Investment Week (June 22)
“UK inflation has hit another 40 year high of 9.1% in May, up from 9% in April. The slight increase from already record high inflation rate came largely from rising food and non-alcoholic beverage prices,” while gas and diesel prices rose to “the highest on record.” The “top financial priority” for 58% of UK adults is now “day to day costs, like paying bills and for food.”
New York Times (May 11)
The weak yen, coupled with soaring food and energy costs, “are posing yet another challenge for the world’s third-largest economy as Japan trails other major nations in emerging from the economic blow of the pandemic. The rise in prices has spooked Japanese consumers used to decades of stability, and the weak yen is starting to look as if it will depress demand at home more than stimulate it abroad.”
Tags: Challenge, Consumers, Costs, Economy, Energy, Food, Japan, Pandemic, Prices, Soaring, Spooked, Stability, Weak yen
CNN (April 25)
“Oil prices fell sharply Monday as lockdowns in China stoked concerns that the country’s zero-Covid strategy will sap energy demand in the world’s second-largest economy.” The concerns over China “could create one positive for consumers: They may ease pressure on prices at the pump.” On Monday, “US oil dropped as much as 6.7% to a two-week low of $95.28 a barrel.”
Tags: China, Concerns, Consumers, Demand, Ease, Energy, Lockdowns, Oil prices, Positive, Prices, Pump, Zero COVID
Bloomberg (March 27)
“Prices for some of the world’s most pivotal products – foods, fuels, plastics, metals – are spiking beyond what many buyers can afford. That’s forcing consumers to cut back and, if the trend grows, may tip economies already buffeted by pandemic and war back into recession.”
Tags: Buffeted, Buyers, Consumers, Economies, Foods, Fuels, Metals, Pandemic, Plastics, Prices, Products, Spiking, Trend, War
Washington Post (January 26)
“Thousands of Americans who jumped into crypto investing over the past two years in hopes of a rocket ride to instant wealth now face a similar reckoning: Prices for cryptocurrencies… have cratered since reaching all-time highs in early November, wiping out an astonishing $1.35 trillion in value globally, nearly half of the total market.”
Tags: Cratered, Crypto investing, Cryptocurrencies, Instant wealth, Market, Prices, Reckoning, Rocket ride, U.S., Value
Bloomberg (November 1)
“China’s economy showed signs of further weakness in October as power shortages and surging commodity prices weighed on manufacturing, while strict Covid controls put a brake on holiday spending.” The purchasing mangers’ index shows “the economy is under pressure from both the supply and demand side.”
Tags: China, Commodity, Covid, Economy, Manufacturing, October, PMI, Power shortages, Prices, Spending, Strict, Supply, Surging, Weakness
South China Morning Post (October 18)
Coal prices have “more than tripled in a year to near historical highs” and look poised to keep climbing, driven by a coal shortage that could threaten the global economic recovery. “Blackouts could spread from China and India to all the emerging economies still mostly reliant on coal. As supply can’t be ramped up in the near term, the shortages could worsen as energy demand rises with winter’s arrival. That may trigger another emerging-market crisis.”
Tags: Blackouts, China, Coal, Demand, Economic recovery, Emerging-market crisis, Energy, India, Prices, Reliant, Shortage, Supply, Threaten, Tripled, Winter
Wall Street Journal (October 7)
“Natural gas stocks are alarmingly low around the world, and prices in most places have never been higher after surging to new records…. Demand has jumped as economies have bounced back from pandemic shutdowns, and the squeeze has caught traders, shipowners and energy executives off guard.” Nations that “have wound down coal-fired plants and become more dependent on gas” are particularly vulnerable and, in some cases, restarting mothballed power plants despite higher GHG emissions.
Tags: Coal, Demand, Economies, Energy, GHG emissions, Natural gas, Pandemic, Prices, Records, Shipowners, Shutdowns, Squeeze, Stocks, Surging, Traders, Vulnerable
The Guardian (September 28)
“Queues at the petrol pumps are never a good look for a government. They are especially bad in a pandemic, when so many people already have reason to feel anxious.” Panic buying comes natural after “gas price rises that have led to around 2m households losing their energy supplier” and “empty shelves in supermarkets…. There is a palpable sense that Britain is careering from one crisis to another.”
Tags: Anxious, Careening, Crisis, Empty shelves, Energy, Gas, Government, Households, Pandemic, Petrol, Prices, Queues, Rises, Supermarkets
Wall Street Journal (July 19)
“As China’s factory-gate prices soared this year, investors worried the country would become a new source of inflation for the rest of the world. Instead, the world’s second-largest economy has helped alleviate some price pressures caused by the pandemic.” Many Chinese factories have been “absorbing higher costs for raw materials like copper and iron ore themselves.” It appears this will continue “at least for a while.”
Tags: Absorbing, Alleviate, Copper, Factories, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-is-helping-to-damp-global-inflation-11626616802?cx_testId=200&cx_testVariant=cx_10&cx_artPos=5#cxrecs_s China, Inflation, Investors, Pandemic, Price pressures, Prices, Raw materials, Worried
