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Bond traders enter the week seeing a better than one-in-three chance that the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates on Wednesday after flaring Middle East tensions lifted oil prices, boosting inflation worries and yields.

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The latest round of US tariffs, ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from most trading partners, has triggered widespread criticism, with countries accusing Washington of unilateralism and warning that the measures could hurt American consumers and disrupt global trade.

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Former trade negotiator says don’t underestimate Canada’s ire

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Sharp increase in energy prices means next week’s US central bank meeting is ‘live’, investors say

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Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to an almost 60-year low, adding to signs of a stable labor market that will allow the Federal Reserve to focus on inflation.

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Gold prices are stabilising after recent declines, supported by escalating Middle East tensions, robust central bank buying and resilient Asian demand. While a strong dollar and high interest rates remain headwinds, analysts expect consolidation with potential upside if geopolitical and monetary conditions improve.

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Global bond yields remain near multi-decade highs as inflation worries persist. Stock markets found scattered relief as oil prices pulled back on Friday. U.S. Treasury yields stayed near their highest levels since 2007 and 2011. Investors anticipate potential interest rate hikes from central banks globally. Major currencies were steady against the dollar, while the yen weakened significantly.

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Gold prices saw a slight increase on Friday as Brent crude oil retreated from highs. Investors are assessing Middle East conflict developments and their inflation implications. They also await the US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision next week. Bullion has seen a correction from record highs earlier this year. Elevated oil prices and rising yields may cap any further recovery.

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Stocks saw a mixed close on Wall Street as oil prices declined after a week of gains. Major indexes experienced losses for the week due to escalating U.S. conflict with Iran. Investors also faced new tariffs and persistent inflation concerns impacting the economy. Bond yields eased, providing some relief to the stock market's pressure. European markets advanced while Asian markets closed lower on Friday.

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European shares saw a rise on Friday, recovering from previous losses. Investors reacted positively to select corporate earnings reports and oil price concerns. Germany's DAX index climbed as SAP's cloud backlog growth exceeded expectations. Higher oil prices did not boost energy stocks due to a drop in Neste's performance. Policymakers indicated potential interest rate hikes amid inflation risks.

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Indian bond rally may slow as foreign investor flows decrease. The benchmark government bond may trade in a tight range ahead. Higher government borrowing and interest rate uncertainty limit investor enthusiasm. Crude oil prices will remain a key factor dictating yield movements. Treasury gains are expected to be under pressure for banks.

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The Reserve Bank of India's interventions prevented the rupee from falling to a new record low. State-run banks sold dollars, and foreign investor inflows aided the currency's recovery. High oil prices and importer demand put pressure on the rupee throughout the day. Brent crude prices retreated after topping one hundred dollars a barrel. The rupee closed little changed, recovering from its intraday low.

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Investors await the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision and corporate earnings reports. Technology giants and artificial intelligence companies will release their quarterly results. Rising oil prices and inflation concerns add complexity to the economic outlook. The market remains sensitive to any signs of economic imperfection and policy shifts. Future interest rate movements will significantly influence investor sentiment and stock valuations.

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday reaffirmed its consistent and clear-cut stance on China-US economic and trade issues, emphasizing that tariff and trade wars run counter to the interests of all parties involved.

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THe US leader has repeatedly threatened additional tariffs on Canadian products over air pollution from the country's ongoing wildfires

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Commodity trading giant Vitol Group paid out $5.9 billion to its executives and senior staff through share buybacks last year, even as its profits more than halved to $4.2 billion.

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Two US small businesses on Friday ⁠challenged President Donald ⁠Trump’s latest round of tariffs on goods ⁠from 60 trading partners, saying that the new policy, like most of Trump’s previous tariffs, went beyond the president’s authority to tax imports. The lawsuit, filed in the US trade court in New York, argues that the new tariffs require ‌more detailed country-specific findings about “forced labour” to be legally justified. The two small businesses, backed by a non-profit legal group that...

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Every bull market has a recurring cast of villains. Oil shocks. Inflation. Rising bond yields. Trade wars. This week, investors had to contend with all of them at once.

