- The global financial system has strengthened over the past year, giving it a substantial cushion against potential financial shocks, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.
- OPEC, whose members pump more than a third of the world's oil, lowered its forecast for growth in world oil demand for a fifth consecutive month, citing lower predicted demand in the United States and China, Bloomberg reported.
- Prices paid by consumers rose 0.5% in August, while the so-called "core" consumer price index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1%, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
- Manufacturing growth in New York state declined this month as costs rose, according to a monthly survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released Thursday.
- The number of U.S. workers filing initial unemployment benefits jumped by 71,000 last week in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the biggest jump in more than nine years.
- Business inventories fell 0.5% in July, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
- The Canadian Press said today the agricultural losses from Hurricane Katrina total $3 billion with the largest part coming from the timber industry. $2 billion losses are in Mississippi and $1 billion are in Louisiana. Damage also occurred to cotton fields, pecan trees, poultry, cattle, and dairy operations.
- The U.S. Department of Energy said that underground supplies of natural gas were up 89 billion cubic feet last week to 2.758 trillion cubic feet. YoY supplies are now down 4%. The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) said that 34% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is still closed.
- Chinese fixed-asset investment in August grew a stronger-than-expected 28.5 percent from a year earlier, as heavy spending on energy and transportation offset a cooling property sector.
- Retail sales in the U.K. were flat in August, weaker than expected.
- The Green Coffee Association said that U.S. coffee stocks totaled 4.33 million bags at the end of August, down 121,189 bags for the month.
No comments:
Post a Comment