每日三篇英语新闻随记94
2019年6月14日
Oil is being propped up by Middle East tensions after the US used video to blame Iran 在美国用视频指责伊朗之后，中东紧张局势促涨石油
After sinking to a five-month low and surging almost 5% in the same week, oil prices on Friday were pushed and pulled between competing drivers of Iran tensions and a supply glut. Brent crude hovered at about $US52 a barrel in London’s morning.
The US blamed the attacks on Iran, though Iran denied any involvement. The attacks raise the prospect of a US-Iran military showdown. Elsewhere in markets on Friday, futures on the tech-heavy Nasdaq are down 0.6% and European tech stocks are taking a beating after US chipmaker Broadcom warned of a demand slump resulting from trade war tensions and the Huawei saga. Broadcom shares are trading down 8.7% in US premarket.
For oil, conflicting supply and demand drivers threaten to fuel further volatility.
“Two opposite forces are in game for oil traders: the global economic slowdown and rising stockpiles pressure the oil prices downwards, while the ongoing tensions in the Middle East push the prices upwards,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at London Capital Group.
“But the wider picture suggests that the rising expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut, the US sanctions on Iranian oil and an OPEC+ announcement to at least extend the oil production cuts beyond June could eventually give a short relief to the bulls.”
Airbnb launch of 200 new 'bucket list worthy' adventures
Airbnb推出了200个新的'值得列表'冒险
The peer-to-peer accommodation pioneer announced on Friday it has launched Airbnb Adventures, a collection of “bucket list worthy” travel experiences hosted by “local experts”. The launch offering includes 200 global experiences for Airbnb account-holders to choose including a trek in the Amazonian jungle, lion-tracking expedition with Samburu warriors in Kenya, stay in an abandoned mining town in the US southwest and a farm visit to a rural Amish community in Indiana, with more to come in 2019.
The experiences will set you back as little as $114 per night, or as much as $7230 for more extended luxury adventures, with a median price of $850 for a three-day trip. “Getting access to epic and transformational travel has never been easier than through Airbnb Adventures,” said Joe Zadeh, vice-president of experiences at Airbnb.
Airbnb is certainly not the only organisation eyeing the burgeoning multi-day experiences market. Big Red Group launched a new experiences business called IfOnly featuring a range of “extraordinary experiences” — many of which are designed to raise funds for charities and not-for-profits. IfOnly experiences include a five-day rhino conservation safari with South African-English cricketer Kevin Pieterson for an unlisted price. Globally, that number was just short of 20 billion.
Amazon's market share was dramatically downgraded 亚马逊的市场份额大幅下调
A new estimate of Amazon’s market share indicates the tech giant may not be as dominant as we once thought. Amazon is the second-biggest company in America, with a market cap of $US921 billion. But its estimated share of US e-commerce sales was dramatically cut by eMarketer.
The research firm downgraded its percentage of 2019 online retail sales in the US to 37.7% from 47%. eMarketer reassessed its estimates after CEO Jeff Bezos announced in his annual letter to shareholders in April that sales from Amazon’s third-party sellers had come to make up more than 58% of the physical gross merchandise sold on Amazon. The revised market-share estimate could actually be good news for Bezos’ company, which is trying to play down its size at a time when tech antitrust investigations may be looming.
“There is something going on in terms of monopoly,” US President Donald Trump said Monday about the possibility of investigations into Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. “We’re going to look at it,” he added.
