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Bitcoin headed for second-largest monthly drop on record

May 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Bitcoin was trading near $36,426 at 14:28 GMT on Monday, with losses for May totaling almost 37.5%. It is just short of the record 40% slide in September 2011, according to Bitstamp data. 

In a major selloff, the cryptocurrency nosedived to around $31,227 on May 24 – over a 50% decline from its mid-April peak.

Fears of China’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies, along with the coming regulations in the United States, and controversial statements from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, have all been putting pressure on the crypto market.

Also on rt.com Major Chinese crypto exchange suspends domestic bitcoin mining operations

Musk’s unexpected announcement this month that Tesla was suspending purchases of its vehicles using bitcoin, due to environmental concerns, crushed hopes for widespread corporate adoption raised by the carmaker’s decision to adopt bitcoin in February.

According to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, the price crash was driven mainly by panic selling by new investors who bought coins during the first-quarter bull run. Analysts say that a sustained accumulation by large investors might be needed to restore battered market confidence.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/525282-bitcoin-big-price-drop/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

US dollar weakens to 3yr low against Chinese yuan

May 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The greenback is on track for its second consecutive month of loss against a basket of currencies. The offshore yuan was trading at 6.3553 per dollar, its strongest level since May 2018, despite analysts’ warnings that the Chinese authorities aim to curb its rise. 

The dollar is down as investors weigh the likely impact of surging consumer price pressures and the Federal Reserve’s stance on US assets. The key PCE price index jumped 3.1% in its largest annual gain since July 1992, due to a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and supply disruptions.

Also on rt.com China’s services sector sees fastest expansion in 5 months, survey shows

According to Ulrich Leuchtmann, Commerzbank’s head of FX and commodity research, the market considers the current inflation levels to be transitional, while next year US inflation will remain at 2.5%.

“That does not make it any easier pricing USD,” Leuchtmann said as quoted by Reuters. “Until we have more clarity the dollar is likely to have found a good balance at current levels,” he added.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/525272-us-dollar-weakens-versus-yuan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Gold on track for best month since last summer amid weaker dollar & inflation woes

May 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Spot gold was up 0.4% at $1,909.81 per ounce, while US gold futures gained 0.4% to $1,913. Gold prices settled above $1,900 an ounce last week, breaching the important resistance level for the first time in around five months. Bullion has risen almost 8% this month.

“Gold is pretty much drawing its strength from inflation fears and some inclination of the yields,” Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, told Reuters. “The dollar is staying weaker… Gold bulls now have their eyes set on US$2,000 and most of the guys are thinking it’s going to go quite higher,” he added.

Also on rt.com ‘The world is going back to a GOLD STANDARD as the US dollar is about to collapse’ – Peter Schiff

Gold, which is often used as a hedge against inflation, has benefited from a recent rise in prices in the United States and Britain. US Federal Reserve officials said last week they would not be surprised if supply shortages push prices up in the coming months as the world recovers from the pandemic and pent-up demand is unleashed.

“On the technical front, a trade above the US$1,915.60 would, however, signal a resumption on the US$1,950 target… and there is strong support at the US$1,875 and US$1,850 levels,” said Phillip Futures senior commodities manager Avtar Sandu.

The prices of other metals are also on the rise, with palladium climbing 0.5% to $2,839.72 per ounce and platinum jumping 0.9% to $1,187.50. Silver rose 0.7% to $28.07 and is heading for its best monthly gain since December.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/525254-gold-price-up-dollar-down/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

India extends $41 BILLION loan guarantee scheme to airlines & small businesses amid pandemic

May 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

According to the ministry, the loans, which were previously intended for specific sectors such as small borrowers, can be claimed until September 30 or until total guarantees worth three trillion rupees ($41 billion) are offered. Sunil Mehta, chief executive of the Indian Banks’ Association, said at a briefing that around 2.5 trillion rupees ($34 billion) have so far been disbursed.

“With the second wave and incremental stress on debt servicing of the borrowers, relief measures under the loan guarantee scheme will support liquidity position of the borrowers,” Anil Gupta, the vice president for financial sector ratings at ICRA, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “The government will not be burdened with additional cost because of the second wave and this will also improve the utilization of overall funding pool available under the plan.”

People familiar with the matter said that the overall size of the government guarantee program could be expanded, and could include Covid-affected individuals and medical sectors. It will thus guarantee loans worth 20 million rupees ($275,000) to hospitals and clinics to set up on-site oxygen generation plants. Interest rates will be capped at 7.5%.

