COMMENTARY

Oil prices rose after new Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure revived supply concerns, while recovering Gulf exports, thin inventories and a severe diesel shortage kept markets volatile.

In early Wednesday trading, Australian shares have suffered losses after the decline of Aussie currency. That combined with a decline in commodity prices has had a negative impact on shares linked to resources. Other global indexes also point to the red.

Between February and March this year, petrol costs have risen by 3%, causing a downward drift in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index. This has many economists worrying, as the fear of recession looms and unemployment figures do not look too uplifting either.

Florida-based asset management firm Stonehenge Capital Management (SCM) announced Monday that its new direction-neutral hedge fund strategy called Forward Curve Realignment (FCR) resulted in strong returns one month after its launching.