Year: 2020

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(Bloomberg) — The forces behind the euro’s recent strength suggest this may only be the first stage of a big market shift.The currency’s 3% rally this month to near $1.16 has come on the back of dollar weakness due to narrowing bond-yield differentials and the U.S. struggle to deal with the pandemic, as well as the prospect of increased cohesion in the European Union after its agreement on a recovery fund.These factors remain very much in play. Yet what makes the case for the rally to extend further is that market positioning remains largely underweight on the euro. A structural …read more […]

There was a man lurking on the farm last week.
Dressed in casual clothes and wearing a black mask, he walked up the hill behind the house. Then he peeked around the back of the barn. Then he walked to the mailbox and stuck something in it.
As he drove away, we spotted something on his vehicle we didn’t want to see.
The words on his door showed that he was from the county… and he wants his money.
You see, we built a shed over the winter. It’s not very big and certainly isn’t fancy. It doesn’t have electricity or running water. In …read more […]

Southwest Airlines reports Q2 earnings and CEO Gary Kelly says the airline intends no layoffs or pay cuts until at least the end of the year. …read more […]

Top news and what to watch in the markets on Thursday, July 23, 2020. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Axis Bank Ltd., India’s third-largest private sector lender, has picked advisers including BNP Paribas SA and Credit Suisse Group AG to manage its proposed share sale, according to people familiar with the matter.The Mumbai-based lender has also chosen HSBC Holdings Plc and UBS Group AG for the offering, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. Axis Bank plans to seek at least $1.3 billion from institutional investors, though it hasn’t finalized the fundraising target, the people said.The sale could come as soon as the end of August and Axis Bank may …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Oil rose toward $45 a barrel in London, with a weaker dollar and stronger equity markets countering an expansion in U.S. crude stockpiles.Brent futures traded near their highest level since March as European stocks and U.S. equity futures advanced. Yet bearish signs persist in the physical market. China’s thawing oil demand has seen the value of Iraqi crude drop, and there’s renewed weakness in the key swaps that help value North Sea grades. In America, crude stockpiles rose by 5 million barrels last week.Oil jumped earlier this week after European Union leaders agreed on a stimulus package, but …read more […]

(Bloomberg Opinion) — It’s not only gold that glitters. Since touching its weakest level in more than a decade in March, silver has doubled to a seven-year high of almost $23 an ounce. Partly, it’s a rally fueled by the same low-yield, weak-dollar haven dynamic that has pushed bullion to within spitting distance of a record. Investor demand is booming and silver — which is the best conductor of electricity — has industrial uses, too. Short-term supply, meanwhile, has been dented by pandemic-related closures. The metal can keep shining.Silver tends to loosely track gold. Like the yellow metal, it is …read more […]

Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk urged miners to produce more nickel, a key ingredient in the batteries that power the company’s electric cars, warning the current cost of batteries remained a big hurdle to the company’s growth. “Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way,” Musk said on a post-earnings call on Wednesday. Nickel makes batteries energy dense so cars can run further on a single charge, and Tesla needs the metal more than ever as it looks to ramp up …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Deepening negative real yields in the U.S. Treasury market are fueling a frenetic rally in gold that’s boosting the precious metal toward a record.Bullion has gained 24% this year and is about $45 from an all-time high. And with five-year Treasuries now yielding -1.16% once the effects of inflation are stripped out, the lowest close in seven years, there’s little reason to expect a slowdown in precious-metal buying as investors fret about the economic outlook, prospects for further outbreaks of Covid-19 and the impact of central-bank bond buying.“Gold is a superior form of purchasing power protection and as …read more […]

(Bloomberg Opinion) — You know Tesla Inc. is maturing as a carmaker when it manages to be slightly dull. Wednesday evening’s earnings update was even more eagerly anticipated than usual after the recent surge in its share price. Elon Musk’s company has added an astonishing $200 billion to its already ample market capitalization since the end of March.Confirmation that Tesla will add a second U.S. factory in Austin, Texas is certainly something to celebrate — especially for the workers it will employ there to build its Cybertruck and other products. So too is the fourth consecutive quarter of net profit, …read more […]

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A reopening of some major economies locked down due to the coronavirus has lifted global oil prices and encouraged U.S. shale producers to return at least a third of the 2 million barrels per day (bpd) curtailed since April. With most new drilling halted and OPEC relaxing curbs that have underpinned the oil-price recovery, shale output will slide again in autumn, said oil executives and analysts. Shale output falls off faster than at conventional oil wells, a factor that will lead to output declining by September. …read more […]