In the energy market Monday, crude for August delivery vacillated through a $4 range between high and low, settling at a nervous $145.18, up 10 cents. August reformulated was essentially unchanged, at $3.558/gallon.
Once again, gold and silver did absolutely nothing on Thursday in either the Far East or Europe. However, shortly after the Comex opened in New York, gold headed higher with a vengeance for a couple of hours, before it ran into the usual not-for-profit sellers.
The US presidential elections are big news not only in the US. Argentine economist Horacio Pozzo of Latinforme.com, a new Latin American investment site, says that although president Bush ignored Latin American during his two terms there’s a lot at stake this time around…
Has President Bush’s genius plan to save the US economy worked? It has if you’re an oil-rich foreign nation, says Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning.
Americans are renting apartments and houses at the highest level since President Bush started a campaign to expand homeownership in 2002, reports The New York Times.
The percentage of homeowners, as opposed to renters, fell from 69.1% to 67.8% this year, the sharpest decline in 20 years, according to census data through the end of March.
Despite the doom and gloom surrounding real estate, Diligent Investors editor Todd Schoenberger, is bullish on one particular shopping-center REIT that’s paying a 7.5% dividend yield.
It may not seem likely now, but GOP strategists believe 71-year-old Republican presidential candidate John McCain could beat Barack Obama in the presidential race — and by a margin exceeding President Bush’s Electoral College victory in 2004. This from Politico.com:
At first blush, McCain’s recent rough patch and the considerable financial disadvantage confronting him make such predictions seem absurd. Indeed, as Republicans experience their worst days since Watergate, those same GOP strategists are reticent to publicly tout the prospect of a sizable McCain victory for fear of looking foolish.
A report in the right-wing Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post claims that President Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term.
The move would play further havoc with oil prices, and could send the price of oil spiraling to $200 and beyond.
Iran claims to have the world’s third largest reserves of oil at approximately 136 billion barrels as of 2007. The country ranks second if Canadian reserves of non-conventional oil are excluded.
President Bush insists the US economy is in a “downturn,” but legendary investor Warren Buffett warned today that the US is in a recession — one that will be more severe than most people expect.
“This will not be short and shallow,” said Buffett on CNBC. “I think consumers are feeling gas and food prices and not feeling they’ve got a lot of money for other things.”
Speaking about the ongoing US credit crisis, Buffett said: “I think there will be rippling secondary, tertiary effects …
The increase in Saudi Arabia’s oil production in response to a request by President Bush amounts to only a “token” rise in output, according to an oil expert quoted in Bloomberg.
“It’s just a token increase but it shows that the Saudis realize just how important it is for the president to not come back empty handed,” said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. “This is about a lot more than oil, the special relationship between the countries is at stake.”
US Government spending is at record highs, fueled in part by the costs of President Bush’s so-called economic ’stimulus’ package.
Reuters reports that US Treasury spending and revenue reached fresh highs in April.
US government posted a $US159.3 billion surplus in April, helped by the mid-month deadline for individuals meeting 2007 tax obligations, but it was down from the prior year’s surplus, the Treasury Department reported on Monday.
