Soaring Futures

WorldWatch announces that the wheat futures soaring to their highest level in two years, you could soon find yourself paying more for a loaf of bread at your local grocery store. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday that it has cut its global wheat production forecast for 2010 nearly 4% to 651 million metric tons, down from its June estimate of 676 metric tons.

The drought in Russia is definitely the key factor to the rise in prices, but we've also seen problems in Canada, where crops are going to be smaller this year, and Australia may have a smaller crop, so there are other parts of the world that are seeing problems.

One of Europes oldest economies, Portugal has announced that next week
petrol (gas) and bread consumer prices are once more going up, now that crude is once more below the $80 a barrel,with unemployment over the 11% mark and a economy in recession Portugal will continue with serious financial issues mainly due to the monopoly in price fixing in the energy sector by the petrol companies that continue to inflate final consumer prices.

BP, Galp, Repsol, Cepsa, making Portugal somewhat less supportive of economic growth in recent months.

Investor Optimism

Speculation boosted investor optimism that demand in the world’s largest economy U.S. is recovering. The U.S. labor market report shows U.S consumer spending has not improved for a third month.
Contracts for crude have also been formed using speculation as a base, crude oil for May delivery rose as much as 1.2 percent to $85.89 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since Oct. 9, 2008. It was trading at $85.21 in Asia trading. Speculation showed economic data indexes are getting better and that is supporting crude oil prices, so now we have no economic recovery and prices are struggling above $87 with no evidence of growth, this will cause a revenue drop in most crude dependent states as there will be a decline in demandover the next months. Oil prices have established a floor of $75 a barrel and there is no need for OPEC to increase production, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said April 2.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumps about 40 percent of the world’s oil and slashed output in January 2009 to prevent a glut. The group left its production targets unchanged when ministers met in Vienna on March 17. Some petrol companies in Europe use every available excuss to inflate final consumer prices as is the case with Portugal... As http://so-buracos.blogspot.com/ informed last week, the price of petrol for the motorist in Portugal this week has once more increased...The price per litre has passed the 1,44 Euro for the first time in 19 months, Portugal continues to have one of the highest consumer price for petrol in the world ...The companies involved in this squeme are, Galp 1,449 euro, Cepsa 1,449 euro, BP 1,459 euro, Repsol 1,414 euro, these prices are for regular 95 Octane.