Issue Summary

Amid the quiet before earnings season, airlines looked on with unease as oil prices marched upward again. The pronouncement of an OPEC supply cut has Brent crude flirting with the $100 per barrel mark, never a good sign for the industry. For the world as a whole, high commodity prices, high interest rates, and high U.S. dollar exchange rates make for what one commentator called an “excitable” macroeconomic situation. A better word might be “combustible.”