April 27th 2006
Bernanke testimony weighs on USD
During his semi-annual conversation with Congress, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of America’s Federal Reserve Bank suggested the US economy may soon begin to slow, due in part to the Fed’s monetary tightening. Thus, hinted Bernanke, the Fed will likely pause after hiking interest rates in May, and take some time to evaluate the state of the economy as well as the full effect of its monetary policy. This sent a ripple through futures and forex markets, which had previously expected the Fed to raise interest rates at least twice more before stopping. The Financial Times reports:
“Bernanke’s comments suggest that the market has got a little ahead of itself…, and as the market scales back such thoughts the dollar will likely come under further pressure.”
Read More: Bernanke comments weaken dollar
May 2nd, 2006 at 4:20 am
Over the next 25 years, a new world energy economy will arrive in three waves. We are near the top of the first and smallest one, a warning wave. A second more powerful wave likely will hit in the 2009-2010 period when the non-OPEC world may reach its all-time highest output of crude oil, subsequently declining to become ever more dependent on OPEC for incremental barrels of production. The final wave should break around 2020, or earlier, as even OPEC’s vast reserves are tapped at a maximum rate of production. After that, oil volume should head down and keep falling, never to revive.
Then the world’s energy companies and governments finally may begin to address new sources of energy to replace oil, and this issue should become the principal economic and political preoccupation for the rest of the century.