Saudi Arabia's government has approved a law to improve the way it procures contracts and services by saving money, making the process fairer, and boosting local bidders, the Finance ministry said late on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia has embarked on a series of economic reforms, called Vision 2030, designed to free the kingdom from dependence on oil exports.

The House will vote on a resolution condemning Trump's remarks where he told four outspoken congresswomen to "go back" to where they came from.

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While small-cap stocks, such as Super Retail Group Limited (ASX:SUL) with its market cap of AU$1.9b, are popular for...

A fund manager betting against the diagnostics company laid out some serious allegations.

(Bloomberg) -- Oil slid for a second day as the U.S. raised hopes of easing tensions with OPEC member Iran, while President Donald Trump’s threat of new tariffs on China rekindled fears about demand.Futures declined 3.3% in New York on Tuesday, adding to Monday’s 1.1% drop. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran, which has been hit by American sanctions over its weapons program, had signaled an openness to talks. The Islamic Republic’s foreign minister made similar comments, offering the first hint of a diplomatic solution since the Trump announced plans in May 2019 to squeeze Iranian oil exports.At the same White House meeting where Pompeo spoke, President Donald Trump reiterated that he could impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports, despite promising to hold off on more duties in a trade-war truce he reached with China’s Xi Jinping last month. U.S. equities markets retreated as well on the prospect that the spat between the world’s two top economies could persist.The recent declines have scuppered a month-long oil rally, with fears about global demand and surging U.S. shale supplies reemerging. Crude’s also lost some of the uplift from Hurricane Barry, which shuttered almost three-quarters of Gulf of Mexico output over the weekend. Explorers and refiners along the Gulf coast have begun returning employees to work as the storm moves inland.“Bullish catalysts are in short supply,” analysts at London-based broker PVM Oil Associates Ltd. said in a note to clients. “The Gulf Coast of Mexico hurricane premium is fading as offshore operations in the region resume. At the same time, the U.S. shale engine continues to give oil bulls a sleepless night.”August West Texas Intermediate oil dropped $1.96 at $57.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its steepest decline since July 2. Brent futures for September settlement declined $2.13 to $64.35 on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange in London. The global benchmark crude was at a premium of $6.61 to WTI for the same month.Oil climbed earlier in the session along with U.S. equities after American retail sales, factory output and housing reports all beat forecasts. However, the rally fizzled amid speculation the data could deter the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates.See also: How Great Shifts in Oil Market Calmed Panic Over 2020 Ship FuelRoyal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips are among companies seeking to restore output at offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico now that weather conditions have improved. The region accounts for 16% of total U.S. crude oil production, according to the Energy Department.The outages over the weekend are expected to show up in the next tally of American stockpiles. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey are predicting a 3 million drop in inventories last week -- a fifth straight decline -- when the government releases the data on Wednesday.\--With assistance from James Thornhill, David Ingles, Yvonne Man and Tsuyoshi Inajima.To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Nussbaum in New York at anussbaum1@bloomberg.net;Alex Longley in London at alongley@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Serene Cheong at scheong20@bloomberg.net, Pratish Narayanan, Mike JeffersFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) -- Oil slid for a second day as the U.S. raised hopes of easing tensions with OPEC member Iran, while President Donald Trump’s threat of new tariffs on China rekindled fears about demand.Futures declined 3.3% in New York on Tuesday, adding to Monday’s 1.1% drop. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran, which has been hit by American sanctions over its weapons program, had signaled an openness to talks. The Islamic Republic’s foreign minister made similar comments, offering the first hint of a diplomatic solution since the Trump announced plans in May 2019 to squeeze Iranian oil exports.At the same White House meeting where Pompeo spoke, President Donald Trump reiterated that he could impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports, despite promising to hold off on more duties in a trade-war truce he reached with China’s Xi Jinping last month. U.S. equities markets retreated as well on the prospect that the spat between the world’s two top economies could persist.The recent declines have scuppered a month-long oil rally, with fears about global demand and surging U.S. shale supplies reemerging. Crude’s also lost some of the uplift from Hurricane Barry, which shuttered almost three-quarters of Gulf of Mexico output over the weekend. Explorers and refiners along the Gulf coast have begun returning employees to work as the storm moves inland.“Bullish catalysts are in short supply,” analysts at London-based broker PVM Oil Associates Ltd. said in a note to clients. “The Gulf Coast of Mexico hurricane premium is fading as offshore operations in the region resume. At the same time, the U.S. shale engine continues to give oil bulls a sleepless night.”August West Texas Intermediate oil dropped $1.96 at $57.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its steepest decline since July 2. Brent futures for September settlement declined $2.13 to $64.35 on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange in London. The global benchmark crude was at a premium of $6.61 to WTI for the same month.Oil climbed earlier in the session along with U.S. equities after American retail sales, factory output and housing reports all beat forecasts. However, the rally fizzled amid speculation the data could deter the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates.See also: How Great Shifts in Oil Market Calmed Panic Over 2020 Ship FuelRoyal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips are among companies seeking to restore output at offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico now that weather conditions have improved. The region accounts for 16% of total U.S. crude oil production, according to the Energy Department.The outages over the weekend are expected to show up in the next tally of American stockpiles. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey are predicting a 3 million drop in inventories last week -- a fifth straight decline -- when the government releases the data on Wednesday.\--With assistance from James Thornhill, David Ingles, Yvonne Man and Tsuyoshi Inajima.To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Nussbaum in New York at anussbaum1@bloomberg.net;Alex Longley in London at alongley@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Serene Cheong at scheong20@bloomberg.net, Pratish Narayanan, Mike JeffersFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

