The Academy Award for Best Supporting Email goes to? We know there is stiff competition out there. Lots of emails, all sauntering down the proverbial red carpet of your inbox, making daily attempts to impress or improve the quality of your digital experience by providing helpful hints and tips meant to improve your own performance.
So now is our chance to give our own awards speech thanking all of you Jolt-openers out there. And because there are tens of thousands of you to thank, we’d love to say more about how grateful we are to be opened, but we’re out of time.
Now for this week’s Jolt.
Why So Crude? Crude oil prices fell again last week and continued to decline on Monday, trading around $49.50 a barrel. Oil prices posted a fifth straight losing week with combined losses standing at more than 22% on both the WTI and Brent. China’s already-slowing economy has taken a heavy toll from the coronavirus, with Goldman Sachs cutting its first quarter GDP growth target from 5.6% to 4% and warning of further hits. Chinese crude inventories have seen sharp increases as many industries are lagging and impacting demand negatively. Investors are still waiting on word from Russia on whether they would back an additional 600,000 barrel a day cut in oil supply to support the market. The Baker Hughes oil rig count increased last week, going from 675 to 676 and indicating elevated domestic production.
Where’s Winter? Natural gas futures held steady last week and even closed higher after hitting a multi-year low. The market was underpinned by Thursday’s much larger-than-expected government storage report. However, gains remained capped by the latest weather models that showed nearly no chance of a favorable cold pattern for the lingering bulls. – Yahoo Finance
Garbage To Graphene! Researchers at Rice University report that they can zap virtually any source of solid carbon, from food scraps to old car tires, and turn it into graphene—sheets of carbon atoms prized for applications ranging from high-strength plastic to flexible electronics. – Science Mag
For The Samsung Lovers! It’s not just leaks that let us know what big tech companies plan to announce at their keynotes, increasingly it’s the companies themselves. Since this year’s Academy Awards fall ahead of Samsung’s February 11th Unpacked keynote, the company decided to go for a huge tease of the Galaxy Z Flip— it basically showed off the whole phone.- The Verge