Economy

(Reuters) – Gold fell on Friday and was headed for a fourth consecutive weekly decline pressured by overall strength in the dollar on prospects of aggressive interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve.Spot gold fell 0.2% to $1,817.39 per ounce by 1039 GMT, after hitting $1,810.86, its lowest since Feb. 7. Bullion has lost over 3% so far this week. U.S. gold futures dropped 0.5% to $1,816.40 per ounce.The Fed being the most hawkish of major central banks and safe-haven flows into the greenback are weighing on gold, said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index”Gold has not found any kind of support in times like now, when you’d expect haven demand to be strong… We’ve seen lots of support levels breakdown, which is discouraging for short-term traders,” Razaqzada added.The dollar index was bound for a sixth consecutive weekly gain, hovering near a 20-year high, as concerns persisted the Fed’s actions to tame inflationary pressures would crimp global economic growth. [USD/]Last week, the Fed increased its benchmark overnight interest rate by an aggressive half-a-percentage point. Rising U.S. interest rates and bond yields raise the opportunity cost of holding bullion. [US/] “Gold’s current trading level below $1,830 looks too cheap, yet any gains are likely to be capped with a series of rate hikes diminishing gold’s appeal as a non-yield bearing asset,” Kinesis Money analyst Rupert Rowling said in a note.Gold’s recent slide has wiped out most gains made in an initial rally driven by safe-haven demand amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which had pushed prices to near-record levels in mid-March. Spot silver rose 0.6% to $20.78 per ounce, but has fallen about 7% this week, the most since late January.Platinum rose 0.7% to $950.06 and palladium gained 1.5% to $1,936.55 though both were on track for weekly losses. More

Global wheat production is likely to fall for the first time in four years, according to a closely watched US government forecast of the upcoming crop season, confirming fears of a further tightening of supply and rising food inflation. Wheat prices rose after the US Department of Agriculture issued its first world estimates for the 2022-23 crop season on Thursday. Futures for the new crop for September delivery traded in Chicago rallied as high as $12 a bushel, up 8 per cent on the week, before easing slightly. Euronext wheat futures traded at a two-month high of €411.50 a tonne.Grain traders, food companies and governments have been keeping a close eye on supplies since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted farming in the country, one of the top five wheat exporters. The USDA predicted on Thursday that Ukraine’s wheat production would fall by a larger than expected 35 per cent from the year before, to 21.5mn tonnes. The USDA forecast 2022-23 total global wheat output at 774.8mn tonnes, the first decline since the 2018-19 season. Global buffer stocks are expected at 267mn tonnes, down for the second year in a row and the lowest level in six years. The war in Ukraine had exposed the interconnected nature and fragility of agricultural systems, with serious consequences for food security, the UN World Food Programme said in reference to a report on the global food crisis published earlier this month. The number of people facing acute food insecurity totalled a record 193mn in 2021, the WFP said. The US supply estimates and the rise in wheat prices on Thursday pointed to continuing food inflation at a time when the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index is already at record highs. Wheat output in China, the world’s largest producer, was forecast to fall 1.4 per cent to 135mn tonnes, the USDA said. The agency said production is also likely to fall marginally in important exporters including the EU, Argentina and Australia. Abnormally dry or hot weather has raised concerns about smaller crops in producing countries such as France and India, while drought conditions in the US and Canada are also worrying farmers, analysts said. “The world requires good weather globally but we’re not getting it,” said Matt Ammerman at commodity brokers StoneX. The USDA did, however, forecast that Canadian production would bounce back after a scorching heatwave last year. Output in the US, a leading exporter, is predicted to rise 5 per cent as a rebound in spring-planted wheat offsets an expected decline in the impending harvest of winter wheat. The outlook gave a forecast for Russian production of 80mn tonnes, far lower than Moscow’s own estimate of 87mn and the market consensus of about 85mn, “making the report very bullish on wheat”, said Carlos Mera at Rabobank. More