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US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on products from the European Union in retaliation for the bloc’s US$1 billion (€890 million) fine of Alphabet’s Google. The president in a social media post on Friday said the US would launch a trade investigation “into the practice of ‘ROBBING’ American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer”. “The penalties will be entirely reversed and, we anticipate, a substantial TARIFF to be placed on them at the earliest possible moment,” Trump...

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According to the agency, Qatar plans to soon notify European customers that the force majeure situation regarding gas exports will persist until mid-October

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President says Washington will launch new probe into the bloc that could sharpen trade tensions

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Countries question Trump administration's latest round of tariffs, which relate to forced labour claims.

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While the US tariffs imposed on the UK are effectively unchanged, other countries now have a better deal.

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Measures of underlying inflation remained within the range of 4-5% in annualized terms, the regulator said

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Britain’s bond traders have spent Andy Burnham’s first week in office trying to price two different forces: the spending ambitions of his new government and the impact of oil prices hovering near $100 a barrel.

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Luxembourg will not renew approval for Israeli war bonds, finance minister confirms Submitted by MEE staff on Fri, 07/24/2026 - 11:33 Decision means Israel Bonds will lose their only EU regulatory home – unless another member state agrees to step in Luxembourg's Finance Minister Gilles Roth said the country's financial regulator had decided not to extend the sale of Israel Bonds (X) Off Luxembourg will not renew its approval for the sale of Israel Bonds in the European Union, the country’s finance minister has confirmed. In an interview with broadcaster RTL, Gilles Roth said the decision had been taken solely by the CSSF, Luxembourg's financial regulator, which he said had decided two months ago not to extend the bond programme beyond its 31 August expiry date. Campaign groups in Luxembourg and across the EU have long called for Israel Bond sales to European investors to be stopped. As previously reported by Middle East Eye, they say the programme, which raises billions of dollars for the Israeli government, has helped fund Israel’s wars in Gaza , Lebanon and Iran . Roth defended the CSSF against criticism, arguing that the regulator had followed European criteria throughout and that many of the accusations levelled at it were unwarranted. The discontinuation, he insisted, was a matter of regulatory compliance rather than political pressure. That account, however, sits awkwardly within the chronology of recent events. A decision taken two months ago by the CSSF would place it in May, at the height of a legal and political campaign against the bonds – and campaigners who spent months being told the government had no power to act will note that the outcome matches precisely what they were demanding. The confirmation also follows a public statement issued by Amnesty International on 21 July warning that Luxembourg and all EU member states must stop the sale of Israel bonds or risk complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Unless another member state now agrees to take on the programme, the bonds can no longer be sold to investors across the EU. What are ‘Israel Bonds’? Israel Bonds are issued through the US -registered Development Corporation for Israel (DCI) and marketed with the slogan "Stand with Israel. Israel is at War”. They are not ordinary bonds, like those issued by the Israeli government itself. Israel Bonds are retail bonds sold directly to ordinary members of the public, religious organisations and local government funds – often through diaspora networks and appeals to solidarity. ‘Illegal and immoral’: How Luxembourg became the EU hub for Israeli war bonds Read More » Since October 2023, they have raised $7.7bn for the Israeli government, according to figures published by DCI itself. Proceeds then flow as unrestricted general financing into Israel's treasury at a moment when military expenditure has surged from roughly 20 percent to over 30 percent of total government consumption. Since Luxembourg's approval last September, the bonds have been offered to the public in Austria, France , Germany , Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Luxembourg's role as the EU's regulatory home for Israel Bonds came about through a chain of political pressure elsewhere in Europe. For years, the programme had been anchored in Ireland, with its central bank serving as the EU regulatory gateway – a role that had previously fallen to the UK before Brexit. But sustained parliamentary and civil society pressure in Dublin – linking the bond sales to the financing of military operations in Gaza – eventually forced a change. In September, Ireland's Central Bank governor Gabriel Makhlouf wrote to the Oireachtas finance committee confirming the bank would not renew its approval. The CSSF stepped in the same day, approving a fresh 12-month prospectus – without first consulting Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. From that moment on, the Luxembourg government insisted the matter was out of its hands. When activists from the Stop Israel Bonds campaign protested outside the finance ministry this spring, Roth's office issued a statement saying only that "the CSSF is the competent authority" – the same line given to journalists in February, and repeated by ministers when questioned in parliament in late May. 