NYMEX crude drops...

Here is the good news to one and all as the crude started sliding, despite a hurricane heading towards some of the off shore oil installations in the united States. The Hurricane Gustav poised to enter the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the crude to move as much as 3 per cent over the week earlier.

The NYMEX settled down 13 cents to stabilize at $ 115.46 a barrel mainly due to a strong US dollar but earlier the week saw the crude to shoot as much as $118.76.

The US stock market is anxious about how the Hurricane Gustav will move in the days to come and the holiday to stock market on Monday due to Labor Day will add fire to the anxiety. A clear picture will emerge only after 4-5 days to assess the possible damage that may be caused by the hurricane.

The US energy companies are already on the alert mode and shut down productions and evacuated personnel to avoid further damage to the properties. The US government is ready to release its stock pile in the event of shortfall in the production of crude.

Bad news for UK economy?

The British economy is set to be performing in a poor manner and arguably it could be the worst in the last 60 years period and certainly is not sweet news to any British. The assessment follows a warning from Bank of England policy maker Mr. Darling and by the end of this year, almost 2 million people could become unemployed; the catch point of the problem is that the slowdown will be more profound and longer lasting than it was already assessed.

Asian stocks gain

Snapping the four weeks loosing streak, Asian stocks started looking up again after the news about strong US economy. Shares of Motor companies like Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co., fared better. To cap it, Cnooc, China’s largest oil explorer gained a lofty 13 percent this week. To keep pace with it was another Chinese entity, called Sinofert Holdings ltd surged 23 per cent, making the shareholders very happy.

Asian stocks in a jittery!

Asian stocks are again in the doldrums and fell for the fourth week and touching the lowest point since July 2006 mainly due to fall of technology and banking shares. Samsung Electronic Corporation fell almost 4 per cent owing to rising US whole sale prices and decrease in housing rates. Sumitomo Financial Group Inc followed suit with a reduction of 6.9 per cent in its value.

Asia’s most profitable carrier Singapore Airlines too saw the southward trend with 2.5 per cent shave off. Rise in the cost of gasoline is cited as the major reason for losses of the airlines. Rising oil prices forced the consumers to become spendthrift and with a higher inflation come an increased commodity prices.

Japan’s Nikkei 200 stock average too dropped 2.7 per cent and the overall bench mark indices saw a reduction in most of the markets. The maker of the top selling video games, Nintendo, declined 5.2 per cent to 49,000 in Osaka.

Banks got the beating!

United States housing plummeted 11 per cent last month to its nadir in 17 years and the prices paid to the US producers in July rose to 1.2 per cent. Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers Holdings and Goldman Sachs Group Inc hope to write off a combined $6.5 billion in the third quarter.

Mr. Ben S. Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve outlined a proposal widely thought of as “ambitious” on Friday for overseeing the credit markets and preventing the return of the dreaded credit crisis and he described his efforts would involve an attempt by regulators to develop a more fully integrated overview of the entire financial system.

Nifty down

The Indian National Stock Exchange Index popularly called “Nifty” future lost 2.5 per cent over the week to close at 4324.1 points against the previous close of 4434.9. The Nifty August future is facing volatility with wild swings.

Asian stocks take the beating

With the rising crude prices trying to test the upper limit daily, the stocks, especially those belonging to the Asian continent fared badly. In fact, it was the biggest weekly fall this week in the last three months. The rising crude pushing the inflation upward, resulting in a higher interest rate thus hampering the growth of the economy and jeopardizing the livelihood of the common man.

Mitshubishi UFJ and Macquarie Group saw their fortunes down after the loss making report from the Lehman Brothers. Australia’s second largest securities company Babcock and Brown ltd suffered the worst, reportedly due to short selling. Many were of the opinion that rising inflation is the recipe to catastrophe and will compress the margins of the companies. There will be possible reduction in the earnings if the crude prices stay afloat.

China’s benchmark CSI 300 index decreased by 15% to 2979.12, the biggest ever fall recorded recently.

The G8 group of countries, in its meeting warned that soaring commodity prices may slice into economic growth. Increased commodity prices, especially that of oil and food pose a serious challenge to the stable growth and likely to increase the global inflationary pressures, the ministers warned.

A weakening dollar was attributed to the doubling of oil prices during the past 12 months. The Dallas Federal Reserve said in a paper last month that the US currency’s slide had contributed about 1/3 of the $60 increase in oil prices between 2003 and 2007.

Non stock tidbits
It is official now. China is the biggest carbon emitter last year. China’s carbon dioxide emission in 2007 was about 14% higher than the US and accounted for the two thirds of the global rise as per the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL).