Oil prices stabilized on Thursday (February 12th), as the market reassigned a risk premium to US-Iran tensions despite US inventory data showing swelling domestic supplies. This movement confirms one thing: geopolitical headlines are still more "noise" than signals of a short-term surplus. As of 3:50 PM WIB, Brent was at $69.60/barrel (+0.29%) and WTI was at $64.83/barrel (+0.31%). The gains were moderate, but enough to keep prices near the psychological $70 level for Brent. From a geopolitical perspective, market focus is on the potential for escalation in the Middle East. Recent reports...
Barclays no longer expects the U.S. economy to slip into a recession later this year and has revised up its growth forecasts, given signs of a de-escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions, the bank said in a note released late Thursday. Barclays said it now expects the U.S. economy to grow 0.5% this year and 1.6% next year, up from previous forecasts of -0.3% and 1.5%, respectively. Reduced uncertainty and an improved economic backdrop also led Barclays to lift its euro area growth expectations. It now forecasts flat economic growth this year, compared to a 0.2% contraction...
Donald Trump's tariffs on China are likely to remain at levels that are expected to severely restrict Chinese exports to the U.S. after a 90-day truce, analysts and investors say, suggesting Beijing may have to endure further economic pain despite active talks. U.S. levies on Chinese goods imposed this year are likely to remain at 30% through the end of 2025, according to a Bloomberg survey. While much lower than before this week's thaw, the current tariffs are high enough to wipe out 70% of China's shipments to the world's largest economy in the medium term, according to Bloomberg...
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that longer-term interest rates are likely to be higher as the economy changes and policy is in flux. In remarks that focused on the central bank's policy framework review, last done in the summer of 2020, Powell noted that conditions have changed significantly over the past five years. During the period, the Fed witnessed a period of surging inflation, pushing it to historically aggressive interest rate hikes. Powell said that even with longer-term inflation expectations largely in line with the Fed's 2% target, the era of near-zero rates...
Staff from the Trump administration have been hard at work on Thursday, pushing a raft of announcements on a wide range of investment projects with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that President Trump has been pursuing hard since taking office in January. As is usual for announcements from several faces of the White House team, specific details remain thin, and it remains unclear what kind of timeline these announced projects are expected to take, or how they'll even be accomplished. According to the US Commerce Department, the United Arab Emirates and the US government have agreed on an "AI...
U.S. Federal Reserve officials feel they need to reconsider the key elements around both jobs and inflation in their current approach to monetary policy, given the inflation experience of the last few years and the possibility that supply shocks and the associated price increases may become more frequent in the years ahead, Fed chair Jerome Powell said Thursday. "We may be entering a period of more frequent, and potentially more persistent, supply shocks—a difficult challenge for the economy and for central banks," Powell said in opening remarks at a two-day conference reconsidering the...
US producer prices fell by 0.5% in April 2025, following a revised flat reading in March and defying market expectations of a 0.2% increase. This was the first decline in the PPI since October 2023 and the sharpest drop since April 2020, during the early aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak. The decline was largely driven by a 0.7% fall in service costs, the largest since data collection began in December 2009, primarily due to a 1.6% decrease in margins for trade services, suggesting businesses may be absorbing some of the impact from higher tariffs. Prices for final demand services...
US retail sales rose by 0.1% mom in April 2025, following an upwardly revised 1.7% surge in March. The modest gain suggests consumers scaled back spending in response to a wave of tariff announcements in early April, yet the result still exceeded market expectations for no change. Biggest increases were seen in sales at food services and drinking places (1.2%), building material and garden equipment supplies dealers (0.8%), furniture (0.3%) and electronics and appliances stores (0.3%). On the other hand, the largest decreases were recorded at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument,...
Initial jobless claims in the United States were unchanged from the previous week at 229,000 on the period ending May 10th, aligned with market expectations, to hold the decline form the two-month-high of 241,000 from the last week of April. In the meantime, outstanding claims edged slightly higher to 1,881,000 in the first week of May, slightly below market expectations of 1,990,000. The result continued to reflect a resilient labor market when compared to historical levels, aligned with the assessment by Federal Reserve Chairman Powell in the central bank's latest decision. In the...
Gold rises in the early Asian trade. There's a broad commodities uptrend, driven by macro uncertainty, a weaker dollar, and persistent demand for "hard" assets, says Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst...
Oil extended declines after OPEC+ agreed to a bigger-than-expected production increase next month, raising concerns about oversupply just as US tariffs fan fears about the demand outlook.
Brent...
The Japanese Yen (JPY) weakened against its US counterpart and reversed part of Friday's recovery from the lowest level since July 23 following Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda's remarks....