Category: inflation

Brent Oil Hovers Above $81 After Supply Disruptions

LONDON—Global benchmark Brent crude hovered above $81 a barrel on Friday, with bullish sentiment over U.S. demand bolstered by supply disruption in Libya and Nigeria. Both the Brent and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) contracts had risen for three straight sessions and in early Asian trade on Friday, poised to register a third straight week…


World Stocks Hit New 2023 Highs After Rally on Inflation Data

LONDON—World stocks extended their gains on Friday, on track for their biggest weekly rise this year, while the dollar held near 15-month lows as investors bet that the U.S. Federal Reserve was nearing the end of its rate-hiking cycle. Data on Wednesday showed U.S. consumer prices growing at their slowest pace in more than two…


Home Prices Hit Record High As Housing Supply Shortage Worsens

Home prices hit a record high again in May, amid a worsening supply shortage in the housing market. The sharp jump in mortgage interest rates in last year caused an overheated housing market to slow down, but the slump did not last long. The cost for a home, which has been rising since the start…


US Wholesale Prices for June Point to Further Easing of Inflation Pressures

WASHINGTON—Wholesale prices in the United States decelerated again last month, the latest sign that inflationary pressures are easing in the face of the Federal Reserve’s streak of interest rate hikes. The government’s producer price index—which measures inflation before it reaches consumers—rose just 0.1 percent last month from June 2022, the smallest such increase since August…


Sunak Tells Unions to Halt Strikes After Announcing ‘Final’ Pay Offer

Rishi Sunak has challenged union leaders to call off strike action after offering public sector workers pay rises of up to 7 percent. The prime minister said on Thursday that he has accepted the recommendations from independent pay review bodies, including 6.5 percent increases for teachers in England for 2023-24, which the education unions said…


US Applications for Jobless Benefits Fall Again as Labor Market Continues to Defy the Fed Actions

The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits fell again last week as the labor market continues defy the Federal Reserve’s attempt to cool it through higher interest rates. U.S. applications for jobless claims fell by 12,000 to 237,000 for the week ending July 8, from 249,000 previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The…


Inflation Closing In on Fed’s Target: Analyst

U.S. consumer prices saw their smallest increase on a yearly basis in more than two years in June. The headline CPI reported on Wednesday showed that inflation is subsiding. The considerable slowdown in underlying inflation sparked a rally in the stock and bond markets. Some investors are convinced the U.S. central bank’s fastest monetary policy…


It’s Price Rather Than Amount or Flow of Money That Matters

Commentary The nightmare for the central bank is not high inflation by itself but when high inflation is not responsive to tightening measures. As an example, we can look at the situation in the UK. The accompanying chart shows that the UK has broad money (M4) growing year-over-year (YoY) at zero percent, down from the…


Dollar Slides After Inflation Surprise Spooks Bulls

LONDON—A sliding dollar came under more pressure on Thursday, as traders took surprisingly slow U.S. inflation as a signal U.S. interest rate rises will be all but finished by month’s end. U.S. data on Wednesday showed inflation slowed a lot faster than expected last month. That gave rise to the biggest one-day dollar sell-off in…


Stocks Around 2023 Highs as Disinflation Signal Brings Some Relief

LONDON—Global stocks traded around their highs for the year on Thursday as investors bet that the Federal Reserve was finally taming inflation and could end its rate hiking cycle as soon as this month. U.S. data on Wednesday showed consumer prices rose modestly in June, registering the smallest annual increase in more than two years…