Also on rt.com India to avoid recession with economy forecast to grow despite Covid crisis

Small companies will be able to borrow an additional 30% of their credit limit, up from the 20% announced last year, the sources said.

“These are more proactive steps that are being taken to offer mitigation to the hardship that the sector might experience,” said Dinesh Khara, chairman of the State Bank of India. He added that it is too early for any bank to say with “definitive certainty” what impact the second wave of the pandemic has had on small and medium businesses.

India has recorded 27.9 million Covid-19 infections, behind only the United States, and over 325,000 deaths as of Sunday. The nation has been hit with a harsh second wave of coronavirus infections, but the rise in cases has finally begun to slow. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration says the economic impact will not be as severe as last year, because lockdowns are looser this time and growth in manufacturing and exports is higher.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/525244-india-loan-guarantee-pandemic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Canada’s largest pension funds stick to lucrative oil sands bets

May 31, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The five largest Canadian pension funds, which manage $1.2 trillion in total assets, saw their combined investment in the US-listed shares of the major oil sands producer surge by 147% in the first quarter of 2021, to a total of $2.4 billion, according to a Reuters analysis of filings to the SEC.  

Most of the jump in the value of investments of the pension funds merely reflected the rise in share prices of stock already held. Yet, the funds also bought more shares in the largest Canadian oil sands producers, according to the Reuters analysis. 

Also on rt.com Canada is battling another pipeline cancellation by US

Regardless of the way in which the pension funds boosted investment in oil sands in the first quarter, the fact remains that unlike other pension funds and some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, Canada’s pension funds have not pledged or made divestments in one of the most emissions-heavy way of producing oil. 

The funds, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), British Columbia Investment Management Corp (BCI), and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) collectively increased the value of their investments in Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor Energy, Cenovus Energy, and Imperial Oil, according to the Reuters analysis. 

Some of Canada’s pension funds have committed to carbon-neutral portfolios by 2050. Commenting on the analysis for Reuters, a PSP Investments spokeswoman said many of the fund’s investments were in passive portfolios tracking stock indexes. Representatives of other funds told Reuters that their exposure to fossil fuels as a whole is a tiny percentage of total assets held. 

Canada's oil heartland wants to make US pay for scrapped Keystone XL pipeline Canada’s oil heartland wants to make US pay for scrapped Keystone XL pipeline

Nevertheless, the funds have been criticized by activists for not doing enough to account for climate risk in their portfolios by divesting from the oil sands business. 

Commenting on this week’s high-profile case in which a Dutch court ordered Shell to slash emissions, holding it directly responsible for contributing to climate change, pension activist group Shift said: “Pension funds take note: This case highlights the growing climate-related legal risks faced by oil and gas companies amidst a wave of litigation against the fossil fuel producers most responsible for the climate crisis.”

“We have a big problem with pension funds saying we believe in engagement, not divestment, but there’s no sign of this engagement,” Shift’s director Adam Scott told Reuters. 

Other institutional investors and pension funds have already dumped their stakes in oil sands companies. 

In May last year, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign fund which has amassed its enormous wealth from Norway’s oil, decided to exclude Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, Suncor Energy, and Imperial Oil over “unacceptable greenhouse gas emissions.” Even the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the sovereign wealth fund of the world’s largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, has recently sold all the 51 million shares it held in Suncor. 

Among pension funds, the New York State Common Retirement Fund said last month it would divest its US$7-million investment in Canadian oil sands firms after determining that seven companies “failed to show they are transitioning out of oil sands production.” 

Also on rt.com Canada oil industry loses over 20% of workforce since 2014

The evaluation of the fund’s oil sands holdings are part of a broader review of climate risk in energy investments, and the fund will next evaluate shale oil and gas companies, it said.  

The Bank of Canada also warned in its latest Financial System Review (FSR) from earlier this month that climate-related vulnerabilities are first among “ongoing issues that we all need to take seriously now to protect our financial system and economy in the future.” 

“The potential impact of climate risks is generally underappreciated, and they are not well priced. That means the transition to a low-carbon economy could leave some investors and financial institutions exposed to large losses in the future,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said. 

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/525247-canada-pension-funds-oil-sands/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Atlas Obscura, a Travel Site Focused on the Weird and Obscure, Digs Deeper

May 30, 2021 by Leave a Comment

When the pandemic hit last spring, Atlas Obscura had just received a $20 million investment from a group of investors led by Airbnb. Atlas Obscura, at the time, was focused on building the “experience” side of its business — guided tours and classes — which it expected to snap into the giant home rental platform. (The New York Times is also an investor in Atlas Obscura.) But Airbnb gave up on the initiative as it scrambled to weather the crisis. And like the rest of travel media, Atlas Obscura has spent a year mostly catering to the fantasies of homebound travelers. That led, the company says, to record traffic and advertising revenue, as well as a new business in online classes.

