(Reuters) – Nearly 19 million Americans are expected to go on cruise vacations this year, but passenger growth is likely to cool off after seeing a boom post pandemic, travel group AAA forecast on Monday.

Passenger volume this year is projected to grow 4.5% from 2024, when 18.2 million Americans went on ocean cruises, according to the industry group. The increase is slower than the 7.7% rise last year and a solid 42% growth in 2023.

Cruise operators were among the worst hit in the travel industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their recovery was sharp. Despite the slowing growth, 2025 is expected to be the third straight year of record cruise passenger volume, AAA said.

AAA expects the Caribbean to be the top destination for American travelers this year.

Operators such as Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL), Carnival (NYSE:CCL) Corp and Norwegian Cruise Line (NYSE:NCLH) Holdings saw record demand last year as more people across age groups chose cruises despite a rise in itinerary prices.

This boosted their stocks, with Royal Caribbean’s shares gaining 78%, while those of Carnival and Norwegian Cruise rose about 34% and 28% respectively last year.

AAA’s forecast is calculated based on scheduled cruise itineraries covering all major cruise vessels, the economic outlook and travel sector trends. The forecast is prepared in partnership with Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company.

By Li Gu and Clare Jim

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) – China Vanke’s bonds gained on Monday after the state-backed developer said it would redeem its 2027 notes worth 1 billion yuan ($137.68 million) early in March.

Vanke’s announcement boosted investor confidence on its ability to repay its near-term financial debt, including a 3 billion yuan onshore bond due on Monday. Unlike the redemption of the 2027 notes, the company is not required to make a disclosure on Monday’s repayment.

Worries over Vanke’s liquidity have intensified this month as it faces several looming debt maturity deadlines. It has a total $3.4 billion due this year.

A state media report earlier this month alleged the developer’s CEO had been detained and that it could be subject to a takeover or reorganisation. The report was deleted within hours of its publication.

In a filing on Friday, Vanke said it would exercise its rights to redeem the 2027 callable bond in March.

Analysts said investors were taking the early redemption as a sign it would have no problem meeting its more immediate obligations.

“Announcing the redemption of the last bond for the first quarter is equivalent to declaring that all bonds for the quarter are free from default concerns,” said Yao Yu, founder of credit analysis firm Ratingdog.

Vanke’s May 2028 onshore bond was quoted 15% higher on Monday morning at 73 yuan versus a 100 yuan par value.

Bids for its May 2025 dollar bond also rose to 80.608 cents on the dollar from around 75.7 cents on Friday.

Some analysts say a debt default is inevitable this year without fresh liquidity support as Vanke’s monthly sales fall to below break-even levels and it faces difficulties in borrowing from banks and disposing assets. It fell to fifth by sales value last year from second in 2023.

The government in the southern city of Shenzhen, where Vanke has its headquarters, is stepping up meetings and coordination with local state enterprises on plans to contain the company’s debt risk and on asset disposals, Reuters reported last week.

The developer has been trying to sell a number of assets, including its stakes in logistics platform GLP and property management unit Onewo, to ease liquidity pressure, sources have said.

It is in advanced talks to sell a controlling stake in VX Logistics to Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, and a deal could be finalised as soon as next month, a source told Reuters last week.

All three global rating agencies have downgraded the developer deeper into junk this month, citing its eroding financial flexibility and 2025’s uncertain sales outlook.

($1 = 7.2634 Chinese yuan renminbi)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Canadian investment firm Brookfield Asset Management (TSX:BAM) said on Monday it has closed two real-estate investments in Japan worth a combined $1.6 billion.

The investments comprise a stake in Tokyo’s landmark Gajoen complex, a mixed-use office, retail and luxury hotel, and a 1 million square foot (93,000 square metre) plot in the outskirts of Nagoya, which will be developed into a logistics warehouse, Brookfield said in a release.

It is the latest large-scale real-estate investment in Japan, as a weaker yen and availability of cheap financing have ramped up foreign investor interest in the sector.

Gajoen, located in Meguro, Tokyo, is owned by the Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp (CIC), which bought the property in 2015.

Brookfield did not state the size of its stake in Gajoen.

By Aditya Kalra and Arpan Chaturvedi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Digital news units of Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, and other outlets like the Indian Express and the Hindustan Times, have mounted a legal challenge against OpenAI’s improper use of copyright content, legal papers show.

The media outlets including Adani’s NDTV and Ambani’s Network18 have told a New Delhi court they want to join an ongoing lawsuit against the ChatGPT creator, as they are worried their news websites are being scraped to store and reproduce their work to users of the powerful AI tool.

Reuters is first to report the case filing by the digital news publishers, which escalates an ongoing legal battle against ChatGPT in India. In the most high-profile battle, local news agency ANI was first to file a lawsuit against OpenAI last year. Global and Indian book publishers have also now joined in.

