Day: May 12, 2022

US gasoline prices climbed to a new record high level on Thursday, according to figures from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The national average stood at $4.418 per gallon (3.785 liters) for regular gasoline, up 0.3% from $4.404 a gallon on Wednesday,

This marked a 4% jump from last week’s average of $4.247 per gallon, and was a gain of 4.1% from $4.247 on a monthly basis, and up a whopping 47% from $3.008 a year ago, according to the data.

The highest price was seen in the state of California at $5.853 per gallon, followed by Hawaii and Nevada at $5.306 and $5.124 per gallon, respectively.

Record-high gasoline prices are increasing inflationary pressures on the American economy, where annual consumer prices in March climbed 8.5%, its largest gain in more than 40 years, but eased to 8.3% in April.

The Federal Reserve has so far raised interest rates twice, 25 basis points on March 16 and another 50 basis points on May 4, to tame inflation.

However, crude oil prices are on the rise with the Russia-Ukraine war creating supply worries, the EU preparing to ban Russian crude imports, and OPEC+ countries only gradually boosting production, falling short of meeting rising global demand.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The cryptocurrency market has seen $1 trillion evaporating in just five weeks as the price of Bitcoin plummeted to its lowest level in 16 months with investors’ panic selloff running on full throttle.

The price of Bitcoin dove below $29,000 late Wednesday, a price seen by many crypto investors as a strong support level since last July.

Its price further sank to $27,785, a more than a 7% daily loss, hitting its lowest level since Dec. 30, 2020.

Earlier Thursday, it fell further to $26,700 at 0515GMT.

This meant more than a 30% decline since last Wednesday when Bitcoin closed at $39,701, according to data compiled by Anadolu Agency.

The world’s most popular and biggest cryptocurrency by market cap has lost a whopping 60% in just six months after hitting an all-time high of $69,000 in November.

The total value of the crypto market plummeted to below $1.12 trillion after 0700GMT on Thursday – a colossal $1.07 trillion loss since seeing $2.19 trillion on April 4.

Interest rate seen as culprit

Many crypto investors blame the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates last week by 50 basis points, the steepest hike since 2000, which could potentially push the US economy into recession.

Since then, the US’ tech-heavy Nasdaq stock exchange dove a staggering 12%, and the crypto market has been strongly correlated to the performance of technology stocks.

American tech companies in recent weeks posted disappointing financial results for the first quarter of the year, owing to major hurdles such as rising costs due to record high inflation, softening consumer demand, chip shortages, and supply chain bottlenecks.

As for the crypto market’s internal dynamics, however, the failure of a new project added fuel to the fire sale.

A stable coin called TerraUSD, or UST, initially designed by Singapore-based Terraform Labs in 2018 to be pegged to one dollar, plummeted below $0.26 on Wednesday, worsening fears among crypto investors.

Other popular stable coins use their reserve cash and various assets to manage a 1-on-1 ratio against the US dollar, in order to present stability and avoid volatility.

UST, on the other hand, uses an algorithm of burning and minting its sibling token Luna, and this enables UST to adjust its own supply and manage a price close to one dollar.

With the price of UST in free fall, more and more Luna are being burned in order to support the price of UST by the Singapore-based non-profit Luna Foundation Guard.

Luna, however, has lost over 95% of its value in just a few days, and now crypto investors are worried that the organization would dump billions worth of Bitcoin that it owns in order to support UST.

If that happens, it could pave the way for even a bigger selloff in the crypto market.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Major indices in the US stock market opened lower on Thursday as the major selloff from the previous week continues with investors’ worries of a possible recession and worsening macroeconomic data.

US annual inflation hit 8.3% in April after posting the largest 12-month rise since December 1981 the previous month, while China’s annual inflation rate rose to 2.1%, up from 1.5% in March.

US producer prices increased 11% year-on-year last month, according to the Labor Department figures.

The producer price index (PPI), which measures changes in the price of goods and services from a producer perspective, came in slightly above the market forecast.

Also, the Labor Department announced on Thursday that the number of Americans filing first-time unemployment claims last week rose by 1,000 to 203,000.

The Dow Jones lost nearly 200 points and decreased by 0.54% to 31,660.71 points.

Falling 0.81%, the SandP 500 index registered 3,903.5 points and the Nasdaq fell 1.23% to 11,224.74 points.

The MSCI World index fell 1.5%.

Bitcoin and the entire crypto market’s recent downturn also worsened Thursday.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Celtic have won the Scottish Premiership title with a 1-1 draw over Dundee United on Wednesday.

Giorgos Giakoumakis and Dylan Levitt were the scorers of the match at Tannadice Park while one point was enough for Celtic to be crowned champions.

Celtic sealed the title for the 10th time in 11 seasons. It also marked the 52nd occasion that the team have been crowned champions in Scotland.

Source: Anadolu Agency