Kevin Warsh is settling into his chairmanship of the Federal Reserve, and his message after this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting is that he sees early signs his method is working. He has an interesting point about market signals.

The FOMC kept its Fed funds rate target range in place again, at 3.5-3.75%, although with three dissenting votes in favor of an increase. It’s hard to second-guess that decision given a confusing environment that includes recent signs of slowing inflation but also the prospect of more energy-price shocks, the artificial-intelligence revolution and shifting tariff policies. The dissenting votes signal healthy debate about these matters.

(Continue Reading – WSJ)

Neither full-scale war nor peace is taking hold in the Middle East, trapping energy markets in an uncomfortable limbo that won’t be easy to escape. Worries about the reliability of Gulf supplies are becoming increasingly entrenched among buyers, creating an alarming new norm for the region’s producers.

More than five months after the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran, the ​region's energy sector appears weaker and more vulnerable than at any point since the war began. Shipping routes are increasingly constrained, energy infrastructure is coming under attack and importers are beginning to avoid ‌supplies from a region that accounted for a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas exports before the war.

(Continue Reading – RTRS)

At what point should major iron ore miners BHP Group and Rio Tinto shift to being described in terms of their copper portfolios rather than their contribution to steel making?

Now might be a good time. Their latest results show copper ​is increasingly driving profits.

Rio posted a 43% jump in half-year underlying earnings on Wednesday, its biggest in four years, with its non-iron ore operations, of ‌which copper is the largest chunk, outperforming iron ore for the first time.

(Continue Reading – RTRS)