Investing.com — Elon Musk put his Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) bid on hold, ostensibly due to due diligence reasons. Financing problems may also be behind the announcement. Crypto rebounds as Tether withstands a bout of intense demand for redemptions. Stocks and risk assets in general are also set to open higher, but are still on course for a losing week. New data show the scale of China’s economic slowdown in April, and G7 ministers meet to discuss raising the pressure on Russia. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Friday, 13th May.1. Crypto reboundCryptocurrencies rallied violently as the panic triggered by the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD and its associated LUNA token faded.Confidence returned as the world’s largest stablecoin network Tether successfully negotiated a period of intense demand for redemptions as crypto holders rushed to convert their assets back into dollars or other fiat currency. In contrast to TerraUSD, Tether is backed by real assets, over 40% of which is highly-liquid and risk-free Treasury bills.Tether returned to trading around its 1:1 peg with the dollar in early dealings in Europe. Bitcoin surged by as much as 13% before paring its gains to be up 8.6% at $30,409 as of 6:15 AM ET. It’s still down around 16% on the week, however, after a rough few days for risk assets in general. TerraUSD’s network tried to resume trading overnight but quickly shut down again.2. Musk puts Twitter deal on holdElon Musk said his bid for Twitter is “temporarily on hold”. The Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO said that the move was a response to a filing by Twitter on Thursday that claimed fewer than 5% of the accounts on its network are spam bots or vehicles for fake news. Musk has indicated he thinks the proportion is much higher and has made their removal one of his top priorities.However, the arithmetic behind Musk’s leveraged buyout offer had become more complicated as the value of his Tesla shares has fallen some 16% in the last week. They’re now nearly 30% of this year’s high. Musk was set to borrow some $12 billion against his shareholding through a margin loan under the original terms of the deal.Twitter stock fell over 20% premarket in response to the news, while Tesla stock rose 4.8% as the risk of a significant equity overhang faded.  3. Stocks set to open higher on short-covering; chipmakers in focus after price hike reportU.S. stocks are set to open higher later, with some short-covering overdue at the end of a volatile week. Sentiment improved toward the end of the day already on Thursday, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell again pushed back against the idea of raising key interest rates by 75 basis points at the central bank’s next policy meeting.By 6:20 AM ET, Dow Jones futures were up 216 points, or 0.7%, while S&P 500 futures were up 1.0% and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 1.6%. That would still leave them on course for losses of between 2.8% and 4.2% this week.Stocks likely to be in focus later include chipmakers, after Bloomberg reported that industry leader Samsung (KS:005930) is looking to put prices for its semiconductors up by 20%, while Duolingo (NASDAQ:DUOL) stock is bouncing 17% in premarket after its quarterly update.Also due to report Friday are Jessica Alba’s Honest Company (NASDAQ:HNST), while Honda (NYSE:HMC) ADRs were up 3.9%, after the Japanese auto giant put out better-than-expected earnings – even if it cut its guidance at the same time.4. Chinese loan growth slows sharplyChina’s credit growth slowed sharply in April under the impact of spreading lockdowns to stop the spread of COVID-19. These affected nearly 400 million people during the month, according to some estimates, including the key economic hub of Shanghai, much of which remains under severe restrictions. New loans fell to 645 billion yuan from over 3.1 billion yuan in March, while the broader credit aggregate known as Total Social Financing also collapsed to its slowest growth since the start of the pandemic. The data underline the scale of the slowdown in China, where surveys indicate that both manufacturing and services activity fell in April. The lockdowns are doing nothing to help the balance sheets of the country’s beleaguered real estate developers: Shimao Property (HK:0813), one of the largest, said its contracted sales in April were down 76% from a year earlier, a stark illustration of how the sector’s ability to service its debt load is deteriorating.5. Oil rises further amid fears of Russian output hit; Baker Hughes rig count dueCrude oil prices extended Thursday’s gains as G7 foreign ministers met to coordinate raising the diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia to abandon its faltering invasion of Ukraine.By 6:30 AM ET, U.S. crude futures were up 1.7% at $017.99 a barrel, while Brent futures were up 1.8% at $109.36 a barrel.The International Energy Agency estimated on Thursday that Russian oil output could fall to some 1.6 million barrels a day below its pre-war level by June, due to the difficulties of rearranging the large part of its oil export trade due to western sanctions.Baker Hughes’ rig count and the CFTC’s net positioning data are due later. More

