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Tag: US INFLATION

  • Legal expert warns of buy now, pay later plans this holiday shopping season

    DENVER — As you’re out holiday shopping, one legal expert warns to keep an eye out for buy now, pay later (BNPL) plans. With tighter budgets, they can look enticing as they can split large purchases into smaller, more manageable ones over a monthly basis.

    However, the lawyer Denver7 spoke with said BNPL plans can easily rope you into more debt, and there aren’t many protections in place to keep you out of trouble.

    76% of Americans use BNPL plans, 72% of GenZ uses them, and 50% of users have already missed at least one payment, according to LegalShield.

    Rebecca Carter is a principal at the law firm Friedman, Framme & Thrush. Carter told Denver7 she is seeing more people calling her office asking for advice after falling into debt with buy now, pay later plans. She said there’s not much that can be done legally after you’ve signed the terms.

    “It’s not as though [these companies] are doing anything unlawful,” Carter said. “Protection really comes in with spreading education and understanding the potential for penalty. I wish there was more, but [there’s not].”

    Prices for all goods rose 0.3% in September after rising 0.4% in August, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report. It continues a trend of rising inflation amid interest rate cuts aimed at jump-starting a slowing job market.

    It has made holiday shopping budgets tighter this year, so Carter said to be mindful and educate yourself and your kids about these plans.

    “Creditors have an interest in getting paid back,” Carter said. “You have an interest in preserving your credit, you know, and trying to be proactive earlier on.”

    She said it can be easy to find yourself over-spending when you rely on BNPL plans and then finding yourself in credit trouble down the road.

    Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Dan Grossman

    Denver7 morning anchor Dan Grossman shares stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in covering consumer and economic issues. If you’d like to get in touch with Dan, fill out the form below to send him an email.

    Dan Grossman

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  • Key US inflation gauge holds mostly steady though core inflation ticks higher

    By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge mostly held steady last month despite President Donald Trump’s broad-based tariffs, but a measure of underlying inflation increased.

    Associated Press

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  • Larry Summers warns U.S. economy is still ‘very, very hot’ with ‘pockets of distress’ in commercial real estate

    Larry Summers warns U.S. economy is still ‘very, very hot’ with ‘pockets of distress’ in commercial real estate

    Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers doesn’t think the U.S. fight against inflation is over yet.

    The U.S. economy is still “very, very hot,” he said on Monday at the Caixin Asia New Vision Forum in Singapore, where he attended via video link, according to Bloomberg. 

    “The United States is, today, an underlying 4.5-5% inflation country,” he said.

    Summers is a longtime hawk on inflation, arguing that the massive U.S. stimulus during the COVID pandemic would eventually lead to higher prices throughout the economy. He also argued that low unemployment and high wage growth were increasing prices, suggesting that cooling the economy and getting prices under control might require a 6% unemployment rate.

    The Federal Reserve came around to Summers’ hawkish view, and the U.S. central bank has increased interest rates at every one of its monthly meetings since March 2022. 

    The Fed will meet later this week to determine whether to change interest rates again. Most economists believe that the U.S. central bank will pause its interest rate hikes this month, notes Reuters, as rate hikes helped spur the banking crisis earlier this year, leading to a tightening in credit markets. 

    U.S. inflation continued to decline in April, with prices increasing 4.9% year-on-year, down significantly from a peak of 9% almost a year ago. Yet core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, remains elevated at 5.5% year-on-year. Core inflation hasn’t come in below 4.5% since September 2021.

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its inflation figures for May on Tuesday morning. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland projects a 4.2% year-on-year increase in the consumer price index for May, and a 5.3% increase in core inflation.

    ‘Pockets of distress‘

    Summers is also skeptical of the U.S.’s ability to achieve a hoped-for soft landing—which he called the “triumph of hope over experience” on Monday. (A “soft landing” is when a country is able to get inflation under control without sparking a recession.)

    The former Treasury Secretary said he saw “pockets of distress” in commercial real estate, according to Bloomberg. 

    The shift to working-from-home is severely testing owners of office buildings, as tenants scale back their footprints due to having more remote employees. Increasing interest rates will also lead to a spike in loan payments for borrowers, sending some into default.

    A collapse in commercial real estate would then hit lenders, mostly small and medium-sized banks. Lenders with less than $250 billion in assets provide roughly 80% of commercial real estate lending, according to a recent analysis by Goldman Sachs. Banks are also lending less, which puts more downward pressure on property values.

    “What’s happening in the office sector is apocalyptical,” Fred Cordova, founder of real estate brokerage Corion Enterprises, previously told Fortune. 

    Nicholas Gordon

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  • ‘Substantial majority’ of Fed officials see slowdown in rate hikes ‘soon’

    ‘Substantial majority’ of Fed officials see slowdown in rate hikes ‘soon’

    A “substantial majority” of policymakers at the Federal Reserve’s meeting early this month agreed it would “likely soon be appropriate” to slow the pace of interest rate hikes as debate broadened over the implications of the US central bank’s rapid tightening of monetary policy, according to the minutes from the session.

    The readout of the Nov. 1-2 meeting, at which the Fed raised its policy rate by three-quarters of a percentage point for the fourth straight time, showed officials were largely satisfied they could move rates in smaller, more deliberate steps as the economy adjusted to more expensive credit and concerns about “overshooting” seemed to increase.

    “A slower pace … would better allow the (Federal Open Market) Committee to assess progress toward its goals of maximum employment and price stability,” said the minutes, which were released on Wednesday. “The uncertain lags and magnitudes associated with the effects of monetary policy actions on economic activity and inflation were among the reasons cited.”

    More important than the size of coming rate increases, the minutes noted, was an emerging focus on just how high rates will need to rise to lower inflation – and the need to calibrate that carefully in coming months.

    “With monetary policy approaching a sufficiently restrictive stance, participants emphasized that the level to which the Committee ultimately raised the target range … and the evolution of the policy stance thereafter, had become more important considerations … than the pace,” the minutes stated.

    That ultimate landing spot for the policy will hinge heavily on the path of inflation in coming months, and whether recent lower-than-expected readings become an established trend down.

    Fed staff economists raised their inflation projections for “coming quarters” and noted also that a recession in the next year was “almost as likely” as the baseline outlook for sluggish economic growth.

    Still, the implication that policymakers were stepping down from their break-neck pace of rate hikes lifted US stock prices and sent Treasury yields lower.

    The benchmark S&P 500 index added to its gains earlier in the day and was last up about 0.6%, near its highest level in two months. The yield on the 2-year Treasury note, the maturity most sensitive to Fed rate expectations, dropped to 4.49%. Longer-dated bond yields also fell.

    The dollar, which has soared this year on the back of a pace of Fed tightening that other major central banks have been unable to match, slid against a basket of US trading partner currencies.

    Contracts tied to the Fed’s policy rate showed investors maintaining bets for a half-percentage-point increase at the Dec. 13-14 policy meeting.

    “Merely the fact that they’re going to be slowing the pace confirms what the majority of people have been hoping to see,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities.

    EMERGING DEBATE

    The minutes also showed an emerging debate within the Fed over the risks that rapid policy tightening could pose to economic growth and financial stability, even as policymakers acknowledged there had been little demonstrable progress on inflation and that rates still needed to rise.

    While “a few participants” said slower rate hikes could reduce risks to the financial system, “a few other participants” noted that any slowing of the Fed’s policy tightening pace should await “more concrete signs that inflation pressures were receding significantly.”

    By the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation continues to run at more than three times the central bank’s 2% target. While recent data suggest inflation has now peaked, a slowdown in price pressures will be gradual.

    “The path forward for monetary policy is a battle between the ‘various’ and the ‘several,’” said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist with Allspring Global Investments in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. “It was only ‘various’ officials that thought they should revise higher their terminal rate projections while several thought plowing ahead raised the risks of financial instability.”

    In its Nov. 2 policy statement, the Fed hinted at emerging concerns about the risks of policy tightening, saying the “pace of future increases” would “take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments.”

    “Many participants commented that there was significant uncertainty about the ultimate level of the federal funds rate needed to achieve the Committee’s goals,” the minutes said, language suggesting Fed officials were shifting focus from the size of individual rate hikes to trying to calibrate a stopping point.

