Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

After refusing at its 12 March meeting to cut interest rates deeper into negative numbers, the European Central Bank (ECB), has few tools left to keep propping up the Eurozone’s economy. ECB president Christine Lagarde admitted the negative interest rates “have significantly reduced the scope” to cut rates deeper. Even if the bank were to...

Although oil prices rose more than 5 percent on Friday after President Trump said the Department of Energy would buy crude to pump into the nation’s oil reserves, on the week, oil prices tanked some 24 percent, its deepest price plunge since the 2008 financial crisis. Yesterday, as the equity market tanked across the globe,...

As Trends Journal subscribers know, for the past year, despite mainstream economic forecasts to the contrary, Gerald Celente had predicted U.S. interest rates would be at negative to zero by October 2020. Now, in an emergency action to save crashing equities, on Sunday, the Fed cut its interest rate by 100 basis points, leaving the...

Bullion briefly spiked to $1,702 on Monday, its highest since December 2012, as equity markets across the globe tanked. Gold closed Monday at $1,665, barely moving from Friday’s finish of $1,674. Today, as we go to press, gold is down some $20 from yesterday’s high following slight rebounds in equity markets in Asia and Europe....

The International Monetary Fund has reserved $50 billion to respond to requests for emergency aid due to the coronavirus’s damage to national economies. Ten billion dollars will available as direct aid for poor countries; the other $40 billion will be made available through a variety of funding mechanisms. When it receives a request for help,...

Hours before the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its interest rate by 0.5 percent on 3 March, demand for overnight repo loans shot up to $108.6 billion against the Fed’s record offering of $1 billion. On 4 March, the Fed offered another $100 billion and the demand for the loans reached $111 billion. Banks were desperately...

Rolling electricity blackouts were blamed, in part, for stalling South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s initiative to spark economic growth. Instead, the country slid into its second recession in two years. South Africa’s economy shrank 1.4 percent in 2019’s fourth quarter; analysts had expected a much milder 0.2 percent contraction. The nation’s economy contracted at the...

India’s economy, once the world’s fastest-growing among large nations, slowed to a 4.7-percent annual growth rate in 2019’s fourth quarter. The government’s hopes to speed that pace have now come down with the coronavirus. “There’s no real sign of recovery,” said Shumita Deveshwar, chief Indian researcher at TS Lombard. Now the virus has put “a...

The Inter-American Development Bank warned last week that Latin American nations must improve public services and enlist businesses to reduce inequality and create societies that operate more fairly or their economies will continue to suffer. The Bank noted that the region’s political culture has shifted from dictators forcing obedience on a populace to popular uprisings...

The average price of energy stocks in the S&P 500 fell almost twice as far recently as the broader index’s value. The shares were down 7.4 percent in five consecutive trading sessions across late February and early March, while the broader index’s aggregate value lost 4 percent over the same period. Oil stocks led the...