How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz. Elon Musk tweeted this morning that he is putting his $44bn takeover of Twitter “temporarily on hold” pending details supporting the calculation that spam and fake accounts represented fewer than 5 per cent of users.After the tweet appeared on the billionaire’s Twitter page shares in the social media company fell nearly 20 per cent to $37.10 in pre-market trading as investors worried the deal to take the company private would collapse. Musk offered $54.20 per share for the company last month but the shares have failed to reach that level, suggesting investors remain sceptical that the deal will get done.Twitter, which has yet to respond to the development, yesterday announced an immediate hiring freeze, cost-cutting measures and the departure of two of its senior leaders as it prepared for the takeover by the Tesla chief executive.This is a developing story. For updates go to FT.com.Thanks for reading. FirstFT US will be back in your inbox on Monday morning. For now, here’s the rest of the day’s news — GordonFive more stories in the newsCrypto industry shaken as Tether’s dollar peg snaps The $1.3tn cryptocurrency industry was shaken yesterday after the biggest operator in the so-called stablecoin market failed to maintain its link with the dollar, leading to a warning of the growing threat to the broader financial sector.Go deeper: Markets editor Katie Martin says fund managers in traditional finance need to pay attention to the recent ructions in the crypto sector.1. Jay Powell warns that taming US inflation will cause ‘some pain’ The Federal Reserve chair yesterday warned that bringing inflation down to the US central bank’s target of 2 per cent will cause “some pain”, in his most bearish comments to date. He reiterated the Fed’s commitment to bringing down inflation and underscored the challenge of doing so without triggering job losses and a possible recession.2. US to increase baby formula imports to tackle national shortage The White House announced officials were working on ways to remove barriers to increase imports of baby formula as families report not being able to feed their children. Republicans have been criticising the Biden administration for days, saying it is not doing enough to alleviate the supply shortage.3. North Korea reports first Covid-19 death A day after the isolated country confirmed the presence of coronavirus within its borders for the first time, it said today that six people have now died from the disease and 350,000 have received treatment. State news agency KCNA reported that 18,000 people had been identified as having symptoms and 187,800 were in quarantine.5. The supermassive black hole at centre of Milky Way Astronomers have unveiled the first images of the closest black hole to Earth, located at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, from which they hope to glean new information about the mysterious celestial bodies.

This image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* is the product of pooling data from a global network of eight radio observatories © EHT Collaboration

The days aheadEconomic data The University of Michigan will release the results of its consumer sentiment index for May. Pessimism has become more pronounced in recent months, with the index largely trending downward since July 2021. Separately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release imports and export prices for April which are expected to increase slightly compared with March. Monetary policy Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, will speak about energy prices and their effect on inflation. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York will host a symposium on climate change and macroeconomics.Earnings: Biotech company EQRX will report before the market opens, along with video game maker Gravity and The Honest Company, a consumer goods business founded by Jessica Alba.Outlook for markets Global stocks were on track for their sixth straight week of falls despite expected gains for US equities when Wall Street opens later. Investors have been shaken in recent sessions by the speed of planned increases in US interest rates by the Federal Reserve and an economic slowdown in China. Swedish parliament debates joining Nato The ruling Social Democrats will make a decision on Sunday whether to join Nato. A formal application is expected next week.Sign-up to the Week Ahead newsletter for a guide to what’s coming up. Sent every Sunday, it previews the economic, political and corporate agenda around the world.What else we’re readingWilliam Burns on the new world disorder Fifty years after Nixon’s cold war coup, the US is facing a new global realignment, according to the head of the CIA. Edward Luce, who interviewed Burns at the FTWeekend Festival, writes on the foreign policy challenges for the US for the Weekend magazine. Plus: Simon Kuper argues that although democracy might be in crisis, autocracy certainly is.Reasons why the tech stock crash may be far from over West Coast editor Richard Waters says there are reasons to suggest there is more pain to come for investors in technology companies. He says if you value the sector on multiples of revenue, a favourite gauge used by growth investors, there is ample room for further declines.Can Ukraine push out the Russian army? Some former Ukrainian officials believe the country’s army could force Russian troops to leave before the end of the year, including from the eastern Donbas region. “If we have everything we needed by June, we could get them out by October,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former defence minister. Dublin can no longer treat Irish unity as a distant aspiration With a new generation in Ireland squeezed by inflation and an acute housing shortage, the days when Sinn Féin represented the ballot box placed alongside the IRA’s Armalite are ancient history. But to be clear, Philip Stephens writes, Irish unity is not suddenly around the corner. Space station shows adversaries can — and should — collaborate The International Space Station is the world’s most expensive and successful infrastructure project. This, says Sinead O’Sullivan of Harvard Business School, is a landmark example of the strategic deployment of “co-opetition” — collaborating with competitors to achieve goals you could not reach alone. Frieze New York 2022As the art fair prepares to return to The Shed in Manhattan, we speak to this year’s festival director Christine Messineo who has designed a more intimate experience for participants.