The silver market is shining brightly today.

(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for Next China, a weekly email on where the nation stands now and where it's going next.U.S. stocks fell from a record high as President Donald Trump said he could impose more tariffs on China, reminding investors that the trade spat remains unresolved. Treasuries dropped and the dollar rose.The S&P 500 Index halted a five-day rally, with energy producers joining an oil sell-off and technology giants facing an antitrust showdown with Congress. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. jumped on better-than-estimated results in its trading unit, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. rebounded from losses triggered by a disappointing lending outlook. Benchmark 10-year yields climbed on solid data, then pared their surge after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank “will act as appropriate” amid increased uncertainties.Investors remained locked into the notion of a Fed rate cut this month even after strong retail sales, factory output and housing data. While Powell’s remarks resembled his July 10-11 testimony to U.S. lawmakers, they continued to support the case for monetary easing amid risks stemming from Trump’s trade policies and slower global growth.“Trade’s a big, big issue,” said Dave Campbell, a principal at San Francisco-based BOS, which manages about $4.5 billion. “There’s a lot of uncertainties -- all of these are weighing on people’s minds right now.”Elsewhere, Bitcoin slid below $10,000 just three weeks after surging above it for the first time in more than a year as U.S. legislators expressed deep skepticism about the viability of cryptocurrencies. The euro slipped as investor confidence in Germany’s economic outlook fell. The pound slumped as the market once again reckoned with no-deal Brexit risk after the contenders to be U.K. prime minister toughened their rhetoric.Here are some key events coming up:Bank of America Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor are among companies due to report results this week.Monetary policy decisions are due in Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa on Thursday.These are the main moves in markets:StocksThe S&P 500 dipped 0.3% to 3,004.04 as of 4 p.m. New York time.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.4%.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index decreased 0.2%.CurrenciesThe Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index increased 0.4%.The euro declined 0.4% to $1.1209.The British pound decreased 0.9% to $1.2408.The Japanese yen dipped 0.3% to 108.28 per dollar.BondsThe yield on 10-year Treasuries gained three basis points to 2.11%.Germany’s 10-year yield climbed one basis point to -0.24%.Britain’s 10-year yield increased two basis points to 0.821%.CommoditiesThe Bloomberg Commodity Index slid 1.1%.West Texas Intermediate crude sank to $57.62 a barrel.\--With assistance from Adam Haigh, Samuel Potter, Laura Curtis and Yakob Peterseil.To contact the reporters on this story: Rita Nazareth in New York at rnazareth@bloomberg.net;Vildana Hajric in New York at vhajric1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Rita NazarethFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Oikophilia, Sir Roger Scruton writes, “is the love of the oikos, which means not only the home but the people contained in it, and the surrounding settlements that endow that home with lasting contours and an enduring smile. The oikos is the place that is not just mine and yours but ours. It is the stage-set for the first-person plural of politics, the locus, both real and imagined, where ‘it all takes place.’”Americans on the whole are feeling momentarily estranged from our oikos, it seems; the national body politic is diseased, suffering from a severe deficiency of oikophilia. Americans’ love of their country is at an all-time low: Last year was the first time in recorded history that less than half of us said we were “extremely proud” to be American. This year, that number has dropped further. Democrats, in particular, are afflicted. Though they have been consistent in reporting less national pride to pollsters than Republicans, the deficit has become more dramatic in recent years: Just 22 percent of Democrats now say that they are extremely proud to be Americans, down ten points from last year and 21 points from 2017.Much of this arises from a fundamental disagreement about why and how we should love our country. Yuval Levin writes:> There has long