Number of new homes in the US with construction starts in July fell 7% from the revised June figure to 1.534 million, the country's Commerce Department said in a statement. Analysts polled by DailyFX had expected the figure to fall to 1.6 million from the initial June level of 1.643 million. However, the June figure was revised upwards to 1.65 million new buildings. Compared to July 2020, when...

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) reported that its merchandise trade figure has reached its highest level since the calculation began, indicating an economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As noted by the WTO, its indicator, the Commodity Trade Barometer, provides real-time information on the trajectory of merchandise trade relative to recent trends, outpacing traditional trade volume...

The demand for gasoline and coal in the U.S. is increasing compared to last year amid the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, writes The Financial Times, referring to the report of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Energy Department of the country. According to EIA, Americans used an average of 8.6 million barrels of gasoline per day (bpd) in the first half of the year....

Oil demand growth in 2021 will not be as strong as previously expected, with an agreement by OPEC+ countries to increase supply leading to a significant increase in the market, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned. Global oil demand in June compared to May increased by 3.8 million barrels per day (bpd), but in July the trend reversed - demand decreased by 120 thousand bpd, according to...

Humanity's struggle for the environment and ecology will lead to an imminent rise in the prices of almost all goods around the world. Countries are forced to impose additional restrictions to stimulate production to the ecological transformation, which will require additional costs and lead to the so-called "green inflation". This is reported by Reuters, citing interviewed analysts. Despite...

Influential garment factory owners in Bangladesh have warned of disastrous consequences if orders for foreign brands are not fulfilled on time. Authorities will therefore allow export factories to resume operations despite record deaths from COVID-19. This was reported by The Guardian. Authorities have decided to close factories, offices, transport and shops from July 23 to August 5 and to impose...

The value of the US Leading Business Activity Indicator (PMI) decreased from 60.6 to 59.5 points in July (a value above 50 points indicates growth). The adjustment was due to a slight decrease in the output subindex (58.4 points versus 60.8) and the new orders subindex (64.9 versus 66 points), but the employment subindex rose from 49.9 to 52.9 points. Time-of-delivery and price constraints are...

The fall in global oil prices accelerated on Monday evening to as much as 3%, with investors assessing the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy and oil demand, trading data showed. The price of October Brent crude futures was down 2.9% to $73.22 a barrel. September WTI futures were down 3.2% to $71.58 per barrel. Traders continue to assess the coronavirus situation. The growth of...

Central banks from around the world have been actively byuing gold in the second quarter of 2021, adding to their foreign exchange reserves, according to a report by the World Gold Council (WGC) published on its website. The organization reports that the main buyers of gold in the April-June were central banks of developing countries, including Thailand (bought 90.2 tons), Hungary (62 tons),...