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Health

Six Exercises to Help Avoid Slipping and Falling Down

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We typically train to go faster. But mastering how to slow down and stop is just as important.

Training deceleration—a series of movements that help you slow down, change direction, or stop—teaches the body how to control and safely absorb forces. For athletes like rugby players and soccer players who are constantly accelerating from zero to 100 then stopping on a dime, proper deceleration enhances performance and is key to mitigating injury. 

Being able to decelerate with control is just as valuable for nonathletes, says

Sylvia Braaten,

physical performance coach for USA Rugby women’s national team. 

“As we age, there is a tendency to lose our coordination, athleticism and body control,” says Ms. Braaten, who also serves as the assistant coach for Harvard University’s women’s rugby team. “If you can’t slow down with proper body mechanics while chasing your grandchildren in the yard or playing a pickup basketball game, injuries are more likely to occur. But, if we continue to train these qualities, we can remain athletic and that can have a lasting impact on our overall quality of life.” 

Being able to slow down to regain our balance is extremely helpful in the winter, when sidewalks and driveways are icy. “Improving coordination and deceleration mechanics can help us catch ourselves when we start to fall,” she says. And more than one out of four people ages 65 and older falls each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The following drills will reinforce deceleration mechanics, such as dropping the hips and shoulders as you slow down and keeping weight predominantly over the planted foot when you change direction. They are also a fun way to mix up your workout with multiplanar movements and balance and agility challenges, she says. 

Start slow and focus on proper technique and landing in a controlled and stable position, she says. “It is better to perform fewer reps and sets with proper form.” 

Reverse Eccentric Lunge

Why: Eccentric strength training, where the lowering phase of an exercise is slowed down to keep the muscles under tension for a longer period of time, is a great way to build strength, says Ms. Braaten. This lunge variation forces us to control the lowering motion while working the glutes and hamstrings.

How: Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Step your left foot backward and slowly lower your body for a count of 3 to 5 seconds, until the right thigh is parallel to the floor, knee over your shoe laces. Your torso and shin of the front leg should be parallel. Pause for 1 second then press into the heel of your front foot to come back up to the starting position for a count of 1 second. Perform 3 sets of 5 reps per leg. Rest 1 to 2 minutes per set.

Option: Hold weights for an added challenge. 

Ms. Braaten performs a reverse eccentric lunge.

Drop Lunge Snap Down

Why: The additional speed component of this exercise increases the intensity of the lunge and more closely mimics the demands of movements in a rugby match and real life, she says.

How: Stand tall on your tiptoes with arms overhead. Rapidly drop into a reverse lunge with your front foot flat and on the ball of the back foot, with your heel raised. Use a quick and sharp arm drive down toward the floor to help increase the speed of the drop. “Think about transitioning from fast to freezing like a statue,” she says. Slowly rise to the starting position. Perform 2 to 3 sets of 3 reps per side. Rest 30 seconds between sets.

Options: If your balance is difficult, start on flat feet and progress to tip toes. Add weights for more difficulty. 

Ms. Braaten does a drop lunge snap down.

Two-Step Falling Deceleration

Why: Being able to safely stop a fall is key to mitigating injury. This drill teaches the body to decelerate while building single-leg strength.

How: Stand tall, with feet hip-width apart. Begin to fall forward with a tall spine. Use two steps to stop. The first step is used to break and the second step is the stick or the leg to decelerate on. Landing on the full foot will help increase balance and allow for a quicker, more efficient deceleration. As you step to break, avoid any inward collapse of the knee. Perform 2 to 3 sets of 3 reps per side. Rest 30 to 45 seconds between sets.

Options: Have a friend stand in front of you as a spot or perform this exercise near a wall.

Ms. Braaten demonstrates how to perform a two-step falling deceleration.

Lateral Rebound Skater Jump

Why: Our body moves in different planes of motion. This drill trains single-leg deceleration in the frontal or side-to-side plane and improves our ability to absorb force.

How: Stand tall, balanced on your left foot. Sink your hips back to load your weight then push and powerfully jump off of that foot to the right. Swing the arms across the body for momentum as you jump. Land balanced on the right foot with a slight bend in the knees and hips.

“The emphasis should initially be on sticking the landing rather than on the distance of the jump,” she says. Reset for the next rep by hopping back to the left leg and repeating the movement. Perform 2 to 3 sets of 4 reps per side. Rest 30 to 45 seconds between sets.

Option: After you are able to consistently stick the landing, you can speed up the tempo to increase the difficulty and intensity for added cardio benefits. 

Ms. Braaten does a lateral rebound skater jump.

Deceleration With a Half Turn

Why: This exercise trains agility, coordination and balance. Great for weekend warriors playing cutting sports like basketball or soccer, the deceleration-with-a-half-turn drill reinforces getting into good deceleration positions from a run, she says.

How: Jog forward and after 10 to 15 feet, decelerate by dropping your shoulders slightly to the right and over the inside of your hips. As your right foot plants, complete a half turn to the right. Stop in an athletic ready stance with soft knees and torso and shins parallel. Stick and hold the position before jogging forward 10 to 15 feet again and decelerate in half-turn position to face the left. Alternate half turns to each direction for a total of 3 half-turn decelerations on each side. Perform 3 to 4 sets. Rest 30 to 60 seconds between sets. Increase the pace of the jog to a run to progress.

Ms. Braaten demonstrates the deceleration-with-a-half-turn drill.

Zigzag Tempos

Why: After the above exercises helped strengthen your deceleration positions, this drill will help improve your ability to get in and out of those positions and make you more agile, she says.