Frieze New York at The Shed in 2021 © Casey Kelbaugh/Frieze More

LONDON (Reuters) – It’s Friday the 13th and more than $10 trillion has now been sliced off the value of global stock markets this year while ‘Misery Indexes’ that blend inflation and jobless rates are spiking. Is it already time for central banks to blink?Markets have started to panic about likely multiple central bank interest rate rises to rein in inflation from 40-year highs. Investors are desperate for any sign of that tightening calculus shifting from price pressures to demand-sapping cost of living squeezes and recession risks.Conditioned for years to expect easier monetary policy to soften economic or political shocks, savers and speculators have had to adjust this year to the idea that high inflation itself is perhaps the biggest shock and there’s no instant ‘policy put’ afoot.Far from riding to the rescue of anxious equity and bond markets, central banks have appeared determined to keep tightening. As Societe Generale (OTC:SCGLY) points out, long-term bond yields and tightening financial conditions indices are rising in tandem – unusually, after at least two decades in which yields plunged in response to financial swoons. But there’s always a policy tipping point if a looming recession itself nixes inflation expectations. Easing the cost of living squeeze is clearly the political priority. But energy and food prices driven higher by supply constraints may not respond to higher rates, while higher borrowing costs make credit more expensive for poorer households and zap the often over-inflated asset holdings of richer folk.The year’s two biggest political shocks – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s zero-Covid lockdowns – exaggerate both inflationary and recessionary forces. But how quickly the demand hit dominates thinking is what markets now have to watch.The Washington-based Institute for International Finance on Thursday cut its global growth forecasts to show a ‘de facto flatlining’ of the world economy this year, with a contraction in China this quarter.BANK BLINKS The Bank of England last week looked like the first of the previously hawkish G7 central banks to hesitate at the near impossible task ahead. Flagging both 10% inflation and a contracting economy by year-end, it nudged up interest rates again but revealed internal splits on the need for more.Suggesting the BoE’s hesitation is more than warranted, data on Thursday showed the UK economy already unexpectedly contracted in March – even before energy price caps were lifted and tax raised.While money markets still expect UK policy rates to more than double from here to above 2% next year, 2-year gilt yields are sliding again, dropping more than half a percentage point since the BoE’s meeting to as low as 1.2%. The pound has nosedived more than 3% over the same period and is now down almost 10% this year against the dollar. Britain may have peculiar domestic problems – including Brexit, a sharp jump in the energy price cap and rising taxes – but many may see it as a poster child for the policy balancing act ahead.Even as European Central Bank officials talk openly of interest rate rises, markets this week scaled back their expectations of tightening by year-end by 15 basis points to less than 80 bps. Two-year German benchmark yields plunged back to as low as zero from 35 bps.U.S. Federal Reserve officials appeared to double down on their hawkish rhetoric of multiple 50 bps rate hikes as April inflation of 8.3% again exceeded forecasts while labour markets remain tight.In contrast to Europe, two-year U.S. Treasury yields held above 2.5% – helping push an already lofty dollar to 20-year highs and tightening global conditions further.Yet the brewing storm did see U.S. money market estimates of the peak Fed rate next year fall back to as low as 3% from as high as 3.40% earlier this month.Are cracks appearing as ‘misery’ sets in?So-called ‘Misery Indexes’ were devised in the late 1960s and are crude aggregators of inflation and unemployment rates designed to capture the extent of household stress. Some add official interest rates to illustrate the ebb and flow of credit costs.Higher inflation has these seismographs of public disquiet on the move again. Indexes that capture interest rates will jump further in the months ahead if central banks press on. And if inflation doesn’t subside before unemployment rises, then the mix could become explosive.Of the G7, the UK already looks like the outlier with Britain’s ‘Misery Index’ already at its highest in more than 20 years.”The BoE is probably the first central bank that has conceded the battle against inflation in favour of saving the economy and the UK consumer from the consequences of a deep recession,” Jefferies strategists told clients. “Nevertheless, the misery index will start to climb and this is certainly not good for the pound or UK gilts.”Related columns: Sterling tailspin as BoE maps 10% inflation and recession’Mom & pop’ investors left high and dry in tech, crypto meltdownFed fingers crossed for 1994 re-run as hiking path shortens The author is editor-at-large for finance and markets at Reuters News. Any views expressed here are his own (by Mike Dolan, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR): @reutersMikeD; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) More

