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...
The Trump administration is planning to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure U.S. trading partners to limit their transactions with China, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the discussions. The report added that the Trump administration wants to use negotiations with more than 70 countries to get them to ban China from shipping products through their countries and to bar Chinese companies from setting up business there to avoid U.S. tariffs. (Newsmaker) Source: FXstreet
As China imposes export controls on rare earth elements, the U.S. would be unable to fill a potential shortfall, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies — and this could threaten Washington's military capabilities. Amid U.S. President Donald Trump's escalating tariffs on China, Beijing earlier this month imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements and magnets used in defense, energy and automotive technologies. The new restrictions — which encompass the medium and heavy rare earth elements samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium...
Indonesia's economy grew 0.53% qoq in Q4 of 2024, compared with market consensus of 0.56% and after a 1.5% increase in Q3. It was the third straight quarterly growth but the softest in the sequence, amid a sharp slowdown in fixed investment (2.44% vs 8.35% in Q3). Meanwhile, private consumption recovered (1.64% vs -0.48%), boosted by spending related to year-end, as did government expenditure (38.58% vs -1.17%). On the trade front, exports (4.63% vs 7.78%) and imports (3.23% vs 9.37%) slowed, on weaker demand both globally and domestically. Production-wise, activity slowed for mining (3.25%...
UK retail sales rose by 0.9% on a like-for-like basis in March 2025, outpacing market forecasts of a 0.5% increase. The boost was largely driven by unseasonably warm weather, which spurred spending on gardening, DIY, food, and health and beauty products. Mother's Day also contributed to the uplift, though the late timing of Easter this year somewhat distorted year-on-year comparisons. Food sales grew by 1.6% in March, while non-food sales saw a modest 0.6% increase. Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium, commented: "Despite a challenging global geopolitical...
No country should bypass international laws to authorise resource exploration in the seabed, China's foreign ministry said on Monday, following a report of U.S. plans to stockpile deep-sea metals to counter China's dominance in the sector. The Trump administration is drafting an executive order to enable stockpiling of deep-sea metals found on the Pacific Ocean seabed to counter China's dominance of battery minerals and rare earth supply chains, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. The stockpile would "create large quantities ready and available...
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said the Trump administration's tariffs posed a significant shock to the US economy that might force the Fed to cut rates to avert a recession, though they could also be just a negotiating tactic with minimal lasting impact.New tariff policy one of the biggest shocks to affect US economy in decades.I believe higher inflation from tariffs will be temporary.If current 25% average tariff rate stays for some time, inflation could peak near 5%.In this large-tariff scenario, drag on output, employment could be longer-lasting; unemployment could rise to 5%.Under...
Consumer confidence in the US continued to deteriorate in April, with the University of Michigan's (UoM) Consumer Sentiment Index dropping to 50.8 in the flash estimate from 57 in March. This reading came in worse than the market expectation of 54.5. The underlying details of the report showed that the Current Conditions Index fell to 56.5 from 63.8 in the same period, while the Consumers Expectations Index worsened to 47.2 from 52.6. The one-year inflation outlook component of the survey jumped to 6.7% from 5%, and the five-year inflation outlook edged higher to 4.4% from 4.1%. Source:...
Core producer prices in the United States, which exclude food and energy, declined by 0.1% from the previous month in March of 2025, contrasting sharply with market expectations of a 0.3% jump to reflect the first decline in eight months. From the previous year, core producer prices rose by 3.3%, the least in six months, from the 3.5% in February. Source: Trading Economics
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....