From the U.S. Fed to the Reserve Bank of Australia, monetary authorities across the developed world are embarking on a cycle of interest rate cuts to head off the threat of recession. With one lonely exception: Norway is still in rate-hike mode.
Saudi Arabia will try to maintain oil supplies to its major customers by drawing down crude stored at tank farms in the kingdom and in its global network while repairing and replacing installations damaged in the recent attacks.
China is back in the U.S. soybean market for the first time in three months, but it appears to be motivated more by goodwill than necessity for now, and its impact on U.S. supply remains muted at this point.
Saudi oil output is said to be returning to normal by the end of the month end, so the market mood improved. U.S. shares closed higher, with the S&P 500 just 1% off record highs.
The Federal Reserve will conclude its latest policy meeting on Wednesday buffeted by conflicting economic data, under steady pressure from the White House for steep interest rate cuts, and confronted as well with an unexpected jump in overnight borrowing costs that may require action on its own.
As if the U.S. Federal Reserve did not already have enough on its plate heading into its meeting on interest rates this week, chaos deep inside the plumbing of the U.S. financial system has thrown policymakers an unexpected curveball.
Not all U.S. rate-cutting cycles are created equal, at least when it comes to how the stock market reacts.
Investors managing $15 trillion in assets turned up the heat on oil and gas sector on Wednesday ahead of a United Nations summit in New York aimed at accelerating efforts to fight climate change.
Confidence among companies in Asia lifted slightly in the September quarter from 10-year lows, but most firms do not plan on hiring or expect business to pick up as they see a risk of a global recession looming, a Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey found.
The European Central Bank's decision to introduce a tiered interest rate may be inadvertently tightening rather than easing market conditions, dampening some of the impact from its move to cut interest rates and resume bond purchases.
The dollar hit a seven-week high against the yen and a three-month peak versus the Swiss franc on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, as expected, but gave an uncertain outlook on future easing and sounded less bleak about the U.S. economy.