Coterra Energy and Devon Energy have agreed to merge into one company that will be a leading player in the U.S. shale oil and gas industry and a top producer in the shale-rich Permian Basin straddling Texas and New Mexico.
Category: TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT – Feb 3 2026
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SPOTLIGHT: THE LUXURY INDUSTRY DECLINES FURTHER
The share price of LVMH, the luxury industry’s largest and richest conglomerate, dropped 7.9 percent on 27 January after reporting a 3-percent sales decline in its Dior and flagship Louis Vuitton brands.
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SWISS FRANC SURGES ON DOLLAR’S WEAKNESS
Last week, the Swiss franc’s value climbed to 0.77 against the dollar after gaining more than 17 percent since the beginning of 2025.
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DECLINING DOLLAR ROILS WORLD MARKETS
The dollar’s slide to its lowest in more than three years has revived “fears about the U.S.’s pre-eminent position in global markets, spurred conflicting statements from the White House, and shifted the math behind everything from international travel to U.S. corporate profits to European furniture exports,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
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TOP TREND 2026, DOT-COM BUST 2.0: AI CROWDS U.S. BOND MARKET
By 2030, five of the 10 largest borrowers in the U.S. bond market will be major tech companies scooping up money to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, chiefly data centers, according to a calculation based on current trends by private equity firm Apollo Global Management.
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IN EUROPE, EV SALES CONTINUE TO RISE AS TESLA SLUMPS
Electric vehicles (EVs) accounted for 17 percent of Europe’s new-car sales last year, up from 14 percent in 2024, while purchases of Teslas plummeted 38 percent, year on year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) reported.
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NORWAY’S WEALTH FUND RANKS DISASTERS, INCLUDING AI COLLAPSE
The latest stress test by Norges Bank Investment Management, the sovereign wealth fund managing the country’s oil and gas revenues, assessed the damage that four different catastrophes would have on its portfolio.
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RUSSIAN OIL STRANDED AT SEA AFTER INDIA CUTS PURCHASES
To avoid a punitive 25-percent U.S. tariff, India has sharply curtailed its purchase of Russian crude oil. As a result, about 60 million barrels of Russia’s oil are now stranded aboard tankers at sea.
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‘VERY DEEP POVERTY’ IN U.K. REACHES RECORD LEVEL, STUDY FINDS
About 6.8 million people in the U.K. now subsist in "very deep poverty", the highest level since the mid-1990s, according to a study by the Joseph Rountree Foundation, which focuses on alleviating poverty.
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GERMAN GOVERNMENT CUTS ITS TWO-YEAR ECONOMIC FORECAST
Germany’s economy, the world’s third largest, will grow a scant 1 percent this year and 1.3 percent in 2027, according to a new outlook from the country’s Ministry for Economics.