The 135-page case filing in the New Delhi court, which is not public but was reviewed by Reuters, argues OpenAI’s conduct constitutes “a clear and present danger to the valuable copyrights” of Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) members and other outlets.

It refers to OpenAI’s “wilful scraping … and adaptation of content”.

Courts across the world are hearing claims by authors, news outlets and musicians who accuse technology firms of using their copyright work to train AI services and who are seeking to have content used to train the chatbot deleted.

The filing was made by the Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Adani’s NDTV and the DNPA, which represents roughly 20 companies including Mukesh Ambani Network18 and players like Dainik Bhaskar. Many of these outlets have a flourishing newspaper and television news business too.

The Times of India is not taking part in the legal challenge despite being member of the DNPA.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on the new allegations. It has repeatedly denied such allegations, saying its AI systems make fair use of publicly available data.

None of the Indian media companies immediately responded to Reuters request for comment.

Investing.com– Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has claimed the top spot on the U.S. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store’s free app charts, overtaking OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the longstanding leader in generative AI applications.

DeepSeek’s app, powered by its cutting-edge R1 model, has rapidly gained popularity for its ability to generate human-like responses and perform complex tasks with unprecedented efficiency. The R1 model, is one of the most advanced AI systems globally, offering enhanced accuracy, faster response times, and improved multilingual support.

DeepSeek’s breakthrough has also triggered a reevaluation of the AI landscape. Analysts suggest its competitive pricing and robust performance could disrupt market dynamics, forcing incumbents to adapt.

DeepSeek officially launched its app on January 13, offering free access to advanced AI models.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT, a staple in the app charts since its debut, remains widely used but has been challenged by DeepSeek’s surge.

The new benchmark set by the Chinese AI at a fraction of cost is putting pressure on industry leaders like Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), and other tech leaders.

Investing.com – U.S. stock index futures fell on Sunday evening after weekly gains on Wall Street as President Donald Trump threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on Colombia, while investors turned cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve interest rate decision, and inflation readings due this week.

S&P 500 Futures fell 0.5% to 6,103.0 points, while Nasdaq 100 Futures declined 1.2% to 21,646.25 points by 18:45 ET (23:45 GMT). Dow Jones Futures inched 0.2% lower to 44,535.0 points.

Trump imposes tariffs, sanctions on Colombia

On Sunday, Trump announced that he would impose sanctions, and hefty tariffs on Colombia after the Latin American country refused to allow two U.S. repatriation flights carrying deported individuals to land, a directive attributed to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro. 

Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Colombia, effective immediately, and would raise it to 50% next week.

In addition to the tariffs, the U.S. administration has enacted a travel ban and revoked visas for Colombian government officials and their affiliates.

In response, Colombia threatened a 50% tariff on U.S. goods. The new tariffs are anticipated to have substantial economic implications, especially for Colombian exports such as petroleum, coffee, and flowers, which heavily rely on the U.S. market.

Trump has earlier announced that tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China, and the European Union could be announced on Feb. 1.

Investors cautious ahead of Fed meeting, inflation data

Investors are exhibiting caution as they await the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy meeting due later in the week

Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation – PCE price index data, and advance GDP estimates for the fourth quarter are due this week.

Additionally, December weekly jobless claims and January consumer confidence were also on tap.

China’s DeepSeek pressures AI stocks, major earnings awaited

In the technology sector, China’s AI startup DeepSeek has unveiled its latest model, R1, which demonstrates performance comparable to leading U.S. models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT but at a significantly reduced cost. 

This advancement poses a competitive threat to established players in the AI hardware space, notably NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), which has seen its stock decline in response.

Nvidia stock fell more than 3% on Friday and is expected to face pressure from this announcement.

However, Wall Street recorded weekly gains last week, largely around optimism about Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s stellar earnings and the announcement of the Stargate initiative.

Last week, the S&P 500 recorded 1.7% weekly gains to end at 6,101.24 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.2% for the week to 44,424.25, and the NASDAQ Composite added 1.7%.

The market is also bracing for earnings reports from major technology companies, including Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA). These reports are expected to provide further insights into the health of the tech sector and guide investor sentiment in the coming days.

Investing.com– Elon Musk has requested a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that his $1 million-a-day election giveaway to support the U.S. Constitution was an illegal lottery under Texas law.

The lawsuit, filed on November 5, 2024, by Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty, claims that Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, misled participants by suggesting winners would be chosen randomly.

In his defense, Musk argued that participants were fully aware that signing the petition provided an opportunity to earn funds as America PAC spokespeople, not through a random lottery. He emphasized that providing personal information did not cause harm, as alleged in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages for petition signers, alleging that the giveaway was deceptive and violated state laws.

Musk’s initiative, which was part of his support for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, involved daily $1 million prizes to registered voters in swing states who signed a petition supporting the U.S. Constitution. The legal debate centers on whether this constitutes an illegal inducement or a legitimate promotional activity.

