Last year, U.S. consumption of renewable energy reached a record 11.5 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu), or 11 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, the EIA has estimated.

President Trump telephone call with President XI of China sets off  S&P 500 futures rally

Asian stocks were under renewed selling pressure this morning as global trade concerns and chaos across emerging markets weighed on risk appetite. Global trade developments have certainly placed investors on an emotional roller-coaster ride this week with the initial optimism over NAFTA talks outweighed by U.S.-China concerns. Market sentiment is likely to remain cautious, especially after President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw the United States from the World Trade Organisation.

I usually wouldn’t pay attention to stuff like this. I take it as negotiating bluster. But the world is changing and suddenly we have a time window change of direction where precious metals are suddenly strong and the Greenback can’t seem to right the ship. Sometimes big things develop out of little beginnings.

The dog days of August that have set in on the moves in the commodities have been exaggerated. While crude oil holds the 200-day moving average, after a major seasonal sell-off, the concerns about a serious demand slowdown are most likely overblown. Turkey, of course, is a major oil producer and Consumer. NOT! The fears of contagion, steaming from the stepped upped pressure from the Trump Administration, has been overdone. We are in the dog days, and oil bears have begun licking their chops, mistaking seasonal weakness for a major bear turn in the market.

Fears of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies are set to intensify after the Trump Administration announced another round of tariffs on Chinese products on Tuesday. In a move that is likely to cause the further deterioration of US-China trade relations, the United States will begin imposing 25% tariffs on $16 billion of Chinese imports starting from Aug. 23. With Beijing expected to fight back by targeting $16 billion worth of U.S. goods with equal tariffs, the US-China trade saga could get even messier.

Escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China remain the financial markets’ hottest topic. President Donald Trump seems to be celebrating winning the first battle of this war, saying that “tariffs are working big time” in a Tweet on Sunday. He says that they will enable the U.S. to start reducing the large amount of debt accumulated throughout President Barack Obama’s administration.

Snapback after a whack, give a dog a bone, this old man comes rolling home. It looked doomy and gloomy in crude oil for a while as trade war fears and reports of increases in OPEC and Russian oil production weighed on market psyche. Yet, after a report about another drop in supply in the Cushing, Okla., delivery point, and talk that U.S. oil production is not what it was reported to be, the mood quickly shifted.

The U.S. petroleum markets were just trying to adjust to a surprise increase in U.S. crude supply, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump Administration is considering more than doubling proposed tariffs on a further $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25%, up from an original 10% tariff that was put in place before.

Crude oil prices are back under pressure as there are reports that the United States is looking to more than double tariffs on China, as well as a shockingly bearish weekly inventory report from the American Petroleum Institute (API). Out of nowhere, the API reported a 5.590 million barrel build, confounding experts and expectations as well as a big 2.890-million-barrel increase in distillate supply. Gasoline did fall by 791,00 barrels but with trade war fears keeping us on edge, today's Energy Information Administration (EIA) supply report will be more important than today's Fed announcement.