'Morally and legally wrong' Pressure on Luxembourg had been building across several fronts, and it peaked in May. That month, Amnesty International Luxembourg and the Committee for a Just Peace in the Middle East convened a conference in the capital, bringing together legal scholars, economists, parliamentarians and international law experts to examine the country's legal exposure over the bonds. 'If no EU member states step in after Luxembourg, it could force Israel to default on some of its debt, and at the very least will crash the value of the bonds' - Shir Hever, political economist A detailed legal report released at the event concluded that Luxembourg's approval risked violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention and the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion of July 2024. It also raised investor protection concerns, arguing that DCI's marketing obscured material financial and legal risks. Despite Israel being at war and running a deficit of nearly seven percent of GDP, the bonds yield less than four percent – far below the returns investors would typically demand in wartime. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, addressed the conference and was unsparing. "The sale of these bonds is illegal under international law because it goes directly to funding the genocide," she said. "It is morally and legally wrong to sell these bonds." Dr Shahd Hammouri of Law for Palestine, one of the report's authors, argued that the CSSF had possessed – and failed to exercise – the discretion to refuse. "Luxembourg did have discretionary authority under the prospectus regulation to refuse the approval whenever there are systematic risks to public interest, peace, and the maintenance of an unlawful regime," she said. Irish Senator Alice-Mary Higgins, who had helped force the original transfer out of Ireland, told the conference what was at stake if Luxembourg walked away. "There is no other placement: unless we agree to transfer it as the home state, and another country agrees to take it, Israel cannot sell its bonds within the EU," she said. What happens next? EU regulations permit Israel to seek a new home for the bonds among the bloc's 27 members. Campaigners behind the Stop Israel Bonds initiative – coordinating pressure across Luxembourg, Ireland, and the wider EU – have been explicit that preventing a transfer to Germany or another willing host is their next objective. Speaking to MEE after the announcement, political economist Shir Hever, who addressed the May conference, said the consequences could extend well beyond Luxembourg. "Israel finances its wars with debt," he said. With the Israeli economy under severe strain and skilled workers emigrating, "bonds raise money which keep the war machine marching at the cost of a growing debt". Ireland's central bank to stop approving sale of Israeli 'war bonds' Read More » He credited the Luxembourg decision to pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and civil society groups, and said it could prove a turning point. "If no EU member states step in after Luxembourg, it could force Israel to default on some of its debt, and at the very least will crash the value of the bonds," he said. "Anyone who was stupid enough to buy the bonds will lose some or all of their investment. It could mean a tipping point for Israel's economy as well. A state in default cannot import weapons and ammunition,” he adds. Amnesty has made the same argument, calling on Ireland, as the bonds' former host state, to decline any transfer request, and on all other EU member states to refuse to accept the transfer or approve a new prospectus. “It is a political choice to allow these bonds to be sold in Europe," Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International's regional director for Europe, said in the organisation's 21 July statement. "One of the most obvious and effective ways to end Israel's genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is to stop financing it. By continuing to facilitate the sale of these bonds, EU member states risk complicity in Israel's international crimes against Palestinians." Between 2022 and 2024, Israel's military budget grew from 4.2 percent to 8.3 percent of GDP. MEE has approached the CSSF and Luxembourg's Ministry of Finance for comment on the terms and timing of the non-renewal. Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

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After the US Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's emergency tariffs, the White House has turned to another trade law linked to alleged human rights abuses. DW explains the new tariffs and the debate surrounding them.

