According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, US gross domestic product - the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States - accelerated in the latest quarter, to a 1.9% annualized pace. The number, reported by the Commerce Department, was slightly below expectations, as economists had expected a [...]
The number of people filing for first time unemployment benefits rose sharply in the week ending July 26th, according to the US Department of Labor. Claims jumped 44,000, to 448,000, way above expectations. Economists were expecting 398,000 new claims for the week. Today’s reading is the highest reading since April 2003.
Having witnessed extremely volatile measurements [...]
In 1976, Howard Beale, a character in the movie Network, urged Americans to get up, go to their windows, open them and yell out, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” The preamble to Beale’s speech chronicles the problems of the 1970s: inflation, a falling dollar, unemployment, environmental degradation and [...]
A lot of economically illiterate people have blamed speculators for driving up oil prices. Will they now thank speculators for driving prices down?
Crude Oil Long Change Short Change
Large Speculator 198,019 -11,994 201,659 14,028
Commercial Hedger 641,265 -28,870 626,528 -60,219
Small Trader 55,452 -39,045 66,549 -33,718
Speculators can go short as well as long. If they weren’t in the [...]
