Latest news with #CME
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Retail diesel benchmark price resumes downward momentum
Retail diesel prices declined last week, according to the benchmark number published by the federal government, picking up on a downward trend that had taken a break the prior week. The Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration average weekly retail diesel price fell 4.9 cents a gallon to $3.487, a drop of 4.9 cents. It follows a 6 cents per gallon increase for the weekly price posted a week ago. With the latest decline, it resumes a downward trend that had seen the benchmark used for most fuel surcharges fall five consecutive a recent high of $3.715 a gallon on Jan. 20, the price is now down 22.8 cents. Ultra low sulfur diesel on the CME has dropped sharply the past two weeks. On May 14, it settled at $2.2061 a gallon. The settlement Tuesday was $2.0794, a decline of 12.67 cents. Oil markets rebounded Wednesday, with ULSD settling at $2.0881 a gallon. That fall between May 14 and Tuesday was 5.7%. But Brent crude, the world benchmark, declined only 3% during that time. In his weekly commentary, energy economist Philip Verleger, who has always viewed diesel as a leading indicator of not just oil markets but of economic activity, says data coming out of the diesel market is pointing toward a slowdown in economic a headline that referred to data on distillate consumption – diesel is a distillate and makes up about 90% of the EIA data under distillate – Verleger writes that the numbers are the 'canary in the coal mine.' He said weekly data on U.S. distillate consumption through the week ending May 16 showed a 600,000-barrel-per-day decline from a mid-February peak, which he says is extremely large by historical standards. Verleger found a similar, disquieting decline: the period between August and November 2008, as the Great Recession was tightening its grip on the U.S. He said some of the decline could be because earlier numbers were skewed by imports being pulled forward due to avoidance of potential tariffs. But it is not just that, according to Verleger. It also reflects 'the ongoing reduction in investment activity that is not yet reflected in forecasts.' Citing the 2008 data, Verleger said, 'the drop in distillate use corresponded to the decline in real GDP.' 'Thus, we suspect the current drop in use, particularly since the beginning of March, warns of a slowdown in investment that will be reported later in 2025 and in 2026,' he wrote in the report. 'This decrease will also feed back into the GDP calculations.' Oil markets in recent weeks have been reacting not just to macroeconomic concerns driven by tariff uncertainty. They also are moving lower on the determination by OPEC+ to unwind its organization's production cutbacks, with more than 400,000 barrels per day scheduled to come back online in June. Additionally, OPEC+ ministers are scheduled to meet virtually this weekend and affirm another increase of that magnitude to go into effect in articles by John Kingston BMO's Q2 earnings show no improvement in credit conditions for trucking Double whammy for Wabash: 2 key agencies cut debt rating on trailer builder Despite red ink at Heartland, Morgan Stanley report relatively upbeat The post Retail diesel benchmark price resumes downward momentum appeared first on FreightWaves.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ether Favored Over Bitcoin by Big Money, Here Are 3 Clues That Point to ETH Bias in Crypto Market
The futures and options market, a proxy for big money, is increasingly backing ether ETH over bitcoin BTC in a major market shift. Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization, recently reached record highs of over $ 110,000. According to CoinDesk data, the cryptocurrency has gained over 16% this year, drawing strength from the macroeconomic factors and persistent inflows into the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. Meanwhile, ether has dropped 20% this year despite its parent blockchain, Ethereum, maintaining its pole position in the decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenization markets. The performance gap, however, may be closed in the near term as the following indicator shows a growing bullish bias for ether. Options listed on Deribit show a stronger bullish positioning for ether relative to bitcoin. Options are derivative contracts that give the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call option gives the right to buy and represents a bullish bet on the market, while a put option provides protection against price drops. As of writing, both BTC and ETH's 25-delta risk reversals, a measure of sentiment derived by examining the difference in implied volatility (demand) between calls and puts, were positive, reflecting a bias towards call options. However, ETH risk reversals were more expensive than BTC. In other words, traders