a tropical depression. It hit the Texas coast early Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane.

CenterPoint Energy mobilized nearly 12,000 field resources for restoration efforts.

While the center of the storm has moved away from southeast Texas, the region is now facing high temperatures. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for the region, with heat index values up to 105F.

Chinese EV maker BYD Company (OTCPK:BYDDF) plans to build a massive $1B EV plant in Turkey with an annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said on Monday that production is expected to begin at the end of 2026.

The plant would include a mobility and R&D center and employ 5,000 people.

Given Turkey’s customs union with the EU, this new plant could help BYD (OTCPK:BYDDF) overcome the potential impacts of new EU tariffs on Chinese EV imports.

Additional factories in Brazil and Mexico are also on the horizon. BYD (OTCPK:BYDDF) recently opened its first factory in Thailand.

BYD Company (OTCPK:BYDDF) gets a Quant rating of Buy on Seeking Alpha, with the highest factor grades given to momentum and profitability. —

Automaker Stellantis (NYSE:STLA) is set to offer 30 hybrid models this year in Europe and plans to introduce six more through 2026, it said Tuesday.

Stellantis (STLA) said it has achieved a 41% sales increase in EU30 hybrid models year-to-date 2024 versus year-to-date 2023 and expects an increase in customer take rate with the upcoming new launches.

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Catalyst watch:

• The five-day Allen Conference will begin in Sun Valley, Idaho. The list of heavy-hitter invitees includes OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon (AMZN) Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff, Uber Technologies (UBER) CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav, and Airbnb (ABNB) CEO Brian Chesky. Some analysts think this year’s media mogul confab will generate more headlines than has been seen recently.

• The three-day SEMICON West conference will begin. The event showcases the latest advancements in the microelectronics sector, covering electronic design automation, device fabrication, and final manufacturing, including assembly, packaging, and testing.

Now let’s take a look at the markets as of 6 am. Ahead of the opening bell today, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the green. Crude oil is down 0.5% at $81 per barrel. Bitcoin is up 0.1% at $57,000.

In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is up 0.1% and the DAX is down 0.1%.

The biggest movers for the day premarket: BP (NYSE:BP) is down 4% on expecting Q2 impairment charges of $1B-$2B and a warning of weak oil trading earnings amid significantly lower refining margins.

On today’s economic calendar:

• 9:15 a.m. Fed’s Michael Barr will speak on the topic “Financial Inclusion: Past, Present and Hopes for the Future” at the Financial Inclusion Practices and Innovation Conference in Washington D.C.

• 10:00 a.m. Jerome Powell will give the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress. Today’s report will be before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

• 1:30 p.m. Fed’s Michelle Bowman will speak on the topic, “Promoting an Inclusive Financial System ” at the Financial Inclusion Practices and Innovation Conference in Washington D.C.

Editor’s Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.