How: Place 6 to 8 cones or markers each about 10 to 15 feet apart in a zigzag pattern to get in 3 to 4 decelerations per side. Start at one cone and run at a controlled pace to the next. Decelerate by bending into the knee and flexing at the hip of the planted foot while maintaining a tall spine. Push down into the planted leg to push away from the cone and run to the next one. Decelerate as you reach each cone. Keep the shoulders facing square up field through the entire drill. Try to become a statue at each cone before running to the next. As you increase speed you will need to absorb more force to decelerate efficiently. Perform 3 to 4 sets resting 30 to 60 seconds in between.

Ms. Braaten performs zigzag tempos.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How do you implement agility into your exercise routine? Join the conversation below.

Write to Jen Murphy at workout@wsj.com

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Business

Chevron Rides High Oil Prices to Record $35.5 Billion Annual Profit

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Chevron Corp.

CVX -4.44%

banked historic profit last year as the pandemic receded and the war in Ukraine pushed oil prices to multiyear highs, with its shares climbing 53% for the year while other sectors tumbled.

The U.S. oil company in its quarterly earnings reported Friday that it collected $35.5 billion in its highest-ever annual profit in 2022, more than double the prior year and about one-third higher than its previous record in 2011. Almost $50 billion in cash streamed in from its oil-leveraged operations, another record that is underpinning plans to pay investors through a new $75 billion share-repurchase program over the next several years.

That payout, announced Wednesday, is roughly equivalent to the stock-market value of companies such as the big-box retailer

Target Corp.

, the pharmaceutical firm

Moderna Inc.

and

Airbnb Inc.

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company after

Exxon Mobil Corp.

, posted revenue of $246.3 billion, up from $162.5 billion the previous year. The San Ramon, Calif., company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $6.4 billion, up from $5.1 billion in the same period the prior year.

The fourth-quarter results came short of analyst expectations, and Chevron shares closed down more than 4% Friday.

For all of its recent winnings, though, Chevron and its rival oil-and-gas producers could face a rockier year in 2023, according to investors and analysts, if an anticipated slowdown in U.S. economic growth dents demand for oil, and if China’s reopening from strict Covid-19 restrictions unfolds slowly.

U.S. oil prices have held steady this year, but are off about 36% from last year’s peak. The industry is proceeding with caution, holding capital expenditures for 2023 below prepandemic levels and saying production will grow only modestly. Chevron has said it plans to spend about $17 billion in capital expenditures this year, up more than 25% from the prior year, but $3 billion less than it planned to spend in 2020 before Covid-19 took root.

Oil companies are still outperforming other sectors such as tech and finance, which have seen widespread job cuts in recent weeks. The energy segment of the S&P 500 index has climbed 43.7% over the past year, compared with a 6.7% drop for the broader index.

Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth said the company is unsure of what 2023 will bring after global energy supplies were squeezed because of geopolitical events last year, particularly in Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said markets appeared to be stabilizing.

“We certainly have seen a very unusual and volatile year in 2022,” Mr. Wirth said, noting the European energy crisis has proven less dire than anticipated thanks to milder winter weather, growing natural gas inventories in Europe. “China’s economy has been slow throughout the year, which looks to be turning around. It’s good that markets have calmed.”

Chevron projects its output in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico to grow at a slower pace this year.



Photo:

David Goldman/Associated Press

Chevron hit a record in U.S. oil-and-gas production in 2022, increasing 4% to about 1.2 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, stemming from its increased focus on capital investments in the Western Hemisphere, particularly in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, where it boosted output 16% last year. Worldwide, Chevron’s oil-and-gas production was down 3.2% compared with the prior year, at 2.99 million barrels of oil-equivalent a day.

Its overall return on capital employed came in at 20%, it said.

“There aren’t many sectors generating the type of free cash flow that energy is right now,” said

Jeff Wyll,

an analyst at investment firm Neuberger Berman, which has invested in Chevron. “The sector really can’t be ignored. Given the supply-demand balance, you have to have some things go wrong here to see a pullback in oil prices.”

Even so, institutional investors have shown limited interest so far in returning to the energy sector, after years of poor returns and heightened concerns about their environmental impact prompted large financiers to sell off their stakes in oil-and-gas companies or stop investing in drillers outright.

Pete Bowden,

global head of industrial, energy and infrastructure banking at

Jefferies Financial Group Inc.,

said energy companies in the S&P 500 index are throwing off 12% of the group’s free-cash flow, but only account for about 5% of the index’s weighting—an indication their stock prices are lagging behind.

Investors’ concerns around environmental, social and governance-related issues are a constraint on the share prices of energy companies, “yet the earnings power of these businesses is superior to the earnings power of companies in other sectors,” he said.

Chevron and others have faced criticism from the Biden administration and others that they are giving priority to shareholder returns over pumping oil and gas at a time when global supplies are tight and Americans are feeling pain at the pump. On Thursday, the White House assailed Chevron’s $75 billion buyout program, saying the payout was proof the company could boost production but was choosing to reward investors instead.

Pierre Breber,

Chevron’s finance chief, said the company expects oil prices to be volatile but within a range needed to sustain its dividend and investments. There are some optimistic signs, he added, including that the U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the fourth quarter, at 2.9%.

“Supply is tight. Oil-field services are near capacity, and we continue to have sanctions on Russian production,” Mr. Breber said. “You’re seeing international flights out of China are way up, and low unemployment in the U.S.”

Mr. Breber said Chevron’s output in the Permian this year is expected to grow at a slower pace, around 10%, because it has exhausted much of its inventory of wells that it had drilled but hadn’t brought into production.

Exxon, which has typically posted quarterly earnings on the same day as Chevron, will report Tuesday. Analysts expect it will also post record profit for 2022, according to FactSet.

Both companies expect to slow their output growth this year in the Permian, considered their growth engine. The two U.S. oil majors, which had been growing output faster in the U.S. than most independent shale producers, are beginning to step up their focus on shareholder returns and allow output growth to ease, said Neal Dingmann, an analyst at Truist Securities.