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s Honda Motor on Friday forecast a 7% fall in annual earnings, instead of an expected rise, and warned that the long chip crunch and rising raw material costs were hurting profit, echoing comments from rivals Toyota and Nissan (OTC:NSANY).Global automakers such as Honda have slashed production due a severe shortage of semiconductors, and now face what top automaker Toyota Motor (NYSE:TM) called an “unprecedented” increase in costs as China’s COVID-19 curbs have shuttered factories and the war in Ukraine further strains supply chains.”We are currently hoping to get the business on a recovery track in June,” by using parts that are in stock, Senior Managing Executive Officer Yasuhide Mizuno told a post-earnings call.Mizuno said the company was hearing the lockdown situation in Shanghai was getting better and supply chain and logistics in the country were recovering up to about 80%.Honda, Japan’s second biggest automaker by sales, forecast operating profit will fall to 810 billion yen ($6.29 billion) for the current fiscal year that began in April. Analysts expected a 6.3% rise to 926.3 billion, according to Refinitiv.It expects to sell 4.2 million vehicles globally this year, a 3.1% increase from last year.Toyota on Wednesday forecast a 20% slump in profit this year, while Nissan Motor said it expected profit to be flat.”Adding to uncertainty on supply and production, further increase in cost is expected,” in the fiscal year ending March 2023, the company said in a statement. It said the impacts from the chip shortage and resurgence of COVID-19 were expected to remain.The company said it expects about 300 billion yen in costs to cover rising material, labour, and logistics expenses this year, a roughly 11% jump from last year.Maker of the best-selling Accord, Honda said on Thursday it would slash production by about a fifth at two of its domestic factories for the rest of May, a month after it cut back production by about a half at one of them. The company on Friday reported a smaller-than-expected 6% fall in operating profit to 199.5 billion yen for the quarter ended March 31, beating an average estimate of 152.2 billion yen, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.Honda’s shares – which closed up 2.2% on Friday amid a 2.6% rise in the broader market – have risen 1% so far this year.($1 = 128.8300 yen) More

Global stocks rose on Friday, but were on track for their longest streak of weekly losses since the 2008 financial crisis, as fears over inflation and economic growth continued to stalk markets.The FTSE All World index, which is on track for a 3.9 per cent fall this week in its sixth straight week of declines, gained 0.4 per cent in European morning trade. The regional Stoxx Europe 600 index added 1.2 per cent, while London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.5 per cent. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 2.7 per cent and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo also closed 2.6 per cent higher. Some investors characterised Friday’s gains as a bear market rally, referring to short periods of optimism within a longer trend of declines. “Obviously there’s been a lot of difficult weeks and you get these sessions where the market tries to bounce back,” said Antoine Lesne, investment strategist at State Street’s SPDR exchange traded fund unit. “But I’m tempted to say we are still in bear market territory.” Market sentiment had become “so bearishly positioned, wherever you look, that there is a good chance we see a rebound in weeks to come”, said Florian Ielpo, multi-asset portfolio manager at Lombard Odier. “Will it be sustainable for the rest of the year? We strongly disagree with that,” he added. “There is only one way out of this inflationary period we are currently experiencing, and that is a slowdown in economic activity.”On Thursday the chair of the US Federal Reserve, whose monetary policy is followed by central banks worldwide, warned that bringing inflation down to its 2 per cent target may not be achieved without “some pain”. The Fed raised its main interest rate by 0.5 percentage points last week and is expected to increase by the same amount in June, July and September. Data on Wednesday showed US consumer price inflation rose at an annual pace of 8.3 per cent in April, staying close to a 40-year high of 8.5 per cent reached in the previous month. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 share index skirted a bear market — defined as a 20 per cent decline from a recent peak — on Thursday during a session of sharp intraday swings. Futures trading implied it would gain 0.9 per cent after the New York opening bell, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 would rise 1.4 per cent. The broader Nasdaq Composite has fallen 27 per cent in the year to date. A short-term rally in US government bonds also reversed on Friday as haven buying, driven by recession fears, reverted to traders calculating the effect of sustained inflation on fixed interest-paying securities. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to the price of the benchmark debt security, rose 0.08 percentage points to 2.9 per cent. Treasuries, the world’s biggest financial market, have also been volatile in recent weeks as investors stayed on the sidelines and dealers found it harder to match sellers with buyers. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was steady on Friday at about a 20-year high. Brent crude rose 1.5 per cent to $109.06 a barrel. More