were relatively more bullish on ether compared to bitcoin. The notional open interest in CME bitcoin futures, which represents the dollar value of the number of active contracts, has risen by roughly 70% to over $17 billion since the early April crash, according to data source Velo. The growth, however, has stalled above $17 billion over the past seven days. The CME is considered a proxy for institutional activity. Meanwhile, ether's open interest has jumped 186% to $3.15 billion since the early April crash. The growth has accelerated over the past two weeks. The diverging trends show institutions are increasingly leaning toward ether. The bias for ETH is also evident from the relative richness of premiums in ether futures. As of the time of writing, one-month Ether futures boasted an annualized premium of 10.5%, the highest since January, according to Velo. Meanwhile, bitcoin futures premium was 8.74%. Elevated premiums indicate optimism and strong buying interest, often signaling a bullish trend. Therefore, the relative richness of ether futures premium suggests traders are more bullish on ETH compared to BTC. After all, ether is still 84% short of record highs reached during the 2021 bull run. There is also a possibility that the BTC's basis may have been held lower by cash and carry arbitrage (non-directional) traders. A similar divergence is observed on offshore exchanges, where annualized funding rates, representing the cost of holding long positions in ETH perpetual futures, has neared the 8% mark. Meanwhile, BTC's funding rates hold below 5%.
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Smallcap stock soars 15% on heavy volumes on Monday; zooms 69% in 7 weeks
Camlin Fine Sciences share price today Shares Camlin Fine Sciences (CFSL) hit a multi-year high of ₹216.20, surging 15 per cent on the BSE in Monday's intra-day trade amid heavy volumes after the company reported a strong operational performance for the March 2025 quarter (Q4FY25). The smallcap stock was trading close to its record high of ₹225.47 touched on June 19, 2021. In the past seven weeks, the market price of specialty chemicals has appreciated by 69 per cent from a level of ₹128.10 on April 7, 2025. At 11:43 AM; CFSL quoted 14 per cent higher at ₹214, as compared to 0.5 per cent rise in the BSE Sensex. The average trading volumes at the counter jumped over three-fold. A combined 8.36 million equity shares representing 4.4 per cent of total equity of the company changed hands on the NSE and BSE. Strong operational performance in Q4 In the March 2025 quarter (Q4FY25), the company reported strong 88.7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at ₹59.41 crore, against ₹31.48 crore in Q4FY24. Reported EBITDA margins expanded to 13.6 per cent from 8.4 per cent in a year ago quarter. Revenue from operations grew 16.1 per cent YoY to ₹437.46 crore from ₹376.65 crore. Profit after tax (PAT) increased 16.9 per cent YoY at ₹22.74 crore. CFSL has a significant global presence, with nine manufacturing facilities spread across Asia, Europe, South America and Central America. The company has strong regional sales teams that cater to the requirements of their respective regions. At the consolidated level, CFSL derives around 85 per cent of its revenue from exports and from overseas subsidiaries, with over 100 products sold in around 80 countries. The company caters to diverse end user industries such as food, feed, animal and pet nutrition, flavours and fragrances, pharma, agrochemicals, and petrochemicals among others. This helps the company avoid dependence on any single industry and provides potential for expansion. Moreover, the vertically integrated operations and the regional sales team enables CFSL to customise product offerings as per the client's requirements, which has helped it develop long-standing relations with its customers. Way Forward Specialty Ingredients - Maintaining market leadership for Antioxidants. The company said it increasingly focusing on high margin blends and additives. These formulations are specifically tailored to meet the diverse needs of the industry. Widen portfolio to provide a comprehensive solution for the food, pet food, biodiesel, livestock and aquaculture industries. Performance Chemicals - Aim to expand Diphenol chain, specifically focusing on expanding downstream products. The company is planning the introduction of new products like CME, Chloranil, and Napthol etc. It is planning to increase manufacturing capacity of existing products through debottlenecking. The company aims to give a major impetus to the 'Make in India' initiative by launching exciting products. Aroma Ingredients - The company plans to introduce specialized and customized products within the vanillin range, catering to diverse application needs. The management is actively pursuing an expansion in the aroma industry. The production of Ethyl Vanillin and vanillin