Oil trimmed its third weekly advance as Canadian energy producers moved to resume operations after wildfires eased.
Futures slipped 0.3 percent in New York. Suncor Energy Inc is seeking to return most of its workers by next week and begin startup of oil-sands facilities that were shut down by forest fires, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Prices climbed above US$50 a barrel on Thursday as declining US crude supplies eroded a global glut.
“Finally supply and demand are coming into balance,” said Mark Watkins, the Park City, Utah-based regional investment manager for The Private Client Group of US Bank. “There are going to be headwinds as you near the US$50-US$60 range. Inventories are still high and we have to work them off.”
Oil has surged more than 85 percent in New York since touching a 12-year low in February on signs the worldwide surplus will ease amid declining production in Nigeria, Libya, Canada and the US. OPEC is unlikely to reach any agreement to limit output when it meets on Thursday, as the group sticks with Saudi Arabia’s strategy of squeezing out rivals, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for July delivery dropped US$0.15 to close at US$49.33 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Front-month WTI climbed 3.3 percent this week. Futures touched US$50.21 on Thursday, the highest since Oct. 9. Total volume traded was 43 percent below the 100-day average at 2:45pm.
Brent for July settlement decreased US$0.27, or 0.5 percent, to US$49.32 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Futures rose 1.2 percent this week. The contract reached US$50.51 during trading on Thursday, the highest since Nov. 4. The global benchmark closed at a US$0.01 discount to WTI.
Meanwhile, gold is looking very different than it did at the beginning of this month. Along with platinum, palladium and silver, it is heading for the biggest monthly loss since November last year as investors anticipate higher borrowing costs in the US.
Bullion has pared this year’s rally after retreating more than 5 percent this month as the US dollar rallied and investors raised bets on the US Federal Reserve increasing interest rates as early as next month. Higher rates curb gold’s appeal against interest-bearing assets. US Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke on Friday at Harvard University, saying an increase in rates in the coming months might be appropriate. The comments come after a number of regional Fed presidents have indicated their willingness to tighten policy.
Gold futures for August delivery dropped 0.5 percent to settle at US$1,216.70 an ounce at 1:47pm on the COMEX in New York. The metal is down 5.7 percent this month.
Holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds added 1.5 tonnes to 1,844.9 tonnes as of Thursday, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Silver futures for July delivery dropped 0.5 percent to US$16.269 an ounce on the COMEX. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, platinum and palladium declined.
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