    At the meeting in December, in addition to a policy statement, the central bank will also release new policymaker projections for the path of interest rates, inflation, and unemployment.

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  • US Fed likely to cut size of rate increases, but not ‘softening’ inflation fight: Waller

    US Fed likely to cut size of rate increases, but not ‘softening’ inflation fight: Waller

    The US Federal Reserve may consider slowing the pace of rate increases at its next meeting but that should not be seen as a “softening” in its commitment to lower inflation, Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller said on Sunday.

    Markets should now pay attention to the “endpoint” of rate increases, not the pace of each move, and that endpoint is likely still “a ways off,” Waller said in response to a series of questions on monetary policy at an economic conference organized by UBS in Australia. “It depends on inflation.”

    “We’re at a point we can start thinking maybe of going to a slower pace,” Waller said, but “we’re not softening…Quit paying attention to the pace and start paying attention to where the endpoint is going to be. Until we get inflation down, that endpoint is still a way out there.”

    A report released last week showing slower-than-expected inflation in October was “good news,” but was “just one data point” that would have to be followed with other similar readings to show convincingly that inflation is slowing, he said.

    The 7.7% annualized increase in inflation recorded in October is still “enormous,” Waller said, noting that even if the Fed scaled back from three-quarter point increases to a half-point increase at its next meeting, “you’re still going up.”

    “We’re going to need to see a continued run of this kind of behavior and inflation slowly starting to come down before we really start thinking about taking our foot off the brakes,” Waller said, adding that he has been further convinced the Fed is on the right path because its rates increases so far have not “broken anything.”

    The Fed has raised rates a total of 3.75 percentage points this year beginning in March, including four three-quarter point increases, a rapid shift in monetary policy aimed to cool the worst surge of inflation since the 1980s.

    “For all the talk of crashing the economy and breaking the financial markets. It hasn’t done that,” Waller said.

    Analysts and economists have warned that the monetary tightening will further the risk of recession, impacting employment.

    US Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown last month urged the Federal Reserve to be careful about tightening monetary policy so much that millions of Americans already suffering from high inflation also lose their jobs.

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  • Federal Reserve seen slowing rate hike pace as inflation eases

    Federal Reserve seen slowing rate hike pace as inflation eases

    A larger-than-expected drop in consumer inflation last month will likely prompt the Federal Reserve to pare down future interest rate increases as the impact of its swift monetary tightening this year begins to take hold.

    October data published Thursday by the Labor Department showed key items like rents increasing less than expected, while the price index for used cars – a culprit in the initial, pandemic-related surge in inflation – declined by 2.4%, the fourth consecutive monthly drop. Prices for airfares, medical services, and apparel all declined.

    Though overall inflation remained high by historic standards, with prices increasing 7.7% from a year earlier, the monthly pace of “core” inflation that excludes volatile food and energy costs dropped by half, to 0.3% in October from 0.6% the month before.

    Some analysts said this may just be the start of inflation being defused after emerging last year as a chief risk to the economy.

    “This is not some kind of outlier,” wrote Omair Sharif of Inflation Insights. “This is the start…of lower prints.”

    The report sent US stocks soaring, with the S&P 500 up more than 4% in late morning trading on hopes the Fed, while not expected to turn dovish any time soon, may at least not be forced into a more aggressive posture.

    The yield on the 2-year U.S. Treasury note, the maturity most sensitive to Fed rate expectations, dropped by nearly 20 basis points, the most in one day since June. Traders in futures contracts tied to the Fed’s benchmark rate show investors now expect the blistering pace of policy tightening to slow next month – and for the Fed to stop its rate hikes sooner than expected.

    After raising rates more sharply this year than at any time since the 1980s, including four straight 75-basis-point rate hikes that brought the policy rate to a 3.75%-4% range as of last week, the Fed is now seen shifting to a half-point rate hike next month and quarter-point hikes after that. Rate futures contracts are now pricing in a top policy rate in the 4.75%-5% range next March — lower than the 5%-plus range seen before the report — and interest-rate cuts in the second half of the year.