been an argument, roughly along the axis of conservatism and progressivism, about whether to love America for what it has been or what it should be. The right inclines to American exceptionalism, and the sense that our nation’s roots in self-evident moral truths render it a unique force for good in the world and make its politics distinctly elevated. The left inclines to a more redemptive hope in America — the idea that our country has been working from its birth to overcome its unique sins, and that it has made some progress but has much more to make.The question of what makes America worthy of our love has been a constant facet of our political discourse since the nation’s inception. It is a vitally important debate and probably will never be truly resolved. But our collective amor patriae must be more concrete than a flimsy belief in “progress” if we hope to transcend the malaise of our current political moment.The patriotism of many contemporary progressives seems to align with Levin’s description: a notion that America’s greatness is tied up in its ability to become better than it was before. There is real value to this form of oikophilia, to be sure. But it is also evanescent and conditional. If one’s commitment to America is contingent on our society continually evolving in the way one desires, then it is difficult to remain attached to one’s country when the electorate produces undesirable political outcomes or the culture is more resistant to one’s preferred changes than one would like.This is evident from the polling, which shows that the number of Democrats who identified as proud to be American plummeted when Trump was elected. Republicans, on the other hand, are relatively stable in their reported patriotism, showing less concern for the partisan sympathies of any given presidential administration. Significantly more worrying, however, is the profound cultural shift that has accompanied this drop in liberal patriotism; it now seems to be accepted fact in elite progressive circles that patriotism itself is passé. The New York Times posts videos detailing why “the myth of America as the greatest country on earth is at best outdated and at worst wildly inaccurate,” while the paper’s Sunday magazine publishes pieces on why “modern patriotism has become Kabuki citizenship.” Mic waxes poetic about the dangers of “performative patriotism,” and our intelligentsia informs us that “the American dream is a myth.” New York governor Andrew Cuomo scoffs that “America was never that great,” and  former cabinet members of the Obama administration agree. Professional athletes continually remind us that they, too, find America unworthy of celebration.One can understand how a patriotism conditioned on political and cultural outcomes might falter in the current moment; indeed, Americans of all partisan dispositions are rightly concerned for the civic health of our nation. But I would urge my progressive friends to seek out a richer, more robust understanding of what it means to love America, untethered to the daily histrionics of Washington, D.C.Patriotism in America has eminently rational justification, for a multitude of reasons that need not be expounded upon; ours is an exceptional nation, founded on a radical belief in human equality. The nature of the American people is shaped by the that belief, and the other ideas upon which the nation was founded. But patriotism is even more than the love of our Constitution and the principles upon which it is founded, great as both are. It is also a fond affection for all the inarticulable distinctions that make our country ours: the quiet beauty of everyday American life, incomprehensible to statistical measurement and invisible to the news cycle.Regardless of partisanship and policy debate, our political commitments should be manifestations of gratitude for our inheritance rather than a rejection of it. A more tender politics begins with a deep attachment to one’s little platoons, a love for one’s place and one’s people, and an unerring affection for the shape of one’s society. This political disposition does not mean perpetual resistance to change — a country without the means to change is without the means of its own conservation — but it transcends the desire for change as the sole determinant of one’s patriotism.A desire to improve or better one’s country is admirable, but it should not preclude one’s unreserved commitment to it. Humility is a necessary antecedent to good governance. Our entire political class might do well to remember as much.