“The price of US oil has turned negative for the first time in history”

Apr 23, 2020 | Markets

An independent (financial adviser’s) view

My (school) friend who knows about this stuff explained how the price of oil could possibly be ‘negative’. Oil traders buy and sell futures, which are contracts to buy or sell actual tanker ship-fulls of oil. The plan is to buy cheap and sell for more before the ship docks or, in current circumstances sell for more, buy back more cheaply, then sell again. But if you manage to do this and no-one wants it when it arrives somewhere and there’s nowhere to put it, you’ll have to actually pay someone to take it off your hands. And that’s the funny old (financial) world we’re living in.

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gray industrial machine during golden hour 162568
“Rachel Reeves may be forced to raise taxes”

“Rachel Reeves may be forced to raise taxes”

Why did she/they (in the old sense) think that tinkering around with IHT and CGT would be enough to sort out the NHS; and the potholes; and…and the list goes on. My guess is  that they asked the Treasury for a list of anything not involving income tax that they could get away with lightly, although they should already have learned from the winter fuel stuff that all publicity is not good publicity.