“This has all been driven by investor requirements,” Mr. Dingmann said.

Write to Collin Eaton at collin.eaton@wsj.com

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Business

Natural-Gas Prices Plunge as Unseasonably Warm Weather Is Forecast

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A sudden thaw across the Northern Hemisphere has melted down natural-gas prices, upending dire forecasts of energy shortages and sinking Vladimir Putin’s plan to squeeze Europe this winter.

It isn’t expected to remain as balmy as it was on Wednesday, when temperatures hit 66-degrees Fahrenheit in New York, but the forecasts that energy traders monitor call for abnormally warm weather extending into February, sapping demand for the heating fuel.

U.S. natural-gas futures for February delivery ended Wednesday at $4.172 per million British thermal units. That is down 57% from the summer highs notwithstanding a 4.6% gain on Wednesday that snapped a four-session losing streak, including an 11% drop on Tuesday. 

The price is now about the same as it was a year ago, when temperatures were also warmer than normal and before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine jolted energy markets.

The plunge is a bad omen for drillers, whose shares were among the stock market’s few winners last year. Cheaper gas is good news for households and manufacturers whose budgets have been busted and profit margins pinched by high fuel prices. Though shocks of cold and problems with pipelines could still push up regional prices, less expensive natural gas should help to cool inflation in the months ahead. 

There are also major geopolitical implications. Mild weather is driving gas prices lower in Europe, too, spelling relief for the region that coming into the winter faced the possibility of rolling blackouts and factory shutdowns. The war threw energy markets into chaos, but benchmark European natural-gas prices are now less than half of what they were a month ago and lower than any point since the February invasion. 

The drop is a welcome surprise for European governments that committed hundreds of billions of dollars to shield consumers and companies from high energy prices. Moscow cut supplies of gas to Europe last year in what European officials described as an attempt to undermine military and financial support for Kyiv.

So far, Russia’s strategy isn’t working. Warm weather is limiting demand, as is a European Union-led effort to curb consumption. But analysts say prices in Europe could shoot up again when the continent tries to refill stores for the 2023-24 winter without much Russian gas.

PHOTOS: How a 102-Year-Old Maritime Law Affects Today’s Home-Heating Prices

Besides being burned to heat roughly half of American homes, natural gas is used for cooking, along with making electricity, plastic, fertilizer, steel and glass. Last year’s high prices were a big driver of the steepest inflation in four decades.

When prices peaked in August, the question was whether there would be enough gas to get through the winter, given record consumption by domestic power producers with few alternatives, as well as demand in Europe, where the race is on to replace Russian gas.

Now the question in the market is how low prices will go.  

They were already falling when the late-December storm brought snow to northern cities and stranded travelers. Frigid temperatures prompted a big draw from U.S. natural-gas stockpiles and froze wells in North Dakota and Oklahoma. At its peak, the storm took nearly 21% of U.S. gas supply offline, according to East Daley Analytics, a gas consulting firm.  

The demand surge and the supply disruptions were fleeting and failed to counteract forecasts for balmy January weather. Prices were also pushed lower by another delay in the restart of a Texas export facility. It has been offline since a June fire left a lot of gas in the domestic market that would have otherwise been shipped overseas. 

Temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit are forecast this week around the Great Lakes and along the Ohio Valley, while highs in the Southeast might reach into the 80s.

As measured in heating-degree days, a population-weighted measure of temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit, this week will be twice as warm relative to normal as the last week of December was cold, said Eli Rubin, senior energy analyst at the gas-trading firm EBW AnalyticsGroup.

The firm estimates that warmer weather over the first half of January will reduce gas demand by about 100 billion cubic feet over that stretch. That is about the volume of gas that the U.S. produces each day. The Energy Information Administration estimates that daily American output hit a record in 2022.

Analysts anticipate similarly strong production in 2023. They expect the year to pass without new LNG export capacity coming online for the first time since 2016, when the U.S. began to ship liquefied natural gas abroad from the Lower 48 States. 

“The market is moving from a mind-set of winter scarcity to looking ahead to exiting winter with more in storage, adding production and not adding any new LNG exports,” Mr. Rubin said. “If anything, the market looks oversupplied.” 

Analysts have been reducing their gas-price assumptions as well as their outlooks for producers as the first weeks of winter pass without sustained periods of cold weather. 

Gabriele Sorbara, an analyst at Siebert Williams Shank, told clients this week that he expected natural gas to average $4.25 in 2023, down from a forecast of $5.50 before the warm spell. As a result, he downgraded shares of

EQT Corp.

, the biggest U.S. producer and one of the top-performing stocks in the S&P 500 last year, from buy to hold. 

“EQT will be dead money until estimates recalibrate and there is visibility of a rebound in natural-gas prices,” he wrote in a note to clients.  

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What price changes are you seeing in your natural-gas bill this winter? Join the conversation below.

Hedge funds and other speculators have, on balance, been bearish on natural-gas prices since the summer, maintaining more wagers on falling prices than on gains, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Analysts said that is probably the safe bet. 

“We continue to caution against any attempts to time a price bottom,” the trading firm Ritterbusch & Associates told clients this week. 

—Joe Wallace contributed to this article.

Write to Ryan Dezember at ryan.dezember@wsj.com

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Business

Investors Brace for More Market Tumult as Interest Rates Keep Rising

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The stock market just finished a bruising year. Many market players don’t expect things to get better any time soon.  

Analysts at some of the biggest U.S. banks predict the stock market will retest its 2022 lows in the first half of the new year before beginning to rebound. Many investors say the ramifications of the Federal Reserve’s higher rates are just beginning to ripple through markets.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to the highest levels since 2007, stoking mammoth swings across global markets and a steep selloff in assets from stocks and bonds to cryptocurrencies. The tumult that erased more than $12 trillion in value from the U.S. stock market—the largest such drawdown since at least 2001—is expected to continue as rates keep rising.

