Oil prices slid this week on waning prospects of an output freeze by producers to tackle a supply glut that shows no signs of ending as US crude inventories hit record heights.
After winning some support from a weaker US dollar that made crude priced in the US unit cheaper for holders of rival currencies, oil prices slumped on Friday following comments out of Saudi Arabia.
“The suggestion that Saudi Arabia will not freeze oil production if Iran doesn’t do the same, coupled with a stronger dollar, has taken a sledge hammer” to prices, said Jasper Lawler, an analyst at traders CMC Markets.
At about 4:30pm GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in May was down US$1.41 at US$36.93 a barrel compared with Thursday’s close.
Brent North Sea crude for June delivery shed US$1.57 to US$38.76 a barrel.
Both contracts were also down compared with one week earlier.
Bloomberg News on Friday reported that according to Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, the kingdom should freeze its oil output only if mirrored by Iran and other major crude producers.
Oil prices are being hit in part owing to the return of Iranian crude to world markets after years of economic sanctions on Tehran were lifted following a nuclear deal last year.
Moreover, official data released on Wednesday showed that US commercial crude inventories climbed to a fresh record high last week, further underscoring concerns about a market brimming with supplies and not enough demand.
PRECIOUS METALS: Gold futures declined the most in more than a week after the US economy added more jobs than forecast lat month and wages picked up, reducing demand for the metal as a store of value.
The 215,000 gain in payrolls, according to a government report on Friday, compares with the 205,000 median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3 percent from a month earlier, while the jobless rate edged up to 5 percent as more people entered the labor force.
Gold rose 17 percent in the first three months of the year, the biggest quarterly surge since 1986, as the US Federal Reserve kept rates steady after an increase in December.
Gold futures for June delivery fell 1 percent to settle at US$1,223.50 an ounce at 1:56pm on the Comex in New York. The metal ended the week unchanged.
In exchange-traded funds (ETF) and other metals: Holdings in ETFs backed by gold increased by 1 tonne on Thursday to 1,762.3 tonnes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Silver futures fell on the Comex, while platinum and palladium declined on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
BASE METALS: Aluminum had its best week in almost a year and zinc climbed for a third day as an unexpected jump in a factory gauge eased demand concerns in China, the world’s biggest consumer of industrial metals.
China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index showed improving conditions for the first time in eight months, suggesting government efforts at fiscal and monetary stimulus are kicking in. In warehouses tracked by the London Metal Exchange (LME), aluminum inventories shrank for a 13th straight session, the longest streak of declines since Feb. 12.
Aluminum for delivery in three months gained 1.1 percent to settle at US$1,536 a tonne at 5:50pm on the LME, taking the weekly gain to 4.1 percent, the biggest since May 1 last year. Zinc for delivery in three months climbed 3 percent to US$1,872, ending the week 4.3 percent higher.
Copper in London slipped 0.2 to US$4,835 a tonne, after swinging between a gain of 1 percent and a loss of 0.9 percent.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day