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Israeli banks set to sever financial links with Palestinian banks, sparking payment fears Submitted by Fayha Shalash on Fri, 07/24/2026 - 09:54 Two Israeli banks cutting ties with Palestinian financial system could disrupt trade, salary payments, imports and financial transfers across occupied territories An Israeli man stands beside an automated teller machine at a Bank Hapoalim branch in Jerusalem, 1 May 2020 (Menahem Kahana/AFP) Off Israeli banks Hapoalim and Discount have informed Palestinian banks of their intention to halt vital correspondent banking services within weeks, news agency AFP reported. Five Palestinian banks that rely on Bank Hapoalim for correspondent banking services will lose access to these services on 13 August, while banks that conduct transactions through Discount Bank face a similar fate on 1 September, the report quoted Palestinian banking officials as saying. The Israeli finance ministry said that the decision was made due to "increasing public risks and concerns about private lawsuits that could target Israeli banking institutions". In a statement, the ministry said it is in discussion with the two banks to ensure the continuation of correspondent banking services "in a safe and responsible manner," while protecting Israel's security and economic interests. Palestinian banks are linked to Bank Hapoalim and Bank Discount through correspondent banking relationships, an operational link connecting the Palestinian banking system to the Israeli financial system. The linkage ensures smooth functioning of essential operations such as executing payments in shekels between Palestinian and Israeli banks, settling payments for Palestinian imports from Israel (which constitute the bulk of Palestinian trade), receiving and transferring wages of Palestinian workers employed in Israel and the settlements. The arrangement also allows for returning surplus shekel banknotes accumulated in Palestinian banks to the Israeli banking system, and facilitating transfers between Palestinian and Israeli companies. If the ties are severed without any alternative being found, it could have far-reaching consequences, including disruptions in payments between Palestinian and Israeli companies. The move will also disrupt essential imports such as food, fuel, and medicine, and worsen the existing shekel cash accumulation crisis within Palestinian banks; a problem stemming from existing restrictions on repatriating surplus cash to Israel. 'Subdue Palestinians' The impact on the Palestinian Authority would depend on how long the disruption lasts and whether a temporary or permanent solution is reached. If correspondent banking relationships are indeed severed, the Palestinian Authority could struggle to pay public sector salaries because of delayed or more costly fund transfers. Israel approves over $400m to fund 34 settlements in occupied West Bank Read More » Trade disruptions could also reduce tax revenues, increasing fiscal pressure, while payment delays and shortages of shekels could weaken public confidence in the banking system. Economic expert Nasr Abdel Karim told Middle East Eye that the Israeli government has been implementing "every possible policy for the past four years to subdue the Palestinians in one way or another". Karim said the move was politically motivated and would add to the challenges already facing Palestinians, including fuel shortages, delayed salaries, an oversupply of shekels in local banks, high youth unemployment and deteriorating living conditions. He said the decision would place additional pressure on traders and the private sector. "Banks' decisions are based on minimising risks and protecting the interests of their shareholders and depositors. The uncertainty created by Smotrich left the banks no room for manoeuvre, so they decided to sever the relationship. But this, of course, comes within the context of expansionist politics," he added. Extending economic sovereignty The increased reliance on cash instead of electronic transfers is another challenge facing the Palestinian banking sector, with its accompanying higher risks and costs. There is also a possibility that banks' ability to provide certain services to their customers may decline if the disruption continues for an extended period. Explained: The Israeli measures imposing de facto annexation in the West Bank Read More » Palestinian officials as well as international bodies have warned that the disruption could lead to a broader economic and banking crisis if an alternative mechanism is not found or the current arrangements are not extended. Political analyst Mohammed al-Qeeq told Middle East Eye that Israel deliberately sought to sever all ties with the Palestinian Authority to pave the way for its collapse by dealing with private companies that would act as its substitutes. According to Qeeq, this will allow Israel to deal with Palestinians without having to deal with the Palestinian Authority. “Israel treats the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, which means to the international community that there is no sovereign Palestinian state. It means that it is Israeli land, and dealings will be with companies, not with the Palestinian Authority,” he explained. In his view, the banks’ move is a crucial part of the annexation plan to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and cripple the Palestinians by preventing them from having an independent economy and even basic necessities like fuel, thus reducing them to mere temporary residents in this place. Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

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Follow the latest impact of tariffs amid the president’s ongoing trade war

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State Secretary and Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Roman Chekushov said that EAEU countries account for one-quarter of Russia's total non-resource, non-energy exports