The S&P 500 ended the year down 19% after the conditions evaporated that had paved the way for years of a nearly uninterrupted stock-market rally and a run in some of the most speculative bets. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the S&P 500 to end 2023 at 4000, about a 4% rise from where it ended 2022. 

The volatility has been especially punishing for the market’s behemoths. Five big technology stocks accounted for about a quarter of the U.S. stock market’s total declines last year, a bruising selloff reminiscent of the dot-com bust two decades ago. 

Cryptocurrencies tumbled, splashy initial public offerings all but came to a halt and blank-check companies imploded to end the year, a stunning reversal of the mania that swept markets in the previous two years. 

“We are in a world where interest rates exist again,” said

Ben Inker,

co-head of asset allocation at Boston money manager GMO, which oversees $55 billion in assets. 

One of the biggest flip-flops occurred under the market’s surface. Investors abandoned the flashy tech and growth stocks that had propelled that market’s gains over the previous decade. 

And value stocks—traditionally defined as those that trade at a low multiple of their book value, or net worth—staged a revival after years of lackluster returns. 

The Russell 3000 Value index outperformed the Russell 3000 Growth index by almost 20 percentage points, its largest margin in Dow Jones Market Data records going back to 2001. 

Now, Mr. Inker and other investors—hunting for opportunities after an abysmal year for both stocks and bonds—say it is just the beginning of a big stock-market rotation. 

Money managers say they are positioning for an environment that bears little resemblance to the one to which many grew accustomed after the last financial crisis. The era of ultralow bond yields, mild inflation and accommodative Fed policy has ended, they say, likely recalibrating the market’s winners and losers for years to come.  

“A number of investors were trying to justify nosebleed valuation levels,” said

John Linehan,

a portfolio manager at

T. Rowe Price.

Now, “leadership going forward is going to be more diverse.” 

The Fed is set to keep raising interest rates and has indicated that it plans to keep them elevated through the end of 2023. Many economists forecast a recession ahead, while Wall Street remains fixated on whether inflation will recede after repeatedly underestimating its staying power.

Mr. Linehan said he expects the run in value stocks to continue and sees opportunities in shares of financial companies, thanks to higher interest rates. Others say energy stocks’ stellar run isn’t over just yet. Energy stocks within the S&P 500 gained 59% last year, their best stretch in history.

Some investors are positioning for bond yields to keep rising, potentially dealing a bigger blow to tech shares. Those stocks are especially vulnerable to higher rates because in many cases they are expected to earn outsize profits years down the road, a vulnerability in a world that values safe returns now. 

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note ended 2022 at 3.826%, the biggest one-year increase in yields since at least 1977, while bond prices tumbled. From risky corporate bonds to safer municipal debt, yields rose to some of their highest levels of the past decade, giving investors more choices for parking their cash. 

“I don’t think this next decade is going to be led by technology,” said

Mark Luschini,

chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. “This one-size-fits-all notion that you just buy a broad technology index or the Nasdaq-100 has changed.”

The Fed has indicated that it plans to keep rates elevated through the end of 2023.



Photo:

Ting Shen/Bloomberg News

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index lost 33% in 2022, underperforming the broader S&P 500 by the widest margin since 2002. 

Investors yanked about $18 billion from mutual and exchange-traded funds tracking tech through November, on track for the biggest annual outflows on record in Morningstar Direct data going back to 1993. Funds tracking growth stocks recorded $94 billion in outflows, the most since 2016.

Meanwhile, investors have taken to bargain-hunting in the stock market, piling into value funds. Such funds recorded more than $30 billion of inflows, drawing money for the second consecutive year.

“Profitability and free cash flow are going to be very important” in the coming year, said Tiffany Wade, senior portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. 

Ms. Wade said she expects the Fed to be more aggressive than many investors currently forecast, leading to another rocky year. If the Fed puts a pause on raising interest rates over the next year, she thinks growth stocks might see a bounce.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What are you expecting in the markets in 2023? Join the conversation below.

Other investors are heeding lessons from the years following the bursting of the tech bubble, when value stocks outperformed their growth counterparts.

Even after last year’s bruising declines, the technology sector trades at a wide premium to the S&P 500. Stocks in the energy, financial, materials and telecommunications sectors still appear cheap compared with the broader benchmark, according to Bespoke Investment Group data going back to 2010. 

Plus, big technology companies face stiffer competition and potentially tougher regulation, a setup that may disappoint investors who have developed lofty expectations for the group. 

Their run of impressive sales growth will likely sputter as well, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent note. Aggregate sales growth for megacap technology stocks is forecast to have risen 8% in 2022, below the 13% growth for the broader index. 

“I just don’t think the prior regime’s winners are going to be tomorrow’s winners,” said Eddie Perkin, chief investment officer of Eaton Vance Equity. “They’re still too expensive.”

Write to Gunjan Banerji at gunjan.banerji@wsj.com

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Business

Rising Power Prices in Europe Are Making EV Ownership More Expensive

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BERLIN—Rocketing electricity prices are increasing the cost of driving electric vehicles in Europe, in some cases making them more expensive to run than gas-powered models—a change that could threaten the continent’s electric transition.  

Electricity prices have soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in some cases eliminating the cost advantage at the pump that EVs have enjoyed. In some cases, the cost difference between driving both types of cars 100 miles has become negligible. In others, EVs have become more expensive to fuel than equivalent gasoline-powered cars.

The price rises for power, which economists expect to last for years, remove a powerful incentive for consumers who were contemplating a switch to EVs, which used to be much cheaper to run than combustion engines. 

