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...
U.S President Donald Trump said on Thursday that India had offered the U.S a trade deal that proposed "no tariffs". New Delhi is seeking to clinch a trade deal with the U.S. within the 90-day pause announced by Trump on April 9 on tariff hikes for major trading partners, which had included a 26% tariff on India. "It is very hard to sell in India, and they are offering us a deal where basically they are willing to literally charge us no tariffs," Trump said in a meeting with executives in Doha. The United States is India's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade totalling some $129...
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States was getting very close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran, and Tehran had "sort of" agreed to the terms. "We're in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace," Trump said on a tour of the Gulf, according to a shared pool report by AFP. "We're getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this... there (are) two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don't want to do it the second way," he said. An Iranian source familiar with the negotiations...
Japan's top trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, could travel to Washington as early as next week for a third round of trade talks with the U.S., two sources familiar with the plans told Reuters on Thursday. The date of his visit is still uncertain and will depend on how much progress the two countries can make in narrowing differences in staff-level talks, one of the sources said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. Japan is considering a package of proposals to gain U.S. concessions that could include increased imports of U.S. corn and soybeans,...
The world got a taste of an effective U.S.-China trade embargo, and after a breakthrough on Monday with lowered tariffs, there's no going back. China now has the "mutual respect" it has long craved from the U.S. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC's Joe Kernen that "there is a sense of mutual respect" during the talks, a point that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also emphasized in his remarks to the press on Monday. That's in stark contrast to how the first high-level bilateral meeting under the Biden administration kicked off with an exchange of insults in Alaska,...
Republicans in the U.S. Congress advanced major elements of President Donald Trump's budget package on Wednesday, as key committees approved tax cuts that would add trillions of dollars to the U.S. debt, while cutting spending on healthcare for the poor and disabled. With Democrats boycotting this top priority of Trump's, Republicans relied on their majorities in the tax-writing House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce panel overseeing Medicaid and other healthcare programs to advance the controversial package of bills. Flexing their majority muscles,...
As per the commerce ministry's announcement on Wednesday, China has temporarily halted some non-tariff measures that were previously imposed on 17 U.S. entities from its unreliable entity list and 28 U.S. entities from its export control list. These entities were added to the lists in April. China's unreliable entities list, which was updated on April 4, included 11 U.S. entities. Measures against these entities have been suspended for a period of 90 days, effective from Wednesday. Furthermore, measures against six more U.S. entities, which were added to the list on April 9, have also been...
Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa has transformed himself from al Qaeda militant to Syrian president in a dramatic political rise capped on Wednesday by a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. The encounter in Saudi Arabia is a milestone for a man who joined al Qaeda in Iraq around the time of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and spent years in U.S. prison there before returning to Syria to join the insurgency against Bashar al-Assad. The meeting - following Trump's announcement of an end to U.S. sanctions on Syria - is a huge boost for Sharaa as he tries to bring the fractured country under his...
President Donald Trump kicked off his Gulf trip on Tuesday with a surprise announcement that the United States would lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, and a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the United States. The United States has agreed to sell Saudi Arabia a nearly $142 billion package of arms, the White House said, calling it Washington's largest ever "defense cooperation agreement." The end of sanctions on Syria would be a major boost for a country devastated by more than a decade of civil war. Rebels led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled President...
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....