Business

U.S. consumer prices have soared above economists’ predictions and by the most in more than a decade, as fiscal stimulus and booming demand pushed against supply constraints, potentially fueling market fears of a prolonged bout of higher inflation.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that the Consumer Price Index, a measure of prices paid for goods and services, including housing and energy costs, rose 4.2% from where it was a year ago. Economists had predicted only a 3.6% increase. Inflation rose by 0.8% in April vs. the expected 0.2% increase.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently took a stand against strategies surrounding the coronavirus. In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, the Republican condemned the current policies of Democrats while suggesting they are untimely.

US electric car producer Tesla has reportedly held off on plans to buy land to expand its plant in the Chinese province of Shanghai and turn it into the company’s global export hub, as uncertainty over US-China relations grows.

Commodity traders have booked at least six tankers – provisionally – to start shipping gasoline from Europe to the US in the wake of the outage of the Colonial Pipeline network, Reuters reports, citing data from Refinitiv.

With fears growing that the Colonial shutdown could last for much longer than initially expected, with some analysts warning that a 5-day shutdown could lead to sharply higher prices, and the Biden admin activating a state of emergency to make sure that critical gasoline supplies continue to flow up the eastern seaboard, moments ago Colonial Pipeline issued an update on its attempts to restore operations, saying that "segments of our pipeline are being brought back online in a stepwise fashion" and that the goal now is to "substantially" restore operational service by the end of the week.

Crude and fuel price rose on Monday as one of the largest fuel pipeline systems in the US remained largely shut down after a reported cyberattack. The US has declared a state of emergency in 17 states due to the situation.

Soaring commodity and house prices are further proof that inflation is here to stay and it is much higher than the Federal Reserve wants Americans to believe, according to Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert.

We live in a world where words are very carefully chosen.

On the heels of record highs in Iron Ore and Steel earlier this week, as commodity demand soars on the back of economies emerging from COVID lockdowns (demand) and various supply chain/operational issues (supply); copper prices surged to an all-time high this morning as Chinese investors unleashed fresh demand following a five-day holiday.