Now, the travel media and the travel industry are bracing — and hoping — for a surge of tourism. Though few in the travel media have taken on re-editing of their product like Atlas Obscura, they’re also trying to adapt to a changed political situation, seeking to find nonwhite writers who live in the places they write about, or to have more diverse American writers tell the stories of destinations. Jacqueline Gifford, the editor in chief of Travel and Leisure, said the travel media was trying to ask itself, “Who gets to tell travel stories, why they’re telling them, and what’s the way we can be more representative of this country, of the world we’re living in today?”

But there are also built-in limits to how much you can revolutionize travel writing, said Rafat Ali, the founder of the travel business site Skift.

“It’s always going to be outsiders looking in,” he said.

The challenge for editors and writers across media is how to make journalism inclusive as well as riveting and provocative, rather than just a corporate media exercise in box-checking. (One top newspaper editor described that genre to me last week as “D.E.I. dutiful,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.)

It shouldn’t be that hard. Complicated, surprising stories are often the best ones, as illustrated by the superb “Reckoning With a Reckoning” issue that Adrienne Green, the features editor at New York magazine, put together last week. It sought, as the magazine’s editor in chief, David Haskell, wrote in an email, “to clarify stakes and also complicate them, to tell morality tales but avoid easy morals.”

Atlas Obscura, which also publishes magaziney features like the disturbing story of how a Black woman’s remains wound up on display at a Philadelphia museum and the secret queer history of Colonial Williamsburg, is another good example of how a publisher can meet the moment by deepening its content with an inquiry into, in particular, the violence Americans often choose to forget.

Indeed, Mr. Patel told me he’s not sure “decolonizing” was the right word for the project. “Decolonization suggests removal, and that’s not what we’re doing,” he said Wednesday morning, as we began our tour of unusual New York sites on the edge of the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. “Adding this kind of perspective to travel and travel writing makes it less boring.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/30/business/media/atlas-obscura-travel-media.html

Filed Under: Media Business

The Luckiest Workers in America? Teenagers.

May 30, 2021 by Leave a Comment

“We haven’t seen the demand yet,” said Joseph McLaughlin, research and evaluation director at the Boston Private Industry Council, which helps to place students into paid internships and helps others to apply to private employers, like grocery stores.

Ms. Sasser Modestino’s research has found that the long-running decline in teen work has partly come from a shift toward college prep and internships, but that many teens still need and want jobs for economic reasons. Yet the types of jobs teens have traditionally held have dwindled — Blockbuster gigs are a thing of the past — and older workers increasingly fill them.

Teenagers who are benefiting now may not be able to count on a favorable labor market for the long haul, said Anthony P. Carnevale, the director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.

“There may be what will surely be a brief positive effect, as young people can move into a lot of jobs where adults have receded for whatever reason,” he said. “It’s going to be temporary, because we always take care of the adults first.”

Educators have voiced a different concern: That today’s plentiful and prosperous teen jobs might be distracting students from their studies.

When in-class education restarted last August at Torrington High School, which serves 330 students in a small city in Wyoming, principal Chase Christensen found that about 10 of his older students weren’t returning. They had taken full-time jobs, including working night shifts at a nursing home and working at a gravel pit, and were reluctant to give up the money. Five have since dropped out of or failed to complete high school.

“They had gotten used to the pay of a full-time worker,” Mr. Christensen said. “They’re getting jobs that usually high schoolers don’t get.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/30/business/economy/pandemic-jobs-teenagers.html

Filed Under: Economy News

Biden’s Budget Has Racial Equity Efforts Baked In

May 30, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Still, for all of Mr. Biden’s forceful rhetoric — he once pledged to no longer allow “a narrow, cramped view of the promise of this nation to fester” — his administration made little effort on Friday to focus attention on that principle or to highlight details about how an equity-driven approach would change the way the government spends its money.

