There’s no doubt the economy is slowing down. Diesel prices are half of what they were from last year’s record. The question is will the Fed have the conviction to keep rates at a reasonable level. Savers have been penalized for a generation and deserve a return on their money. My favored Fidelity Treasury Money Markets, yielding about 4.5% today, is a great place to park it. From the WSJ:
A nationwide freight slowdown has helped cut U.S. diesel prices by half from last year’s record, raising concerns that parts of the world’s largest economy have begun to slow.
Wholesale diesel recently fell to $2.65 a gallon in New York Harbor, down from $5.34 last May, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent commodity markets haywire and turned prices advertised at gas stations into street-level reminders of inflation’s 40-year highs. Record diesel costs made it more expensive to operate excavators at construction sites, run machinery on farms, and haul goods from ports, rail yards or factory floors.
Prices began falling months ago, when a warm winter cut demand for heating fuel and a reshuffling of global oil trade alongside Russia’s war left a glut of diesel supplies on the market. Now—with the Federal Reserve trying to cool business activity by raising interest rates—waning manufacturing output and trade have also dented U.S. appetite for the fuel.
The darkening industrial outlook, which contrasts with low unemployment and a robust service sector, pulled benchmark diesel futures Tuesday to $2.45 a gallon, a 15-month low. Federal record-keepers peg the year-over-year hit to domestic demand at 8.4%.
