It’s turning out to be a torrid summer for the usually sedate lead market. The London Metal Exchange (LME) lead market was roiled in early June by news of an unplanned outage at the Port Pirie lead smelter in Australia, Reuters reported. It’s just been upended again by a second shutdown of the plant, which is operated by Nyrstar, the Belgian company that had to be rescued from potential insolvency by trade house Trafigura. The second outage has seen LME time-spreads tighten again and the outright three-month price hit a two-week high of $2,101.50 per tonne on Monday.

Investors are awaiting stimulus measures from the Indian government as a gloomy economic outlook adds to mounting credit market woes and raises fears defaults will spread, Bloomberg News reported. The government is planning measures to boost the economy and may announce some steps this week to help demand for housing, automobiles, and to spur small businesses, an official said on Friday. Credit profiles of the nation’s companies worsened to a 19-month low in July, according to a Care Ratings index that tracks 1,601 local firms.

Japan’s Topix index slumped, wiping out this year’s advance, after the yen climbed to its highest since March last year on global trade concerns and political uncertainty, Bloomberg News reported. The benchmark measure fell 1.2% Tuesday, resuming trade after a three-day weekend. It is down 0.5% year-to-date and one of the worst performers among the 24 developed markets tracked by Bloomberg. The yen maintained gains after rising 1.1% against the dollar over the past four sessions and is trading around 105.28 to the dollar.

Monthly sales of new energy vehicles in China fell in July for the first time in over two years, amid a yearlong slowdown in the world’s largest autos market, the Financial Times reported. Sales of NEVs, a category that includes both hybrid and fully electrified cars, declined by 4.7 per cent year-on-year in July to 80,000 vehicles, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Monday.

Five years after its annus horribilis, Malaysia Airlines is still struggling to survive, helped only by government largesse and the national carrier’s political importance, the Financial Times reported. There may be a lifeline in the form of a stake sale, but time is running out as market conditions sour, while moves to divest could leave the ruling coalition exposed to attack from its key rival. In March 2014, flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing mysteriously disappeared over the Indian Ocean, with 239 passengers and crew on board.

Thomas Cook, the UK tour operator, lost nearly a fifth of its market value after it confirmed it was seeking a further £150m on top of the £750m already secured as part of a rescue deal with its debtholders, the Financial Times reported. The Financial Times revealed on Friday that Thomas Cook was in talks with bondholders to secure the additional capital, as part of a bailout involving its largest shareholder, the Chinese conglomerate Fosun, and its lending banks.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. is on a mission to reduce debt after racking up $76 billion in capital expenditure in the last five years, Bloomberg News reported. The conglomerate aims to be a zero-net-debt company in 18 months, Asia’s richest man told shareholders Monday. Aiding that effort would be a decision to sell 20% of Reliance’s oil-to-chemicals business to Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, at an enterprise value of $75 billion. The company will also start preparing to list its retail and telecommunications units within five years, Ambani said.

Creditors’ hopes of resurrecting India’s Jet Airways and salvaging some value from the bankrupt airline were dealt a fresh blow on Monday as two potential investors said they were no longer interested in putting money into the business, Reuters reported. The billionaire head of Vedanta, Anil Agarwal, whose family trust Volcan Investment had said it was looking at taking a stake in Jet, backed out on Monday. Etihad Airways, which already owns a minority stake in Jet, also said it was not interested in reinvesting in the airline.

China’s factory gate prices shrank for the first time in three years in July, stoking deflation worries and adding pressure on Beijing to deliver more stimulus as the economy sputters amid an intensifying trade war with the United States. With demand slowing at home and abroad, Chinese manufacturers are having to cut prices to keep market share, depressing profit margins and discouraging the fresh investment needed to get the economy back on its feet, Reuters reported. Falling prices for crude oil, iron ore and other raw materials are also playing a part.

Tata Steel’s UK division sank deeper into the red over the past financial year, as output fell at the country’s largest producer because of repair work on a furnace. The manufacturer registered a 1 per cent increase in annual sales to £2.41bn in the period ended 31 March because of higher global steel prices, according to its annual report, the Financial Times reported. But its operating loss before one-off items widened to £157m, from £48m last year, because of lower liquid steel production and sales volumes, the company said.