Coming just as some governments are removing subsidies for EV buyers, this change could slow down EV sales, threaten the region’s greenhouse-gas emission targets, and make it hard for European car makers to recoup the high costs of their electric transition.

In Germany,

Tesla

has raised supercharger prices several times this year, most recently to 0.71 euros in September before falling somewhat, according to reports from Tesla owners on industry forums. There is no public source to track prices on Tesla superchargers. 

At that price, drivers of Tesla’s Model 3, the most efficient all-electric vehicle in the Environment Protection Agency’s fuel guide in the midsize vehicle category, would pay €18.46 at a Tesla supercharger station in Europe for a charge sufficient to drive 100 miles. 

By comparison, drivers in Germany would pay €18.31 for gasoline to drive the same distance in a Honda Civic 4-door, the equivalent combustion-engine model in the EPA’s ranking. 

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The change has been particularly notable in Germany, Europe’s largest car market, where household electricity cost €0.43 per kWh on average in December. This puts it well ahead of France, where consumers paid €0.21 per kWh in the first half of the year, but behind Denmark, where a kWh cost €0.46, according to the German statistics office.

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The cost of electricity isn’t the only factor that can make an EV cheaper or more expensive to run than a gas-powered car. The price of the car, including potential subsidies, the cost of insurance and the price of maintenance all play a role in the cost equation over a car’s lifetime. 

Maria Bengtsson, a partner at Ernst & Young responsible for the company’s EV business in the U.K., said studies of the total cost of owning an EV now show that with much higher electricity prices, it will take longer for EVs to become more affordable than conventional vehicles.

“When we looked at this before the energy crisis, we were looking at a tipping point of around 2023 to 2024. But if you assume you have a tariff going forward of $0.55, the tipping point then moves to 2026.”

If costs for operating EVs rise again, the tipping point would be pushed even further into the future, she said.

So far, there is no sign that the higher costs to charge electric cars has affected EV sales. Sales of all-electric cars totaled 259,449 vehicles in the three months to the end of September, up 11% from the previous quarter and 22% from the year earlier, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. In the third quarter, all-electric cars accounted for 11.9% of total new vehicle sales in the EU. 

There is no relief in sight for EV users. In Germany, power prices have risen by a third from €0.33 per kWh in the first half of this year, according to Germany’s federal statistics office, and some power companies have announced prices will increase to more than €0.50 per kWh in January.  

The German government’s independent panel of economic experts forecast that in the medium term these prices are likely to decline but won’t return to precrisis levels, meaning that higher costs for EV owners are here to stay. 

Rheinenergie, a municipal utility in Cologne, said in November that it would raise its prices to €0.55 per kWh in January. In October, EnBW, a Stuttgart-based regional power company, raised its prices for a kWh of electricity to €0.37, up 37% from the previous month. 

The most expensive way to charge an EV in Europe is on one of the fast-charging networks. Operators such as Tesla, Allego and Ionity have built roadside charging stations along major highways, where EV owners can drive up, plug in, and charge their batteries in as little as 15 minutes.

Fuel-economy estimates calculated by the EPA and current charging and gas prices in Europe show that some conventional vehicles are now cheaper to fuel with gasoline than equivalent electric models using fast-charging stations.

In the subcompact segment of the EPA’s 2023 Fuel Economy Guide, the Mini Cooper Hardtop was the most efficient model among EVs and gasoline-powered cars. 

A 100-mile ride cost the Mini EV owner €26.35 at the Allego fast-charging network, which charges €0.85 per kWh. The conventional Mini cost €20.35 to pump enough fuel to accomplish the same journey. 

Mini and its owner,

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

In the small two-door SUV category, the gasoline-powered Nissan Rogue handily beats the Hyundai Kona Electric, at a cost difference of €19.97 to €22.95. The Subaru Ascent standard SUV with four-wheel drive costs less to drive 100 miles than the Tesla Model X.

If an EV owner only charges their vehicle at home, they are generally still paying less for driving than conventional car users, although this gap has narrowed considerably. 

Analysts say about 80% of EV charging takes place at home or at work, so if an electric vehicle is only used close to home it generally remains the least expensive option. But once the vehicle is used for longer road trips, drivers are more likely to use fast-charging stations because other options would take too long to charge the battery.

Charging a Tesla on 120V AC power—the power that comes from a standard U.S. wall socket—would take days. In Europe, 230V is the AC standard, according to Germany’s ZVEI electronics-industry association. European chargers installed on street corners, at supermarkets, places of work and in home garages can charge a powered down Tesla battery overnight. 

The supercharger networks run on DC power, requiring at least 480 volts of power, and can charge up to around 200 miles of range within 15 minutes. 

Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Standard household power is 120 volts in the U.S. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said 120 volts is the standard in Europe. (Corrected on Dec. 25)

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Scott Minerd, Guggenheim Partners’ Investment Chief, Dies at Age 63

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Scott Minerd,

an outspoken and influential fund manager who was chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, died Wednesday of a heart attack.

Mr. Minerd, 63 years old and a committed weightlifter known to bench press more than 400 pounds, died during his daily workout, the firm said.

Mr. Minerd joined Guggenheim shortly after the firm was founded in 1998.

Guggenheim Chief Executive

Mark Walter

credited him with designing the organization, systems and procedures that helped Guggenheim rise from a startup to a manager of more than $218 billion in total assets and 900 employees.

Mr. Minerd served as the public face of Guggenheim. In that role, he was among Wall Street’s more prominent personalities, making frequent appearances on television and maintaining an active presence on social media to discuss markets and investments, often in blunt terms.

“That sound you hear is the Fed breaking something,” he wrote in October in a message to clients, warning that the central bank’s campaign to raise interest rates was causing dislocations in fixed-income and foreign-exchange markets.

