In this week’s Recap, Marcello talks about a warning shared by the UK about possible future blackouts in the country; Mark Zuckerber, the head of Meta, is reportedly building a massive underground bunker and escape hatch inside a $270 million fortress in Hawaii; Coinbase is set to sue the SECfollowing the denial of transparent crypto regulation.
Argentina to weaken its peso over 50% to 800 per dollar, cut energy subsidies & cancel tenders of public works, new Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced on Tuesday, beginning the economic shock therapy aimed at fixing the country’s worst crisis in decades. Caputo said the plan would be painful in the short-term, but was needed to cut the fiscal deficit & bring down triple-digit inflation. He said the country needed to tackle a deep fiscal deficit he put at 5.5% of GDP, adding Argentina had a fiscal deficit for 113 of the last 123 years, the root cause of its economic woes.
On Wednesday, representatives from nearly 200 nations agreed at the COP28 climate summit to begin reducing global consumption of fossil fuels, to avert the worst of climate change, a 1st of its kind deal signaling the eventual end of the oil age.The deal struck in Dubai after 2 weeks of hard-fought negotiations was meant to send a powerful signal to investors & policy-makers that the world is united in its desire to break with fossil fuels, something some scientists insist is the last best hope to stave off a climate catastrophe.
Oil prices ended lower on Friday, but still notched their 1st weekly rise in 2 months after benefiting from a bullish forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA) on oil demand for next year & a weaker dollar.
The U.S. economy accelerated at a 5.2% rate in Q3. Though growth is now cooling, most economists do not expect a recession right now, with the labor market continuing to push out jobs at a healthy clip.The Atlanta Fed is forecasting U.S. GDP to rise at a +1.2% rate in Q4, below what Fed officials regard as the non-inflationary growth rate of around +1.8%. October-December growth is also seen restrained by a wider trade deficit & slower inventory accumulation.
U.S. Labor Department on Thursday showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 19K to a seasonally adjusted 202K for the week ended Dec. 9. Economists had forecast 220K claims for the latest week. The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid increased 20K to 1.876M during the week ending Dec. 2, the claims report showed. Continuing claims have mostly increased since mid-September, blamed largely on difficulties adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations after an unprecedented surge in filings for benefits, early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to data from the World Federation of Exchanges. India’s stock market value has overtaken Hong Kong’s to become the 7th largest in the world, as investor optimism about the country’s economic prospects grows.
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