My retirement account thanks you, oh great and powerful Fed.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Ouch...here comes the Weimar Republic. ;)
The GREEEEEAAAATEST Central Bank came through like a champ!
When we all worship Allah and speak Spanish (patience, it’ll happen soon enough) the rate will be 0%, Quran sez so!
Oil hits a new record, surging above $81
Traders expect the Fed will cut key interest rate later Tuesday
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:25 p.m. CT Sept 18, 2007
NEW YORK - Oil futures jumped to new records Tuesday as traders bet that a Federal Reserve interest rate cut could stimulate economic growth and increase demand at a time when crude oil and gasoline inventories are tight.
An attack on an oil pipeline in Iraq also supported prices, analysts said.
Oil investors are pricing a quarter-point decrease into the market, part of the reason oil futures have surged to new records in recent days, said Brad Samples, a commodities analyst at Summit Energy Services Inc. in Louisville, Ky. A half-point cut could spur even more buying, he said.
“The whole market is kind of poised on the brink, waiting to see what the Fed will do,” Samples said.
Moreover, many analysts see a weaker dollar as a natural side effect of lower rates, and that could promote buying of oil contracts by foreign investors.
Beyond the Fed decision, energy investors are looking ahead to Wednesday’s inventory report by the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, expected to show inventories and refinery activity declined last week.
A bomb attack on a pipeline near the northern Iraqi city of Beiji on Tuesday, which caused crude oil to spill into the Tigris River, contributed to Tuesday’s advance.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 82 cents to $81.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after fluctuating between gains and losses and then rising to a record $81.80 earlier. The contract rose to settle at a record $80.57 on Monday.
October gasoline rose 0.03 cent to $2.0445 a gallon on the Nymex, while heating oil futures fell 0.18 cent to $2.2269 a gallon.
October natural gas fell 19.8 cents to $6.445 per 1,000 cubic feet. Natural gas prices have been volatile in recent days as tropical weather threats to critical gas and oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico have grown or subsided. On Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center was watching two storm systems, one just east of Florida and the other in the central Atlantic. Futures pared earlier losses after updated forecasts said the Florida system could develop in strength over the next couple of days.
In London, October Brent crude rose 30 cents to $77.28 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices slipped 0.1 cent overnight to a national average of $2.787 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Retail prices, which typically lag the futures market, peaked at $3.227 a gallon in late May.
Early in the year, gas prices led the energy complex higher as an unusual number of refinery outages kept supplies low. With the end of summer driving season, energy investors have been far less focused on gasoline inventories and refinery activity than they once were.
In its Wednesday report, analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect the EIA to show that crude inventories fell by 1.5 million barrels, on average, in the week ended Sept. 14, while gasoline supplies fell by 1.3 million barrels.
Refinery utilization likely fell by 0.5 percentage point to 90 percent of capacity, the analysts forecast, and distillate inventories, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, likely rose by 1.1 million barrels.
Crude oil’s recent rise into record territory has been driven in part by a belief that supplies are not keeping pace with robust global demand. Last week, for instance, prices rose despite OPEC’s decision to boost production by 500,000 barrels a day this fall. Many analysts and investors saw that increase as too little.
Earlier Tuesday, oil prices drew support from new comments by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries officials that suggested the oil cartel won’t increase production to push oil prices below $80 a barrel.
“OPEC has done what it can,” said Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Qatar’s oil minister. “I see no need for additional oil supply that the market won’t absorb.”
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/
In other news, Dollar hits 10 year low against Euro.
HEEELOOOOOOOOOO BERNANKE!
The market may be up today, but tomorrow’s profit taking will make it a wash
Great! Not I’ve gotta pay for the house-flipping idiots that got in over their heads!! (In the form of lower interest on my savings). More welfare for people that make bad decisions...we now have a socialist-reactionary government, even when there is a “Republican” in the White House. Oh well, maybe house prices will stabilize now...that is their promise anyway.