Weekly Economic Report 5.15.26

The Trump/Xi summit has ended and the investment world has immediately shifted back to dealing with the still closed Straits of Hormuz. Nothing at the Summit suggested an imminent reopening, so oil headed higher into the weekend. As we move toward the second half of 2026, with the US midterm election looming, all the world’s economic players are adapting to the continuing uncertainty and the higher oil price, higher inflation and higher interest rates it generates. With the energy shipments from the Gulf now constrained for one-fifth of the year, the effect is moving like a tsunami out of the Gulf, into East Asia, and soon will hit more sectors of the real economy around the world. With something like 2.5% of the world’s energy supply offline, there is a recession somewhere – but where it hits is very uneven and delayed.

EU05-15-2026.pdf

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