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    • A new year, a new budget: The 2022 fiscal year for the federal government begins on October 1, and President Biden has revealed what he’d like to spend, starting then. But any spending requires approval from both chambers of Congress.
    • Ambitious total spending: President Biden would like the federal government to spend $6 trillion in the 2022 fiscal year, and for total spending to rise to $8.2 trillion by 2031. That would take the United States to its highest sustained levels of federal spending since World War II, while running deficits above $1.3 trillion through the next decade.
    • Infrastructure plan: The budget outlines the president’s desired first year of investment in his American Jobs Plan, which seeks to fund improvements to roads, bridges, public transit and more with a total of $2.3 billion over eight years.
    • Families plan: The budget also addresses the other major spending proposal Biden has already rolled out, his American Families Plan, aimed at bolstering the United States’ social safety net by expanding access to education, reducing the cost of child care and supporting women in the work force.
    • Mandatory programs: As usual, mandatory spending on programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare make up a significant portion of the proposed budget. They are growing as America’s population ages.
    • Discretionary spending: Funding for the individual budgets of the agencies and programs under the executive branch would reach around $1.5 trillion in 2022, a 16 percent increase from the previous budget.
    • How Biden would pay for it: The president would largely fund his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high earners, which would begin to shrink budget deficits in the 2030s. Administration officials have said tax increases would fully offset the jobs and families plans over the course of 15 years, which the budget request backs up. In the meantime, the budget deficit would remain above $1.3 trillion each year.

During a news conference to introduce the budget on Friday, Ms. Young and Cecilia Rouse, the chairwoman of the White House’s National Economic Council — both of whom are Black women — did not mention the president’s equity agenda until a reporter asked about it toward the end.

And the budget itself does not try to quantify the effect of following the president’s guidance to make decisions based on a sense of racial equity. There is no “equity” section of the budget. Aides did not send out fact sheets to reporters on Friday promoting the “equity spending” in the president’s inaugural budget.

That left some of the public relations work to civil rights groups and other advocates, who quickly pointed to examples of spending that would benefit communities who had traditionally been left behind by previous presidents.

Sara Chieffo, the chief lobbyist for the League of Conservation Voters, an pro-environment group, pointed to the $936 million Accelerating Environmental and Economic Justice initiative at the Environmental Protection Agency, which is aimed at cleaning up the environment in underserved communities.

“The importance of this administration’s proposal to make the largest-ever investment in communities of color and low-income communities who have been subjected to environmental racism for decades cannot be overstated,” Ms. Chieffo said.

Marcela Howell, the president of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, praised the president for investing in programs that specifically benefit Black women.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/29/us/politics/efforts-to-advance-racial-equity-baked-in-throughout-bidens-budget.html

Filed Under: Economy News

Russia invites Saudi Arabia to participate in hydrogen energy production

May 30, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Russia is planning to increase its share in the global hydrogen market by 20% by 2030, and to increase annual exports of the fuel to 33.4 million tons by 2050. The country’s vast natural gas reserves and renewables potential could make it one of the world’s largest hydrogen producers within decades. Saudi Arabia also has ambitious plans to develop and export ‘green’ and ‘blue’ hydrogen.

Hydrogen is produced mainly from steam reforming natural gas. It can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity, or power and heat. Hydrogen is most commonly used in petroleum refining and fertilizer production.

Also on rt.com Russia eyes boosting its global market share of hydrogen by 20% in a decade

Last year, the Russian government included hydrogen energy in its broad energy strategy. It is planning to export 200,000 tons of hydrogen by 2024.

In December, Novak said that the Russian Energy Ministry had signed a long-term agreement on hydrogen energy cooperation with German partners. In 2019, Russia’s Rosatom and Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy agreed to transport hydrogen supplies from Russia to Japan.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/524751-russia-saudi-hydrogen-cooperation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Chinese emissions to turn Beijing into leader of climate business boom as carbon may shapeshift into new currency

May 30, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The expert noted that the country is turning into a leader in innovative green finance as the scale of China’s emissions creates opportunities.

“Carbon could become a new currency, with China creating the terms, the standards and the pricing,” she said speaking via video at the International Finance Forum 2021 Spring Meetings held in Beijing on Sunday.

China’s national-level carbon trading program which is set to start by the end of June is expected to guarantee the nation the leading role in achieving carbon neutrality across the globe.

Also on rt.com China has just launched world’s largest carbon market

Under the program, the country is going to start online transactions in the national carbon market. Lehr noted that once the other polluting sectors are added to the exchange, it would potentially cover up to 30% of global emissions.

Moreover, China is reportedly becoming one of the major players in innovative green finance as well as in green technology.

According to Goldman Sachs, there is a $16 trillion opportunity for clean technology infrastructure investments in China’s potential path to net zero by 2060. That may create up to 40 million jobs and drive economic growth.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/525224-china-emissions-leader-climate-business/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business
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