    Fed policymakers took some relief from the data but, in an era when their initially sanguine view of inflation left them playing catch-up, also said the fight with rising prices is far from over.

    “This morning’s CPI data were a welcome relief, but there is still a long way to go,” new Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said. “While I believe it may soon be appropriate to slow the pace of rate increases so we can better assess how financial and economic conditions are evolving, I also believe a slower pace should not be taken to represent easier policy.”

    Fed officials have said they want convincing evidence that inflation is in decline before altering their approach, and still believe returning inflation to their 2% target will require keeping rates at a “restrictive” level for a potentially extended period of time.

    Continued high inflation for services, possibly reflecting labor markets that remain tight for those more labor-intensive businesses, could prevent any quick resolution of the overall inflation problem.

    But the central bank at its last meeting also indicated it could take a step back from delivering interest rate hikes in such large chunks in favor of a more tempered approach as the economy adjusts to the “lagged” impact of monetary policy.

    “The hikes in interest rates are beginning to bite into the economy and lower inflation as consumers become more frugal,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.

    Speaking after the report, Philadelphia Fed president Patrick Harker indicated his support for slowing rate hikes and then stopping, perhaps even earlier than markets now expect.

    “I am in the camp of wanting to get to what would clearly be a restrictive stance (with the policy rate) somewhere north of four-ish, you know, four and a half percent, and then I would be okay with taking a brief pause, seeing how things are moving,” he said.

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  • Asia shares slip, make or break day for UK bonds

    Asia shares slip, make or break day for UK bonds

    Asian share markets slipped on Monday following another drubbing for Wall Street as investors brace for further drastic tightening in global financial conditions, with all the risks of recession that brings.

    Concerns about financial stability added to the corrosive mix with all eyes on UK bonds now that the Bank of England’s (BoE’s) emergency buying spree is over.

    Prime Minister Liz Truss decision to fire her finance minister might help reassure investors, but her own fate is unclear with media reporting Tory lawmakers will try and replace her this week. 

    BoE Governor Andrew Bailey warned over the weekend that rates might have to rise by more than thought just a couple of months ago. 

    “The BoE was doing emergency bond-buying that’s technically identical to QE with one hand, while furiously raising the policy rate with the other,” said analysts at ANZ in a note.

    “Monday’s market action will provide a test, not only for the survival of Truss’ low-tax vision, but also her political future.”

    Sterling was quoted up 0.6% at $1.1240, but trading was sparse with little liquidity in Asia.

    In equity markets, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.5% and back toward last week’s 2-1/2 year low. Japan’s Nikkei shed 1.1% and South Korea 1.5%.

    S&P 500 futures ESc1 edged up 0.5% after Friday’s sharp retreat, while Nasdaq futures NQc1 added 0.4%.

    While the S&P is an eye-watering 25% off its peak, BofA economist Jared Woodard warned the slide was not over given the world was transitioning from two decades of 2% inflation to a time of something more like 5% inflation.

    “$70 trillion of ‘new’ tech, growth, and government bond assets priced for a 2% world are vulnerable to these secular shifts as ‘old’ industries like energy and materials surge, reversing decades of under-investment,” he wrote in a note.

    “Rotating out of 60/40 proxies and buying what is scarce – power, food, energy – is the best way for investors to diversify.”

    INTERVENTION WATCH

    A red-hot US inflation report last week has markets fully expecting the Federal Reserve to hike rates by 75 basis points next month, and likely by the same again in December. 

    A host of Fed policymakers are speaking this week, so there will be plenty of opportunity for hawkish headlines. The earnings season also continues with Tesla Inc, Netflix and Johnson & Johnson reporting, among others.

    In China, the Communist Party Congress is expected to grant a third term to President Xi Jinping, while there could be a reshuffle of top economic roles as incumbents are near retirement age or term-limits. Read full story

    In currency markets, the dollar remains king as investors price in U.S. rates peaking around 5%.

    The yen has been particularly hard hit as the Bank of Japan sticks to its super-easy policy, while the authorities refrained from intervention last week even as the dollar sped past the 148.00 level to 32-year peaks.