Investing.com– Artificial intelligence darling Nvidia’s shares fell on Friday following the launch of Chinese generative AI program DeepSeek last week, which claimed to be able to outperform rival offerings at a fraction of their cost. 

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares fell more than 3% to $142.62 on Friday, although they still ended higher for the week. 

DeepSeek- which is funded by Chinese quant firm High-Flyer- made its R1 LLM open source, and also released a paper outlining how advanced LLMs can be built on much smaller budgets. 

DeepSeek had access to about 50,000 Nvidia H100 AI GPUs- the previous generation of Nvidia’s AI GPUs, which are set to be replaced by the Blackwell series. It was unclear to what extent the company had leveraged this access for its LLM. 

But the biggest point of contention over DeepSeek R1 was that the LLM was able to achieve competitive results despite its rivals, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s Lama, having access to substantially bigger budgets and more advanced technology. This notion was relevant in the light of recent U.S. export controls on chip technology to China, as well U.S. President Donald Trump announcing $500 billion in private spending to build more U.S. AI infrastructure. 

DeepSeek R1 raised questions about just how justified the billions of capital expenditure, undertaken by Wall Street’s technology giants, was necessary for AI advancements. 

Of the so-called Magnificent 7 stocks, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Meta (NASDAQ:META), and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) have announced rapidly increasing capital expenditures in recent quarters to further their AI ambitions. Analysts expect this to remain the case when they report their December quarter earnings this week. 

“It might be good news for the Mag-7 that can learn from DeepSeek to design AI systems with cheaper GPUs. That would reduce their capital spending and boost their profits. It might not be a happy development for Nvidia,” Yardeni Research said in a note.

Nvidia has benefited greatly from increased AI investment in the past two years, seeing exponential growth in sales as tech giants sought to bolster their AI development by increasing their data center capabilities. 

But DeepSeek’s success raises questions over whether AI developers can achieve progress by building leaner, more efficient models that don’t require as much investment in chip technology. 

JPMorgan’s Joshua Meyers said concerns over higher AI budgets were “overdone,” while noting that DeepSeek’s efficiency may have been out of necessity, given that Chinese firms are blocked from access to advanced U.S. chip technology. 

“If DeepSeek can reduce the cost of inference, then others will have to as well, and demand will hopefully more than make up for that over time,” Meyers wrote in a short note dated to Saturday. 

Investing.com–  Building products distributor QXO Inc (NYSE:QXO) is planning to launch a hostile bid for Beacon Roofing Supply Inc (NASDAQ:BECN) by approaching shareholders directly, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The hostile bid could be launched by as soon as Monday and will offer Beacon shareholders $124.25 per share- the same price QXO had previously offered, the WSJ report said, citing people familiar with the matter. The offer values Beacon at about $7.7 billion- higher than Beacon’s close of $118.42 on Friday, which valued the firm at around $7.3 billion. 

The move comes after QXO was rebuffed repeatedly by Beacon over a potential takeover. QXO had initially bid for Beacon in November 2024, which Beacon rejected for undervaluing the firm. 

Beacon is the largest publicly listed distributor of roofing materials, and has the potential to complement QXO’s business. QXO recently said it had secured funding for the deal, and that its offer was compelling for Beacon shareholders. 

Investing.com– Activist investor Ancora Holdings is preparing to launch a proxy battle against U.S. Steel, aiming to overhaul its leadership and redirect its strategy following the collapse of its $14 billion merger with Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp (TYO:5401), the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday citing sources.

Ancora plans to rally shareholders around a proposal to replace U.S. Steel’s CEO and abandon litigation aimed at salvaging the blocked Nippon Steel deal, the report stated.

However, U.S. Steel is not interested in pursuing a sale to another party, the report added.

The activist investor, which has not disclosed its stake in U.S. Steel, is advocating for operational improvements and financial reforms over a sale or further legal entanglements.

Ancora has nominated nine nominees for U.S. Steel’s 12-member board including former Stelco (TSX:STLC) CEO Alan Kestenbaum, who previously revitalized the Canadian steelmaker before its acquisition by Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF), according to the report.

The Nippon Steel merger faced heavy resistance from U.S. regulators, including a veto by President Joe Biden on national security grounds earlier this year.

Nippon Steel, which agreed to pay $55 per share and faces a $565 million breakup fee if the transaction fails, has proposed appointing a U.S.-majority board to address these concerns, according to the WSJ report.

Ancora contends the company must prioritize restoring shareholder value through internal changes rather than seeking external rescue, the report said.

The WSJ earlier reported that Cleveland-Cliffs and Nucor (NYSE:NUE) were exploring a joint bid for U.S. Steel once its agreement with Nippon Steel expires in June, though the fate of America’s third-largest steelmaker remains uncertain.