Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and the macro landscape.
Oil is back in focus after U.S. crude topped one hundred two dollars a barrel Thursday, its highest close since May. The question now is China — demand signals from Beijing remain the critical variable determining whether this rally has legs or fades back toward the eighties.
Shifting to trade, the U.S. deficit with Canada that has drawn so much political fire from Washington is largely structural and energy-driven. Midwest refineries are built specifically to process heavy Canadian crude, and they buy it at a discount. Analysts are blunt: there is no near-term domestic substitute, making tariff pressure on Canadian oil a self-inflicted cost for American industry.
And on the capital allocation front, Berkshire Hathaway's long-standing no-dividend philosophy remains a case study in disciplined reinvestment. Since Warren Buffett took the reins, the company has paid exactly one dividend — back in nineteen sixty seven — preferring instead to compound shareholder value through acquisitions and retained earnings, a strategy that has produced one of the most extraordinary long-run return records in market history.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