Mr. Minerd was a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets and an adviser to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Mr. Minerd is survived by his husband Eloy Mendez.

“As an asset manager, I’ve come to view conventional wisdom as the surest path to investment underperformance,” Mr. Minerd wrote in a biographical summary.

Mr. Minerd grew up in western Pennsylvania and studied economics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He also took courses at the University of Chicago and described himself as a monetarist.

He worked as a dealer in currencies, bonds and structured securities at Merrill Lynch,

Morgan Stanley

and CS First Boston in the 1980s and 1990s.

At age 37, feeling burned out, he left Wall Street and moved to Los Angeles. “I walked away from extremely large offers on Wall Street,” he told Bloomberg in 2017. “I realized this wasn’t a dress rehearsal for life, this was it.” After joining what became Guggenheim Partners, he worked in a Santa Monica, Calif., office overlooking the ocean.

Mr. Minerd was a conservative willing to embrace some ideas from the left and seek middle ground.

In a 2020 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he took aim at elite universities, including the University of Pennsylvania. “These schools have huge endowments, and why are they not focusing their endowment on advancing a cause of essentially free education or at least education that provides complete support for people below certain income levels?” he asked. Mr. Minerd said he wouldn’t make donations going to “bricks and mortar and making the place look better when people who would be qualified to come there can’t afford to do it. And, of course, if we had more equal access to education, it would help address some of the issues around race and poverty.”

Referring to his bulky bodybuilder’s physique, he once told a Wall Street Journal reporter that when people asked about “key man” risk at Guggenheim and wondered what would happen if Mr. Minerd was hit by a truck, his staff members would respond, “Do you mean what would happen to the truck?”

One of his favorite charities was Union Rescue Mission, which provides food, shelter, training and other services to homeless people in Los Angeles County.

Andy Bales,

chief executive of Union Rescue Mission, recalled meeting Mr. Minerd around 2008, when the mission was in poor financial shape and in danger of having to sell one of its sites. “He told me that God was tapping him on the shoulder, telling him to do more for others,” the Rev. Bales said. Mr. Minerd ended up donating more than $5 million to the mission to allow it to expand services.

Mr. Minerd was often seen with a rescue dog he called Grace, who accompanied him to the office and on trips.

His work schedule was punishing. “He was up early for East Coast customers and went late for his West Coast customers,” the Rev. Bales said.

Write to Charley Grant at charles.grant@wsj.com and James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com

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Bank of Japan Lets a Benchmark Rate Rise, Causing Yen to Surge

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TOKYO—The Bank of Japan made a surprise decision to let a benchmark interest rate rise to 0.5% from 0.25%, pushing the yen higher and ending a long period in which it was the only major central bank not to increase rates.

The

BOJ

said the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond could rise as high as 0.5% from a previous cap of 0.25%. The central bank has set a target range around zero for the benchmark government bond yield since 2016 and used that as a tool to keep overall market interest rates low.

The 10-year yield, which had been stuck around 0.25% for months because of the central bank cap, quickly moved up to 0.46% in afternoon trading. 

The yen rose in tandem. In Tuesday afternoon trading in Tokyo, one dollar bought between 133 and 134 yen, compared with more than 137 yen before the BOJ’s decision.

The Nikkei Stock Average, which had been slightly higher in the morning, was down more than 2% as investors digested the possibility that companies would have to pay higher interest on their debt. Also, the weak yen has pushed up profits for many exporters, so a stronger yen could be negative for stocks. 

Gov.

Haruhiko Kuroda,

who is nearing the end of 10 years in office, is known for making moves that surprise the market, although he had made fewer of them in recent years.

Market players had anticipated that time might be running out on the Bank of Japan’s low-rate policy, but they generally didn’t expect Mr. Kuroda to move at the year’s final policy meeting.

The Bank of Japan’s statement on its decision Tuesday didn’t mention inflation as a reason to let the yield on government bonds rise as high as 0.5%. Instead, it cited the deteriorating functioning of the government bond market and discrepancies between the 10-year government bond yield and the yield on bonds with other maturities. 

The bank said Tuesday’s move would “facilitate the transmission of monetary-easing effects,” suggesting it didn’t want the decision to be interpreted as monetary tightening.

The move is “a small step toward an exit” from monetary easing, said

Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities

strategist Naomi Muguruma. 

Ms. Muguruma said the BOJ needed to narrow the gap between its cap on the 10-year yield and where the yield would stand if market forces were given full rein. 

“Otherwise magma for higher yields could build up, causing the yield to rise sharply when the BOJ actually unwinds easing,” she said. 

Japan’s interest rates are still low compared with the U.S. and Europe, largely because its inflation rate hasn’t risen as fast. The Federal Reserve last week raised its benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 4.25% and 4.5%—a 15-year high—while the European Central Bank said it would raise its key rate to 2% from 1.5%.

In the U.S., inflation has started to slow down recently but is still running above 7%. In Japan, consumer prices in October were 3.7% higher than they were a year earlier.

Japan has seen prices rise like other countries, owing to the impact of the war in Ukraine as well as the yen’s weakness. However, the pace of inflation is milder in Japan, where consumers tend to be highly price sensitive.

Write to Megumi Fujikawa at megumi.fujikawa@wsj.com

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Stocks Waver After Producer Prices Rise More Than Expected

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Stocks wavered after producer-price data came in hotter than expected, disappointing investors who had hoped for signs of easing inflation before the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week.

The S&P 500 was flat on Friday morning, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.1%. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2%.

The producer-price index, which measures what suppliers are charging businesses and other customers, climbed 0.3% in November compared with the previous month, the Labor Department said Friday morning, the same as October’s revised 0.3% increase. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected U.S. supplier prices to increase 0.2% for November.

