OilPrice.com (July 20)
“Traffic via Hormuz is once again paralyzed, tanker crossings are sporadic, and Iran and the United States are intensifying the exchange of fire. Meanwhile, global oil stocks are melting like snow. Oil prices have been on a climb for over a week now as hostilities in the Middle East continue, and despite recent talk of a glut, the physical market is flashing signs of tightness—and higher oil for longer.”
Tags: Global oil stocks, Glut, Higher, Hormuz, Hostilities, Intensifying, Iran, Longer, Middle East, Oil prices, Paralyzed, Physical market, Tanker crossings, Tightness, Traffic, U.S.
Euronews (July 20)
Spain’s economy looks set to receive a boost from its World Cup win. “FIFA pays the champion federation a record $50 million (€43.7m)… out of a $655 million (€572m) prize pool spread across the expanded 48-team tournament.” Though beneficial, the prize winnings and a surge in celebration spending are negligible at the macroeconomic level. Instead the real driver appears to be “exports, which grow five to six percentage points faster as the title acts as a global advertising campaign for the country’s goods and services.” A 2024 study suggests “winning the World Cup lifts a champion’s year-on-year GDP growth by at least 0.48% over the two quarters after the final, before the effect fades.”
Tags: 50 million, Advertising campaign, Celebration spending, Champion, Driver, Economy, Exports, FIFA, GDP growth, Macroeconomic, Prize winnings, Spain, Surge, World Cup
The Economist (July 18)
“It is too darn hot. On July 14th the surface temperature of Earth’s tropical and mid-latitude oceans was higher than on any other July 14th in modern records. The same was true for every other day in July, and for almost all of the days in June, too. Europe has gone through three heatwaves since May, and though the continent is better prepared for such things than it used to be, tens of thousands will have died as a result.”
Tags: Continent, Earth, Europe, Heatwaves, Higher, Hot, Oceans, Prepared, Records, Surface temperature, Tropical
Wall Street Journal (July 17)
In March, the Chinese Communist Party “set a GDP growth target range of 4.5% to 5% for the year, its most pessimistic since the 1990s.” Four months later, Beijing announced that “gross domestic product grew 4.3% year-on-year in inflation-adjusted terms in the April through June quarter.” That’s both “shockingly bad” and greatly exaggerated. “There’s accumulating evidence that the country’s true GDP growth rate may be zero, or that the economy is in outright recession.”
Tags: 1990s, Bad, CCP, Economy, Evidence, Exaggerated, GDP, Growth rate, Inflation adjusted, Pessimistic, Quarter, Target, Zero
The Times of London (July 16)
“Even as US vessels launched hundreds of missiles at Iranian military targets in the past few days, Trump still seemed reluctant to unleash the type of all-out war necessary to bring the enemy to heel. As was the case during the initial five weeks of conflict this spring, the president seems rigidly focused on a low-risk, stand-off warfare, minimising the risks of close-up combat.” With the tactics of Trump’s campaign “explicitly designed to avoid high-intensity battle,” his “objectives are rooted more in hope than in strategy.”
Tags: Campaign, Conflict, Cose-up combat, Enemy, High-intensity battle, Hope, Iran, Low-risk, Military targets, Missiles, Objectives, Reluctant, Stand-off, Tactics, Trump, U.S., Vessels, Warfare
Time (July 16)
“Iran’s return to conflict is best read as a calculated gamble…. Above all, Tehran’s leadership fears a staged unwinding of its leverage. Once it stops threatening shipping and restrains its regional partners, those tools become difficult to recover.” While Iran may be “running a familiar playbook of escalating to deescalate” and may have an “accurate reading” of President Donald Trump’s desire “to avoid rising energy prices, American casualties, and another open ended war in the Middle East;” there’s less certainty about how that deescalation will come about. “There is no formal consensus… and no faction willing to move first on anything that could be portrayed as surrendering leverage, legitimizing the bombing campaign, or handing Trump a clear victory.”
Tags: Calculated, Casualties, Certainty, Conflict, Deescalate, Energy prices, Escalating, Fears, Iran, Leadership, Legitimizing, Leverage, Middle East, Recover, Shipping, Threatening, Tools, Trump, War
Institutional Investor (July 15)
“Investors need to understand the limits of what high returns tell them about a fund and probe deeper than the track record. In credit, headline returns can look attractive for years until the weakest loans finally reveal themselves. Only then do investors discover what was really sitting at the bottom of the portfolio.”
Tags: Credit, Fund, Headline returns, High returns, Investors, Limits, Loans, Portfolio, Probe, Reveal, Track record, Understand, Weakest
ABC (July 15)
“Runaway demand for turbines from data centres in the US is making new gas-fired power uncompetitive with batteries in the evening peak for the first time…. Australia’s top science agency, the CSIRO, said batteries were helping to lower high evening prices for electricity as the costs of the technology fell and significant extra capacity was added.” Looking further ahead, CSIRO expects “solar and wind power would by 2050 supply as much as 93 per cent of Australia’s electricity needs.”
Tags: 2050, Australia, Batteries, Capacity, Costs, CSIRO, Data centres, Electricity, Gas-fired, Peak, Prices, Runaway demand, Solar, Turbines, U.S., Uncompetitive, Wind power
New York Times (July 12)
“Russian spies appear to be operating right under the noses of the Japanese authorities.” Just 10 minutes on foot from the National Police Agency, Aeroflot’s office in Tokyo shelters the 20th Directorate, a military intelligence unit, which “finds the high-tech equipment that Russia needs to wage war.” Japan’s “weak espionage laws and flourishing high-tech industry have made it a crucial piece of the Russian war effort.” The Ukrainian government estimates that Japanese components are found in roughly 90% of Russian missiles and drones.
Tags: Aeroflot, Authorities, Components, Crucial, Drones, Espionage laws, High-tech equipment, High-tech industry, Japan, Military intelligence unit, Missiles, National Police Agency, Russia, Spies, Tokyo, Ukraine, War, War effort
Fortune (July 12)
“An energy crisis is already ravaging Russia’s economy, and a banking crisis may soon erupt as a mountain of debt weighs on consumers and businesses.” A European intelligence report indicates “the Kremlin has relied on banks to pump up the economy with massive liquidity, as its own budget comes under growing strain from Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.”
Tags: Banks, Budget, Businesses, Consumers, Crisis, Debt, Economy, Energy, European intelligence, Kremlin, Liquidity, Pump up, Putin, Ravaging, Relied, Russia, Strain, War