ex-clove (natural vanillin) completes a comprehensive range of Vanillin offerings for the market. The company aims to achieve optimum capacity utilization in coming years. About Camlin Fine Sciences CFSL is inter-alia engaged in the business of diverse high-quality innovative antioxidants and shelf-life extensions, aroma ingredients, performance chemical products and related solutions for food, animal nutrition, pet food, pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries globally. The company is a leading manufacturer of Speciality Chemicals that can be broadly categorised into Shelf-Life Solutions, Performance Chemicals, Aroma Ingredients and Health & Wellness. These products are used in varied industries such as human food, animal feed, pet food, agrochemicals, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, flavours and fragrances and health care.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
How space weather impacts us: A look at some of the worst solar storms in history
Last week, the sun spat out the strongest solar flare of the year so far, a burst of radiation and light that caused brief radio blackouts on the sunlit side of the Earth. Despite its impressive magnitude — the flare was an X-class, the most severe type of solar flare — it went largely unnoticed to those on the ground not dialled in to space news. But geomagnetic storms and more serious types of space weather, which can follow solar flares, have the ability to shut down power grids, disrupt aircraft routes, global communications and GPS, and damage satellites and spacecraft. It has not only happened to us before, but it could happen again. On Sept. 1, 1859, amateur astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson both witnessed a massive flare of light from the sun's surface while observing a cluster of sunspots. Within a day, a geomagnetic storm had struck the Earth, sparking dazzling arrays of aurora borealis and knocking out telegraph systems across Europe and North America. Telegraph operators across Europe and North America found their systems overwhelmed and signals down, with some wires overheating so much they triggered fires. Other workers unplugged batteries only to find that the telegraph systems kept humming away, supercharged by the sun. One superintendent from Boston, Mass., whose observations were recorded in an 1860 article in the American Journal of Science, reported that a telegraph wire between Boston and Fall River "had no battery connected with it on Saturday, and yet there was a current upon it during the entire day." So what happened? Today, experts believe that the 1859 geomagnetic storm, now known as the Carrington Event, was caused by at least one, or possibly two, coronal mass ejections (CME). These are immense eruptions of solar material that often follow a solar flare. Because the sun's equator rotates faster than its poles, its magnetic fields can get tangled up. When the strain gets too severe, these magnetic fields can snap, releasing a burst of energy or solar material out into space. A solar flare emits radiation that interacts with our upper atmosphere, impacting radio signals, without really affecting us on the ground. But a CME is a massive eruption of charged particles and plasma, sometimes millions of miles wide, which can travel up to thousands of kilometres per second on solar winds. When its magnetic field slams into the Earth's, it can spark geomagnetic storms that disrupt critical infrastructure. In 1859, that was telegraph operations, but today, it's power grids, satellites and global navigation systems. Because the northern lights are caused by charged particles interacting with our magnetic field at the poles, a CME can also cause dramatic displays of aurora borealis, like the ones seen during geomagnetic storms in October and May 2024. Although they can occur independently of each other, stronger solar flares are often accompanied by CMEs, according to Robyn Fiori, a research scientist in the space weather group of the Canadian Hazards Information Service with Natural Resources Canada. "There's lots of different critical systems that can be impacted by space weather. So it's a good idea to keep track of what's going on," she said. The last big solar event to have a notable impact on a power grid was in 2003, Fiori said, when a number of geomagnetic storms known as "the Halloween storms" rerouted aircraft, affected GPS systems used for deep-sea drilling, prompted astronauts in the International Space Station to take shelter from radiation in a specific part of the station, damaged a Japanese satellite beyond repair and triggered a power outage in Malmö, Sweden. This event included a flare so large it overwhelmed the X-ray detectors on a number of satellites. It was later estimated to be an X28 flare, according to the European Space Agency, making it the most powerful in recorded observational history. The biggest