Oil prices spiked to their highest levels since 2008 on Monday after Secretary of State Andrew Blinken said the U.S. and its European allies were considering banning imports of Russian oil. The Biden administration has been facing pressure from Congress to impose energy sanctions on Russia, a move that the White House has resisted, citing concerns over their impacts on oil prices.
That seemed to change over the weekend, when Blinken said on CNN that ...

A decision by Western allies on Saturday (Feb 26) to block "selected" Russian banks from the SWIFT payments system will inflict a crippling economic blow, but also cause much pain to their own companies and banks. And the allies still have room to do more. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a secure messaging system to ensure rapid cross-border payments which has become the principal mechanism to finance international trade.
Russian banks ...

Geopolitical worries have added another layer of volatility to an already-jumpy market as investors priced in the possibility of escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine, though some doubted the issue would weigh on U.S. asset prices over the longer term. Reports of rising tensions between the two countries slammed stocks on Friday and lifted prices for Treasuries, the dollar and other safe-haven assets. Investors were already rattled by a hawkish turn from the Federa...

The consumer price index came in hotter than expected in January, as both the CPI inflation rate and the core rate, excluding food and energy, hit new 39-year highs. Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq losses deepened in Thursday afternoon stock market action as Wall Street priced in additional Fed rate hikes. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield crested 2% for the first time since August 2019 and kept on rising.
The CPI rose 0.6% from the prior month and 7.5% ...

The U.S. economy created far more jobs than expected in January but despite the disruption to consumer-facing businesses from a surge in COVID-19 cases, pointing to underlying strength that should sustain the expansion as the Federal Reserve starts to raise interest rates. The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday also showed a whopping 709,000 more jobs were added in November and December than...