Fertilizer prices in U.S. down by 30%
Fertilizer prices that had hit record highs are now plunging as buyers reel from sticker shock, but that doesn't mean the market squeeze is over.
The June spot price in Tampa, Fla., for the nitrogen fertilizer ammonia settled Friday at $1,000 per metric ton, a drop of 30% from May's $1,425 per metric ton, according to Green Markets, a Bloomberg company. Even with the drop, however, prices for ammonia are still 87% higher than a year ago, and supply-chain issues continue to wreak havoc on global markets.
Demand destruction is part of the decline. Places like Southeast Asia are seeing buyers unwilling to pay the record high prices for ammonia that were posted in April and May, said Green Markets analyst Alexis Maxwell. It also reflects the declining cost of ammonia production as European natural gas prices fell in the second quarter, she said.
Wholesale prices for another type of nitrogen fertilizer, urea, dropped nearly 8% Friday in New Orleans to $585 per short ton. But retail prices are still nearly double that, at $1,030 per short ton.
-- Bloomberg News (WPNS)
Robinhood Markets agrees to settlement
Lawyers for Robinhood Markets Inc. said they had reached an agreement in principle to resolve litigation by some investors who were blocked from trading shares in high-flying stocks during a system failure in March 2020. No details were disclosed.
"Once final details are resolved, and within 60 days of this notice, the parties will file a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement," the attorneys said in a federal court filing Thursday.
Multiple investors sued Robinhood in several states, mostly alleging restrictions by the trading platform that amounted to a breach of contract, court records show. Cases in California were consolidated with a federal judge in San Francisco.
The failure was a blow to the Silicon Valley startup, which drew in young, often inexperienced investors with an easy-to-use trading app. Robinhood popularized the zero-commission brokerage and introduced millions of millennials and Gen Zers to financial markets. Critics, including some U.S. lawmakers, said the platform encouraged risky frequent trading by novices.
The case is In re Robinhood Outage Litigation, 20-cv-01626, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
-- Bloomberg News (WPNS)
State index climbs 25.32 to end week
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Friday at 805.33, up 25.32.
All of the 14 index stocks posted gains for the week.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.