solar storm in Canada's history came in March 1989, when a CME struck Earth's magnetic field, sending electric currents flowing through the rock of the Canadian Shield to the transmission lines of Hydro-Quebec. The resulting province-wide blackout left millions of residents in the darkness and cold for nine hours. "That's the strongest event that we've had in this technological age," Fiori said, "and it's really what we've used as a benchmark to make sure that systems are safe." Other notable solar storms include one in 1909 that disrupted telegraph lines across the U.S., and one in 1967 that jammed radar systems operating in Alaska, Greenland and the U.K. amid mounting tensions between NATO and the Soviet Union, briefly sparking concerns of a Soviet attack. It's been more than two decades since a solar storm caused significant power fluctuations and communications disruptions, but in an increasingly technological world, it's something space forecasters are keeping an eye on to stay a step ahead of the next solar storm. For the next year or so, solar flares and solar activity will be higher than usual, as we're within the period of solar maximum, the peak of the sun's 11-year cycle. "We do have a lot of different technologies that are sensitive to space weather. Since 1989, for example, we've become much more dependent on GNSS or GPS for navigation. And that can be impacted by space weather," Fiori said. She added that Canada, due to its proximity to the northern magnetic pole, is more vulnerable to space weather. "But it also means that we're in the very best place to observe it so that we can build accurate forecasts."
Forbes
6 days ago
- Climate
- Forbes
Aurora Alert: These 9 States May Be In ‘Earth Strike Zone' On Friday
Skywatchers could see a modest display of the Northern Lights visible from northern U.S. states along the U.S.-Canada border on Friday, May 23, 2025, according to the latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast. Scotland, East Lothian, silhouette of woman standing on Seacliff Beach watching Northern lights According to NOAA, 'An enhancement of the geomagnetic field up to active levels with a chance for G1 (Minor) storm levels is possible' on May 23. The cause is significant turbulence in the solar wind — a constant stream of charged particles emanating from the sun that can interact with Earth's magnetic field — caused by the arrival of a coronal mass ejection that left the sun on May 17. A CME is a cloud of super-charged particles that often leaves the sun's surface in the wake of a solar flare, an intense burst of radiation and the most powerful explosions in the solar system, according to NASA. Space weather forecasters are unsure of when — or even if — the CME will interact with Earth's magnetic field, with reporting that it 'might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field,' but that 'a miss is just as likely as a hit.' If the CME does interact with Earth's magnetic field, the aurora borealis may be visible tonight in northern-tier U.S. states. Observers will need clear skies to have a chance of seeing the potential display. According to NOAA, G1 storms can be seen in Washington, northern Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine. NOAA's 30-minute forecast is where the latest updates are posted. The potential displays of aurora borealis tonight have a predicted Kp index of 4, which provides a rough guide to their intensity. According to NOAA, that means 'the aurora will move further from the poles, it will become brighter, and there will be more auroral activity (motion and formations). If you are in the right place, these aurora can be quite pleasing to look at.' A massive coronal hole has been facing Earth all week. That puts the planet in the 'Earth strike zone' for any turbulence in the solar wind, which is what causes spikes in aurora. A coronal hole refers to darker, cooler areas of the corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, which are cooler, less dense regions. They allow the solar wind to escape more easily into space. Coronal holes and CMEs are more common around solar maximum, which the sun appears to have reached in October 2023, according to NASA and NOAA. The sun has an 11-year solar cycle, during which its magnetic activity waxes and wanes. An extreme G5 geomagnetic storm on May 10-11, 2024, was the most intense since 2004 and possibly for hundreds of years. Mercury has no aurora, but all the other planets — and some moons — in the solar system do. Mercury lacks a true atmosphere, but auroral activity has been detected on Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Last week, NASA announced that its Perseverance rover on Mars had spotted aurora. Meanwhile, Jupiter boasts the brightest and fastest-moving auroras, displaying vibrant colors, while the intense radiation around the giant planet also causes auroras on its moons, Ganymede and Europa.
