Money Matters
Executive summary Headlines suggesting a narrower UK budget deficit don’t match the latest official outturn. The ONS reports that public sector net borrowing (PSNB ex) was £18.0bn in August 2025,…
August 2025 durable goods orders surprised to the upside at +2.9% m/m to $312.1B, rebounding from July’s −2.7%. Ex-transportation rose +0.4%, while ex-defense +1.9%. Transportation equipment led the rebound (+7.9%),…
After a quarter-point cut on September 17, 2025, several Fed policymakers have stressed a go-slow, data-driven approach before easing again. A split has opened: some officials emphasize rising unemployment risks,…
The U.S. PCE inflation rate held at 2.6% year-over-year in July—right in line with consensus—while core PCE edged to 2.9% y/y and 0.3% m/m. For gold, the next leg is…
Heading into late August, European gas storage is comfortably above pre-2022 norms, wholesale prices are sitting in the low-to-mid €30s/MWh, and policymakers have even agreed to loosen the once-strict storage…
West Africa’s cocoa belt is flashing two kinds of risk at once. In Ghana, hundreds of thousands of growers are protesting the newly set 2025/26 farm-gate price and threatening to…
Copper smelters’ treatment and refining charges (TCRCs) have slid toward cycle lows—often a tell that concentrates are scarce and that the refined market could tighten next. Here’s what falling TCRCs…
We’re in the teeth of Atlantic hurricane season. One well-placed landfall can jolt U.S. LNG exports and gasoline crack spreads—rippling quickly into Europe’s gas and refined-product markets. NOAA’s updated outlook…
First it was torrential rain, then scorching heat. Now swollen-shoot disease is back in full force. Preliminary field surveys compiled this month by two major European grinders suggest that West…
Indonesia spent the past decade courting global capital by promising an endless stream of low-cost nickel ore. Then, in late July, a draft decree leaked from the Energy and Mineral…