When Headline Writers Simply Have To Punt

The Oil & Gas Journal generally posts a story daily on the price of oil: why it went up, why it went down, why it remained flat. The headline, of course, has to include a reason, otherwise it's a pretty boring headline.

So, today's headline: Oil prices bounce back on stronger economy indicators.

I challenge any reader to find more than one conomic indicator in the linked story (I did not read the last couple of paragraphs so maybe that's where one will find additional indicators). I do not consider the European Central Bank cutting interest rates to a record low of 0.5% from 0.75% an economic indicator.

The only "stronger" economic indicator the writer could come up with was this: the US weekly jobless claims were at a 5-year low. So that would be an indicator, singular. The headline, said "indicators," plural.

“The ECB cut interest rates for the first time in 10 months to an all-time low in an attempt to shore up a languishing economy,” said analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc. “That may be too aggressive, but the Federal Reserve Bank tapering the pace of its bond-purchase program by the end of this year now certainly seems a less likely outcome than it did just a few months ago. Against this backdrop and positive labor market data (weekly jobless claims at 5-year low), the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both gained 1%, erasing all of the previous day's losses.” 

Today would have been a good reason for the headline writer to simply say: Oil prices surged for no good reason.