Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: WTI crude oil futures fell 0.8% in early Asia-Pacific trading on Friday as investor concerns over Middle East supply eased. The decline came as worries about potential disruptions to regional oil supply cooled.

TREE NEWS reports: ExxonMobil said Thursday in its annual Energy Outlook that global carbon dioxide emissions will reach 30 billion tonnes by 2050, nearly three times the level needed to keep warming within 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The US oil major attributed the trajectory to continued coal use, saying emissions will overshoot mid-century climate targets.

TREE NEWS reports: Researchers at the Brookings Institution in the United States and in China are urging Washington and Beijing to agree that humans, not artificial intelligence, will retain control over nuclear weapons. The recommendation calls for a bilateral commitment between the two governments on human command of nuclear forces.

TREE NEWS reports: US President Donald Trump is expected to meet Venezuela’s acting president, Rodriguez, as soon as next week. No further details on the timing, location or agenda of the potential meeting have been disclosed. The encounter would mark a direct high-level contact between Washington and Caracas.

TREE NEWS reports: DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach warned that the next US recession could spark a debt crisis and send long-term Treasury yields sharply higher, upending the decades-old view that bonds are a haven in downturns. Speaking at a New York event, he said the budget deficit could easily reach 12% of GDP with about $3 trillion in annual interest costs. Gundlach said he is focused on low-duration assets and floated a possible Fed Operation Twist or even debt restructuring.

TREE NEWS reports: The US 10-year benchmark Treasury yield fell 9.22 basis points to 4.9304% in late New York trading on Thursday, September 17, the day after the Federal Reserve’s September rate hike, trading between 5.0062% and 4.9283%. It dropped below the 4.9323% low touched when the Fed announced the hike and its dot plot signaled one more increase in 2026. The two-year yield fell 7.18 basis points to 4.6641%.

TREE NEWS update: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it struck a Togo-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported. The announcement did not specify the date of the strike, the vessel’s name or owner, or the extent of damage. The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint, and any attack there can move crude prices and shipping insurance costs.

TREE NEWS reports: In late New York trading on Thursday, September 17, S&P 500 futures closed up 1.11%, Dow futures rose 0.63%, and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 1.65%. Russell 2000 futures advanced 0.47%. The broad-based climb across all four contracts left the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 with the strongest session gain.

TREE NEWS reports: The FTSE China A50 index futures closed up 0.36% at 14,371 points in continuous night-session trading. The move reflects overnight positioning in the benchmark tracking the largest 50 A-share companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.

TREE NEWS update: The U.S. Department of Energy issued an order addressing outage risk from hot weather, requiring grid operator PJM to ensure grid reliability in the Mid-Atlantic region on September 17-18. The order authorizes PJM to dispatch backup generation resources, activating a fallback measure described as a last resort before an energy emergency alert is triggered.

TREE NEWS reports: The offshore yuan (CNH) closed at 6.7041 per dollar in New York on Thursday, up 84 pips from Wednesday’s close, approaching its July 8, 2022 final quote of 6.6862. The currency traded between 6.7140 and 6.7026 during the session, nearing its January 16, 2023 intraday high of 6.6975. The move came the day after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates.

TREE NEWS reports: Spot gold rose 1.84% to $4,342.06 an ounce at the New York close on Thursday, September 17, accelerating after 20:00 Beijing time and hitting a session high of $4,381.04 at 20:27. Spot silver gained 3.55% to $65.2182 an ounce, having touched $66.1512 at 22:09. COMEX copper futures rose 1.61% to $6.6140 a pound.

TREE NEWS update: Canada auctioned long-term government bonds at the highest yield in 19 years, selling C$3 billion (about $2.1 billion) of bonds maturing June 1, 2059 at an average yield of 4.201% on Thursday. That is the highest yield on a Canadian 30-year bond auction since July 2007, when the credit crunch began spreading through global markets ahead of the financial crisis.

TREE NEWS update: The United States has issued visas to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other core delegation members to travel to New York for the UN General Assembly high-level session. Washington said the delegation is smaller than last year’s and will be subject to travel and shopping restrictions. The approval, made amid continuing US-Iran tensions and no breakthrough on the Strait of Hormuz or nuclear talks, relates to the US host-country obligation and is not seen as a signal of resumed negotiations.

TREE NEWS reports: MSCI’s emerging markets stock index rose 0.1%, while its developing-nation foreign exchange index fell 0.2%. The moves reflect divergent performance between emerging-market equities and currencies in the latest reading of the two benchmarks.

TREE NEWS update: Rebecca Burch, US Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs, said her role in OECD digital tax discussions is not to negotiate a solution but to assess whether an answer exists that benefits the United States. She made the remarks at an online meeting of the International Fiscal Association’s US branch.

TREE NEWS reports: CleanSpark Inc. is seeking to raise about $2.23 billion in its first junk bond sale to fund AI infrastructure tied to Meta Platforms Inc. The five-year notes are being discussed at an initial yield of roughly 8.5%, about 2 percentage points above the average yield on BB-rated corporate debt tracked by Bloomberg, as investors demand a higher risk premium for data center financing. Orders at Thursday’s launch were roughly equal to the deal size, and it marks the first Meta data center-linked junk bond issue.

TREE NEWS reports: The UK Navy received a report of a security incident in the Strait of Hormuz, 16 nautical miles northeast of Khasab, Oman. The agency lists the incident date and time as pending confirmation, with the notice published on September 17. The UK Navy said the crew is reported safe.

TREE NEWS reports: The Pentagon is considering withdrawing nearly one-third of US troops stationed in Europe. No timeline, final decision or specific units were disclosed in the report. The potential drawdown would mark a significant shift in the US military posture on the continent.

TREE NEWS reports: On Thursday, September 17, the emerging-market ETF closed up 1.81%, leading US asset-class ETFs, while the Nasdaq 100 ETF rose 1.73%. Gold, Barclays US convertible bond, S&P 500 and 20+ year Treasury ETFs gained as much as 1.69%, and Dow, Russell 2000, US real estate, long-yen and long-euro ETFs gained as much as 0.61%. The soybean fund was flat, the long-dollar index fell 0.07%, the US Brent oil fund fell 1.3%, the agricultural products fund fell 1.39% and the long-volatility index fell 3.8%.