Crude Oil Futures

  In the ascending order of anxiety, the OPEC+ has been forced to accumulate a growing range of bad news in recent times for its decision makers to digest. In this context, the latest manufacturing data from China hardly comes as a catalyst for optimism, as far as the oil cartel is concerned. China's manufacturing PMI, the key indicator that reflects its production activity, has fallen yet again in May, indicating a significant contraction: it has come down to 49.5 in May, from 50.4 in April; the threshold is 50% and anything below it, is a contraction in the manufacturing sector. The disappointing news from the world's second largest economy comes in the wake of the OPEC+ holding its meeting, scheduled to be held on June 1 in person, online - all of a sudden with no convincing explanation. On June 1, there was a sudden change of decision to meeting in person in Vienna, though. Prior to that, there were reports that Kazakhstan, a member of the OPEC+ from the Central Asia, wante

  Image Credit: Times of India Javier Milei, the flamboyant, Argentinian president, who came to power in December  by performing a series of unorthodox, political stunts, appears to be determined to assign a range of controversial tasks to his most striking political symbol during the campaign - the chainsaw. With an administrative equivalent of a chainsaw, Mr Milei is already hacking his way through the  intricate, bureaucratic woods in his native Argentina, implying nothing was off-limit.   Mr Milei, to begin with, is planning to lay off over 70,000 government employees, has frozen public projects and and devalued Argentinian peso by more than 50%. To his credit, they appear to be working in his favour, at least for now; the inflation has been slowing down for four months in a row, but it is still high; Argentina, up until recently, had the world's highest inflation - a staggering 280%.  In 2025, if all goes well, economists believe that the inflation could be brought down to ar