Investors had been hopeful that the inflation reading would offer evidence that price pressures in the U.S. are abating and would help solidify a smaller interest-rate increase next week. The Fed will make its next interest-rate decision on Wednesday, and the PPI data—combined with consumer-price data Tuesday—are expected to factor heavily into the trajectory of interest rates over the coming months.

Stock futures, which had traded higher throughout the morning, turned lower after the data’s release. Yields on U.S. government bonds rose, also reversing their performance earlier in the day.

In recent days, investors have grown increasingly worried that elevated inflation will force the Fed to keep lifting rates to higher levels than once expected, potentially pushing the U.S. economy into a recession.

“Even though the market sometimes seems to ignore Powell, thinking he’s bluffing, he keeps reiterating that he will put this economy into a recession if he has to,” said Eric Sterner, referring to Fed chairman

Jerome Powell.

Mr. Sterner, chief investment officer at Apollon Wealth Management, said he expects markets could retest their recent lows in the first and second quarter of next year.

“We’re stuck in this rut right now waiting for inflation to normalize and it may take all of next year for that to happen,” he said.

Those concerns about how high interest rates might go—and how they will affect the economy—have led to choppy trading in U.S. stocks recently and interrupted a rally that began in October. All three major U.S. indexes are on pace to end the week with losses, breaking a two-week winning streak. As of Thursday, the S&P 500 had fallen 2.7% for the week.

“The markets are so sensitive to this right now,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at

Hargreaves Lansdown.

“Although supersized rate hikes are probably in the rearview mirror, it’s about how long more gradual rate increases will continue for, and that’s why you’ve got these twin evils looming: recession and high inflation. That’s the real concern—that we’ll get a stagflation scenario.” 

The S&P 500 on Thursday snapped a five-day losing streak.



Photo:

BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Yields on government bonds rose, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note climbing to 3.525%, from 3.492% Thursday. The yield on the two-year note, which is more sensitive to near-term interest-rate expectations, rose to 4.332%. Yields rise when bond prices fall.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, climbed 1.1% to $77 a barrel, on pace to possibly break a six-session losing streak that amounted to its longest since August 2021. Oil prices have slumped recently amid concerns that slowing economic growth will impede demand for fuel. Both Brent and its U.S. counterpart WTI—both of which reached eye-popping heights this year—are now trading lower on a year-to-date basis.

Outsize market moves have followed the release of inflation data in recent months.

“When CPI comes out slightly above or slightly below, you get massive market action,” said Brandon Pizzurro, director of public investments at GuideStone Capital Management. “Those of us that are defensively positioned are either going to really benefit from next Tuesday and Wednesday, or feel some short term pain if this Santa Claus rally is kickstarted.”

In China, major indexes climbed amid a sharp rise in property stocks. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 2.3%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite added 0.3%, helping it notch its sixth consecutive week of gains. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.2%.

In Europe, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.4%.

Write to Caitlin McCabe at caitlin.mccabe@wsj.com and Jack Pitcher at jack.pitcher@wsj.com 

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Crypto.com Withdrawals Rise After CEO Admits Transaction Problem

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Customers pulled funds from Crypto.com over the weekend after the company’s chief executive said the cryptocurrency exchange mishandled a roughly $400 million transaction. 

Crypto.com Chief Executive

Kris Marszalek

said on Twitter that the transfer was sent to the wrong type of account on another exchange. The transfer of a large chunk of ether, a popular cryptocurrency, took place on Oct. 21, but came to light after Twitter users flagged the transfer as unusual, based on publicly available blockchain transaction records.

Concerns about Singapore-based Crypto.com spread across the internet over the weekend, with prominent digital-currency figures taking aim at the company. Cryptocurrency traders are on edge following the quick collapse of FTX, which went from one of the most trusted exchanges to bankrupt in the course of a week.

Changpeng Zhao,

chief executive at Crypto.com’s larger peer Binance, appeared to question the nature of the transfers without naming the company, which may have fueled Sunday’s withdrawals, according to crypto industry players. “If an exchange [has] to move large amounts of crypto before or after they demonstrate their wallet addresses, it is a clear sign of problems,” Mr. Zhao tweeted Sunday. 

The value of Crypto.com’s own cryptocurrency sank roughly 20% Sunday from the prior 24 hours. It traded near 6 cents apiece. 

Mr. Marszalek dismissed the concerns about Crypto.com, tweeting later on Sunday that the October transfers had “generated so much [fear, uncertainty and doubt] & speculation on Twitter” weeks later.

A spokesman for Crypto.com said that the platform was seeing higher levels of activity, noting that it had assets fully matching customer deposits. “Fluctuations in deposit and withdrawal activity does not affect our levels of service,” he added.

An outside analysis of Crypto.com’s public blockchain from Argus Inc., a blockchain analysis firm, showed that between 7 p.m. EST Saturday and 5:30 a.m. EST Sunday, users withdrew a net $14 million worth of the cryptocurrency ether and $39 million worth of other tokens tied to the Ethereum network from Crypto.com. Over that same time, Crypto.com moved $33 million from other wallets to meet customer demands, according to Argus.

It appeared that Crypto.com had enough funds to meet user withdrawals, said Owen Rapaport, co-founder of Argus.

Crypto.com is a midsize exchange. It has tried to raise its profile over the past year among retail investors. In late 2021, it sponsored the arena that is home to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, renaming it the Crypto.com Arena from the Staples Center. It also ran its first Super Bowl ad this year and is a global partner of Formula One.

The transaction that sparked concerns about Crypto.com involved the transfer of 320,000 ether—or roughly $400 million worth of the token at the time—to a wallet linked to crypto exchange Gate.io on Oct. 21. 

Over the weekend, Mr. Marszalek said on Twitter that the transfer was supposed to be a “move to a new cold storage address,” but was sent to an external exchange address.