WASHINGTON — Shipping traffic in and out of Russia has remained relatively strong in the past few months as companies have raced to fulfill contracts for purchases of energy and other goods before the full force of global sanctions goes into effect.With the European Union poised to introduce a ban on Russian oil in the coming months, that situation could change significantly. But so far, data show that while commerce with Russia has been reduced in many cases, it has yet to be crippled.Volumes of crude and oil products shipped out of Russian ports, for example, climbed to 25 million metric tons in April, data from the shipping tracker Refinitiv showed, up from around 24 million metric tons in December, January, February and March, and mostly above the levels of the last two years.Jim Mitchell, the head of oil research for the Americas at Refinitiv, said that Russia’s outgoing shipments in April had been buoyed by the global economic recovery from the pandemic, and that they did not yet reflect the impact of sanctions and other restrictions on Russia issued after its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.Crude oil typically trades 45 to 60 days ahead of delivery, he said, meaning that changes to behavior following the Russian invasion were still working their way through the system.“The volume has been slow to decline, because these were contracts that have already been set,” Mr. Mitchell said. Defaulting on such contracts is “a nightmare for both sides,” he said, adding, “which means that even in the current environment nobody really wants to breach a contract.”Russia has stopped publishing data on its imports and exports since Western governments united to announce their array of sanctions and other restrictions. Exports of oil or gas that leave Russia through pipelines can also be difficult for outside firms to verify.But the global activities of the massive vessels that call on Russian ports to pick up and deliver containers of consumer products or bulk-loads of grain and oil are easier to monitor. Ships are required to transmit their identity, position, course and other information through automatic tracking systems, which are monitored by a variety of firms like Refinitiv, MarineTraffic, Kpler and others.These firms say that shipping traffic was relatively robust in March and April, despite the extraordinary tensions with Russia since its invasion of Ukraine. That reflects both how long some of the sanctions issued by the West are taking to come into effect and an enduring profit motive for trading with Russia, especially after prices for its energy products and commodities have cratered.Data from MarineTraffic, for example, a platform that shows the live location of ships around the world using those on-ship tracking systems, indicates that traffic from Russia’s major ports declined after the invasion but did not plummet. The number of container ships, tankers and bulkers — the three main types of vessels that move energy and consumer products — arriving and leaving Russian ports was down about 23 percent in March and April compared with the year earlier.“The reality is that the sanctions haven’t been so difficult to maneuver around,” said Georgios Hatzimanolis, who analyzes global shipping for MarineTraffic.Tracking by Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime information service, shows similar trends. The number of bulk carriers, which transport loose cargo like grain, coal and fertilizer, that sailed from Russian ports in the five weeks after the invasion was down only 6 percent from the five-week period before the invasion, according to the service.In the weeks following the invasion, Russia’s trade with China and Japan was broadly stable, while the number of bulk carriers headed to South Korea, Egypt and Turkey actually increased, their data showed.“There’s still a lot of traffic back and forth,” said Sebastian Villyn, the head of risk and compliance data at Lloyd’s List Intelligence. “We haven’t really seen a drop.”Those figures contrast somewhat with statements from global leaders, who have emphasized the crippling nature of the sanctions. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Thursday that the Russian economy was “absolutely reeling,” pointing to estimates that it faces a contraction of 10 percent this year and double-digit inflation. Earlier this week, Ms. Yellen said that the Treasury Department was continuing to deliberate about whether to extend an exemption in its sanctions that has allowed American financial institutions and investors to keep processing Russian bond payments. Speaking at a Senate hearing, she said that officials were actively working to determine the “consequences and spillovers” of allowing the license to expire on May 25, which would likely lead to Russia’s first default on its foreign debt in more than a century.Global sanctions on Russia continue to expand in both their scope and their impact, especially as Europe, a major customer of Russian energy, moves to wean itself off the country’s oil and coal. Trade data suggest that shipments into Russia of high-value products like semiconductors and airplane parts — which are crucial for the military’s ability to wage war — have plummeted because of export controls issued by the United States and its allies.But many sanctions have been targeted at certain strategic goods, or exempted energy products — which are Russia’s major exports — to avoid causing more pain to consumers at a time of rapid price increases, disrupted supply chains and a growing global food crisis.Truckers lined up to cross into Panemune, Lithuania, near the Russian port of Kaliningrad last month.Paulius Peleckis/Getty ImagesSo far, Western governments have levied an array of financial restrictions, including banning transactions with Russia’s central bank and sovereign wealth fund, freezing the assets of many Russian officials and oligarchs, and cutting off Russian banks from international transactions. Canada and the United States have already banned imports of Russian energy, and also prohibited Russian ships from calling at their ports, but the countries are not among Russia’s largest energy customers.The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 7A far-reaching conflict. More