    Early Monday, the dollar was up at 148.62 yen and heading for the next target at 150.00.

    The euro was holding at $0.9733, having put in a steadier performance last week, while the U.S. dollar index eased a fraction to 113.20.

    The rise of the dollar and global bond yields has been a drag for gold, which was stuck at $1,646 an ounce. 

    Oil prices were trying to bounce after sinking more than 6% last week as fears of a demand slowdown outweighed OPEC’s plans to cut output.

    Brent LCOc1 firmed 64 cents to $92.27 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 rose 55 cents to $86.16 per barrel.

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  • IMF warns central banks against taking this one step as they fight strong US dollar

    IMF warns central banks against taking this one step as they fight strong US dollar

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday put out a detailed note suggesting ways the countries can respond to a strong US dollar, which has weakened other currencies significantly, including the rupee. The Indian rupee has fallen over 8% since January this year and is currently trading at over 82 per dollar. 

    Currently, the dollar is at its highest level since 2000, having appreciated 22% against the yen, 13% against the Euro, and 6% against emerging market currencies since the start of this year. The spike in the dollar began after America’s central bank – Federal Reserve – started raising the interest rate in order to fight super hot inflation in the US. 

    In a blog post, IMF’s Gita Gopinath and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said that a sharp strengthening of the dollar in a matter of months has sizable macroeconomic implications for almost all countries, given the dominance of the dollar in international trade and finance.

    While the US share in world merchandise exports has declined from 12% to 8% since 2000, the post said, the dollar’s share in world exports has held around 40%. For many countries fighting to bring down inflation, they said, the weakening of their currencies relative to the dollar has made the fight harder. 

    They noted that approximately half of all cross-border loans and international debt securities are denominated in US dollars and as world interest rates rise, the financial conditions have tightened considerably for many countries.

    In these circumstances, the paper said, several countries are resorting to foreign exchange interventions. Total foreign reserves held by emerging markets and developing economies fell by more than 6% in the first seven months of this year.

    The IMF said that the appropriate policy response to depreciation pressures requires a focus on the drivers of the exchange rate change and on signs of market disruptions. “Specifically, foreign exchange intervention should not substitute for warranted adjustment to macroeconomic policies,” the agency said, adding that there is a role for intervening on a temporary basis when currency movements substantially raise financial stability risks and disrupt the central bank’s ability to maintain price stability.

    As of now, it said, economic fundamentals are a major factor in the appreciation of the dollar: rapidly rising US interest rates and a more favorable terms-of-trade — a measure of prices for a country’s exports relative to its imports — for America caused by the energy crisis. It further said that given the significant role of fundamental drivers, the appropriate response is to allow the exchange rate to adjust while using monetary policy to keep inflation close to its target. 

    “The higher price of imported goods will help bring about the necessary adjustment to the fundamental shocks as it reduces imports, which in turn helps with reducing the buildup of external debt. Fiscal policy should be used to support the most vulnerable without jeopardizing inflation goals,” the paper underlined.

    The IMF has advised the countries to use their foreign reserves prudently. It said emerging market central banks have stockpiled dollar reserves in recent years but these buffers are limited and should be used prudently. “Countries must preserve vital foreign reserves to deal with potentially worse outflows and turmoil in the future,” the paper warned.  

    In the past few months, many countries have tried to arrest the decline in their currency by selling dollars. India’s central bank, too, has sold over 110 billion dollars in the last 13 months. India’s forex reserves have now plummeted to 532 billion dollars from the record high of 642.45 billion registered on September 3, 2021.     
     
    Gopinath is the Deputy Managing Director of the IMF and Gourinchas is the Economic Counsellor and the Director of Research. 
          
     

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  • Hot US inflation data reignites global selloff

    Hot US inflation data reignites global selloff

    MSCI’s global stock index lurched to a July 2020 low and dollar and bond market borrowing costs rose on Thursday as another red hot US inflation reading cemented bets of another large Fed rate hike next month.

    Traders flipped straight into selloff mode as the US Labor Department’s consumer prices index (CPI) report showed headline CPI gaining at an annual pace of 8.2% and core CPI, which eliminates volatile food and fuel prices, at a higher than forecast 6.6%. 