“We have since strengthened our process and systems to better manage these internal transfers,” he said on Twitter. 

A cold storage address is a type of wallet that is unplugged from the internet. It is considered the safest way to prevent digital currencies from being stolen or hacked. 

Mr. Marszalek said the company had worked with Gate.io to return the funds back to its cold storage. 

“It’s not looking good for these guys in general,” tweeted Adam Cochran, founder of venture-capital firm Cinneamhain Ventures, which invests in blockchain-related companies. 

After FTX’s troubles began last week, a number of cryptocurrency exchanges, including Crypto.com, promised to publish proof of their reserves in the spirit of transparency. The audited proofs allow users to check that their own assets are covered by an exchange’s reserves.

Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com and Elaine Yu at elaine.yu@wsj.com

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FTX Files for Bankruptcy, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Resigns

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Beleaguered cryptocurrency platform FTX filed for bankruptcy protection Friday, and Chief Executive

Sam Bankman-Fried

resigned.

FTX and a bevy of affiliates said they had more than 100,000 creditors and tens of billions of dollars in assets and liabilities. It is the largest crypto-related bankruptcy ever, and a demise remarkable for its swiftness as well as its size.

Just a week ago, FTX was an industry titan, and Mr. Bankman-Fried its smiling public face. In January, FTX raised money from Silicon Valley’s most sophisticated investors, at a valuation of $32 billion. A few weeks ago, Mr. Bankman-Fried was publicly musing about raising more, to get even bigger.

That is all gone. The bankruptcy will likely wipe out billions of equity value, leaving investors including Sequoia Capital and Thoma Bravo with stiff losses. It will maroon the crypto and cash deposits belonging to a legion of customers. FTX faces investigations or asset freezes from regulators and prosecutors around the world.

It has also rattled the crypto world. Crypto lender BlockFi, which had obtained a financial lifeline from FTX in July—one of several companies FTX had rescued earlier in the year—paused withdrawals Thursday evening.

Among the affiliates filing for bankruptcy protection is FTX US, a smaller unit that operated in the U.S. Most of FTX’s business was offshore. FTX and its affiliates filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, where the U.S. unit is registered.

Thursday morning, Mr. Bankman-Fried said the troubles at FTX were confined to its international operations. He tweeted that FTX US “was not financially impacted” and that “every user could fully withdraw.” Later that day, FTX US said it might stop trading. On Friday, FTX US filed for bankruptcy along with the rest of FTX.

Bitcoin slipped after the announcement to trade near $16,500.

At issue in the bankruptcy proceedings and the investigations is to determine what happened to the billions that FTX raised, that its customers deposited, and that it earned from operating what appeared—for a time—to be a successful cryptocurrency exchange.

FTX in 2021 also paid $250 million—a quarter of its revenue that year—to a “related party” for software royalties, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote on Twitter roughly an hour after the bankruptcy announcement that he was “shocked to see things unravel the way they did earlier this week.”

FTX’s troubles began last weekend, after rival exchange Binance said it would sell its holdings of an FTX equity-like token—spooked by a CoinDesk report showed the depth of the relationship between FTX and Alameda.

John J. Ray

III has been named the new CEO of FTX Group, the company said. The bankruptcy filing includes FTX Trading Ltd., the company presiding over the global trading website FTX.com, and Alameda Research, a trading firm founded by Mr. Bankman-Fried, in addition to FTX US.

Mr. Ray was chairman of Enron Corp.’s successor company, Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., and oversaw the energy-trading company’s liquidation after it filed for bankruptcy in late 2001. The recovery rate for Enron creditors as of 2008 was about 52 cents on the dollar, the company said at the time. Mr. Ray’s successes included securing a $1.7 billion settlement with

Citigroup

in 2008. He had accused the bank of helping Enron mislead investors.

Other noteworthy bankruptcy cases in which Mr. Ray served in similar roles include Nortel Networks Inc., Fruit of the Loom and

Overseas Shipholding Group Inc.

In the petition, Mr. Bankman-Fried said that

Stephen Neal

would be appointed as the chairman of the board of FTX Group if he is willing to serve. He also said that he is being advised by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

FTX is the latest in a string of crypto companies seeking bankruptcy protection this year.



Photo:

Leon Neal/Getty Images

Bankruptcy means that it could be a long time before retail traders and others owed their funds are able to potentially recover any of them, if ever. Creditors to Mt. Gox, the Japanese crypto exchange that failed following a 2014 hack, are still waiting for their funds almost a decade later.

The collapse in digital-currency prices earlier this year triggered a rash of crypto-related bankruptcy filings, including Celsius Network LLC,

Voyager Digital Ltd.

and Three Arrows Capital.

Crypto investors may be confronted with an uphill battle to get their crypto deposits back in bankruptcy proceedings because their investments are likely to be treated as unsecured claims without collateral rights.

FTX’s bankruptcy also calls into question the fate of Voyager Digital. In September, the firm won the auction to buy the bankrupt lender’s assets with a purchase price of about $50 million, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Voyager said Friday that the firm has reopened the bidding process for the company and is in active discussions with potential buyers. Voyager said it didn’t transfer any assets to FTX US, which previously submitted a $5 million good-faith deposit as part of the auction process. The funds are held in escrow, according to Voyager.

Voyager also recalled loans from Alameda Research for 6,500 bitcoin and 50,000 ether. The company currently has no loans outstanding with any borrower, it said. However, Voyager had about $3 million worth of cryptocurrencies stuck on FTX at the time of its bankruptcy filing.

—Jonathan Weil

contributed to this article.

Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com and Alexander Gladstone at alexander.gladstone@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Sam Bankman-Fried said he is being advised by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said FTX was being advised by the law firm. (Corrected on Nov. 11)

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