Commodities

The ongoing US-China trade conflict took an ugly turn in May after the United States imposed sanctions on the world’s biggest supplier of telecom equipment and smartphones, China’s Huawei Technologies, cutting the company off from all of its trading partners in the US and barring US companies from supplying components without government approval.

Spot gold rallied to more than a 10-month high in January after oscillating in a broad $1,180-1,235 range for a major portion of the second half of 2018.

Brazil’s current account deficit (CAD) narrowed to $0.82 billion in December 2018 from $2.07 billion a year earlier on the back of a widening trade surplus in goods, even as the country’s services industry recorded an annual deficit.

Coffee futures for December 2018 delivery were trading around 120 cents per pound (2.2 pounds equals 1 kilogram) in the last week of October on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

When Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi failed to exit from his country’s embassy in Istanbul on October 2, 2018—after he entered it to complete required paperwork—the most powerful country in the Middle East was poorly prepared for the global repercussions that would eventually follow.

Gold prices continued to edge up in the second half of September, even as markets digested the news of the latest tit-for-tat trade tariffs between the United States and China.

In the United States, commercial crude-oil, gasoline and distillate-fuel inventories fell more than expected in the week ending August 24, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) weekly inventory report.

The looming trade war between the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, just turned official with the US imposing 25-percent duties on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods from Friday, July 6.

In March 2018, US President Donald J. Trump announced across-the-board tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, with a 25-percent import tariff on steel and 10-percent on aluminum.

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude-oil futures slipped after failing to breach the more than four-year highs of $66.66 per barrel set in January of this year.