    It sent what had been higher Wall Street futures plunging by more than 2% as the market opened and left the S&P 500, European stocks and MSCI’s main world index all facing a seventh straight day in the red.

    Global markets have suffered a torrid few weeks but the US CPI data cut to the heart of worries that major economies will need to be pushed firmly into recession for inflation to be brought into line.

    The seemingly-unstoppable dollar sparked into life pushing the euro , yen and Swiss franc back down FRX although sterling was still up after a report that the British government was discussing scrapping more of its tax cuts laid out just last month.

    Economists said the Fed is now expected to increase rates, which currently stand at 3.125%, by at least 75 bps next month and to continue raising them into next year. Markets show investors now expect US rates to peak at around 4.85% in March, compared with a peak of 4.65% in May that was priced in right before the data.

    “After today’s inflation report, there can’t be anyone left in the market who believes the Fed can raise rates by anything less than 75 bps at the November meeting,” Seema Shah, Chief Global Strategist at Principal Asset Management said.

    “If this kind of upside surprise is repeated next month, we could be facing a fifth consecutive 0.75% hike in December with policy rates blowing through the Fed’s peak rate forecast before this year is over.”

    In the bond markets, borrowing costs were rising again.

    The US 10-year benchmark yield jumped up past 4% again having been at 3.89%. Two-year rates hit 4.5% while German 10-year bond yields , rose to 2.304%, compared with 2.229% right before the US data.

    Earlier European data had confirmed German harmonised inflation was 10.9% y/y in September and almost 10% in Sweden too.

    Minutes of the Fed’s latest policy meeting released on Wednesday had showed many officials “emphasized the cost of taking too little action to bring down inflation likely outweighed the cost of taking too much action”.

    Several policymakers did stress, however, that it would be important to “calibrate” the pace of further rate hikes to reduce the risk of “significant adverse effects” on the economy.

    Treasury yields were choppy in Europe. with most of the equivalent European yields down a touch too.

    Markets lay 90% odds for another 75 basis-point Fed rate hike in November, versus 10% probability of a half-point bump.

    In Asia, widespread equity market weakness had seen Japan’s Nikkei slip 0.6% and South Korea’s Kospi tumble 1.8% overnight as news that Taiwanese chipmaking giant TSMC was seeing demand drop and was cutting its investment budget by at least 10% hit the wider region’s tech sector. read more

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.9% and mainland Chinese blue chips lost 0.3% to leave MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares close to 2 1/2-year lows.

    “The risk of an over-tightening episode and some mishap in financial markets is higher than I can remember,” said Tom Nash, a fixed income portfolio manager at UBS Asset Management in Sydney.

    HEROIC

    The dollar index, which gauges the greenback against six major rivals, jumped over 0.5% to 113.65 after the CPI data.

    The US currency hit a fresh 24-year high of 147.2 yen and pushed the euro to a 2-week low. Sterling was still up after it had roared up almost 1.5% to $1.1263 on the reports of possible tax cut changes.

    Benchmark 10-year gilt yields , which erupted after the UK government laid out tax cutting plans last month, had swung from a fresh 14-year peak at 4.632% to 4.25% in post CPI trading.

    The Bank of England has insisted that its emergency bond market support will expire on Friday as originally announced, countering media reports of continued aid if necessary.

    BoE Governor Andrew Bailey had riled markets on Tuesday by saying British pension funds and other investors hit hard by a slump in bond prices had until that deadline to fix their problems.

    “I would say it’s heroic to say the risk of some sort of systemic problem has been extinguished because these are big moves and we don’t now how much deleveraging needs to be done,” Janus Henderson’s Paul O’Connor said. “Markets still feel very dysfunctional”.

    Meanwhile, crude oil markets regained their footing following a 2% slide on Wednesday amid worries over demand.

    Brent crude futures bounced 23 cents, or 0.25%, to $92.69 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 21 cents, or 0.2%, at $87.44 a barrel.

    Last week, the producer group comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia pushed prices higher when it agreed to cut supply by 2 million barrels per day (bpd).

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