A stylized illustration of a cylindrical cup with blue arrows and lines indicating a swirling or rotational motion inside the cup.
Briefs
 Finance
Free NewsletterPro Login

Warning: Undefined variable $stocks in /var/www/briefs.co/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/oxygen/component-framework/components/classes/code-block.class.php(133) : eval()'d code on line 448

Warning: foreach() argument must be of type array|object, null given in /var/www/briefs.co/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/oxygen/component-framework/components/classes/code-block.class.php(133) : eval()'d code on line 448

Warning: Undefined variable $funds in /var/www/briefs.co/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/oxygen/component-framework/components/classes/code-block.class.php(133) : eval()'d code on line 472

Warning: foreach() argument must be of type array|object, null given in /var/www/briefs.co/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/oxygen/component-framework/components/classes/code-block.class.php(133) : eval()'d code on line 472
/* the link was here */
Free Live Investor Workshop
The dollar is losing value. Here’s how investors can still profit. Click Here to Save Your Seat →
Free Live Investor Workshop
The dollar is losing value. Here’s how investors can still profit. Click Here to Save Your Seat →         

EU carbon permits touch late January highs as gas squeeze lifts coal

Cierra Seay
Published Sep 14, 2026
[tts_player]
Share:
Summary:
  • Benchmark December EU carbon permits climbed as much as 2.6% on Monday to €87.75 a metric ton.
  • Costly natural gas and constrained LNG from Qatar tied to the Iran war have made coal more profitable.
  • Demand for permits is getting a lift from the month‑end requirement to true up last year's emissions.

What moved the price

EU carbon prices popped to their strongest level since late January, with the December contract hitting €87.75 a metric ton on Monday after an intraday gain of up to 2.6% on the ICE Endex exchange.

Why coal is back in play

When gas prices jump, coal often becomes the cheaper option for power producers. Europe is refilling thin gas inventories ahead of winter, while liquefied natural gas flows from Qatar remain limited because of the Iran war. That backdrop has made coal more profitable, pushing utilities to burn more of it and buy additional permits to cover the extra emissions.

The mechanics that keep prices up

In the EU, power plants and other industrial users must surrender one carbon permit for every metric ton of CO2 they emit. As Ingvild Sorhus, a carbon specialist at Oslo-based analysis firm Veyt, put it, "Coal is in the money all the way with high prices." She added, "We see at least with prices we have now that coal is favored over gas." Sorhus also pointed out that the month's end brings a compliance cutoff for last year's emissions, which is drawing in extra buyers and propping up prices.

Energy and policy shifts remind investors that steady planning protects your financial future. Join Briefs Finance CEO Jaspreet Singh on September 29th for a FREE live investor workshop, How to Profit From A Dollar That's Losing its Value, where he shows how we're spotting investment opportunities as the dollar falls. Save your spot.

What this means for your portfolio

If you own or track heavy emitters, pricier permits flow straight into operating costs and can change which plants run. With prices back near late January levels and a month‑end emissions accounting deadline pulling demand forward, carbon costs are likely to stay front and center for European energy and industrial names.

Keeping a long term perspective helps you navigate headlines and grow your savings. Our CEO Jaspreet Singh is hosting a FREE live investor workshop, How to Profit From A Dollar That's Losing its Value, on September 29th. Sign up free to join him live.

Disclosure

Recent News

1 2 3 … 75

Get Market Briefs delivered to your inbox every morning for free!

No fluff. No noise. No politics. Just finance news you can read in 5 minutes.

Blogs

September 14, 2026
Why RAM Prices Are Soaring - and Where the Money Is Moving
By Cierra Seay
  • Memory chips - the RAM inside phones, laptops, fridges, and trucks - are in a shortage Tim Cook called a 100-year flood, and some memory prices have climbed about 90% in a single quarter.
  • Four forces hit at once: AI demand, a production shutdown in 2023, build times that push any fix to 2028 at the earliest, and a bombed helium plant in Qatar.
  • The last two supply shocks ended in aggressive Fed rate hikes and market drops of around 45% and 20%, and this time Washington is spending heavily to bring memory production home.
Read More
September 11, 2026
How Is the Economy Doing? Washington Says It's Fixed, but the Numbers Don't Agree
By Nate Gregory
  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the economy is fixed because lower earners' incomes are now rising faster than top earners'.
  • The Atlanta Fed and Bank of America show different numbers, and Hilton, Marriott, and McDonald's can't agree on what they're seeing either.
  • Whichever side is right, the economy is built to make investors rich, and inflation is how it does it.
Read More
September 10, 2026
US National Debt Hits $40 Trillion: Why the Economy Hasn't Collapsed Yet
By Nate Gregory
  • The US national debt crossed $40 trillion in 2026 and is growing faster than the economy. The debt to GDP ratio now sits at 125%, the highest outside the pandemic and higher than World War II.
  • On September 9, 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rolled out an emergency plan for the government to lend money to itself. Ray Dalio now says the dollar has roughly three years before real pain.
  • Empires rarely default. They debase. Since 1971, median household income grew about 8x while houses grew 17x and the S&P 500 grew 360x, so investors got richer while workers fell behind.
Read More
September 9, 2026
Your 401k Is Fueling the AI Bubble
By Andre Savage
  • About $10 trillion of 401k money sits in a $77 trillion stock market, mostly through target date funds and S&P 500 funds. Roughly 30% of every S&P 500 dollar lands in five AI-heavy tech stocks.
  • Four bubble signals run hotter today than before the 2000 crash: top-ten concentration, tech's share of the index, the Buffett Indicator, and how much of the market index funds own.
  • You only lock in an AI bubble loss if you sell. The 2022, 2020, 2008, and 2000 crashes were all buying windows for long-term investors, and the US-China AI race means government money could keep flowing in.
Read More
September 9, 2026
What Is Wealth Preservation? How To Protect Your Money From Anything
By Nate Gregory
  • Wealth preservation is an investing strategy built around keeping the money you've already made instead of chasing growth.
  • It leans on assets that hold steady when markets fall - gold, Treasury bonds, and companies that keep earning through wars, crashes, and pandemics.
  • The tradeoff is real: you give up some upside, and the two key numbers to check are maximum drawdown and correlation to the market.
Read More
September 8, 2026
Why Is Everything So Expensive? Why Prices May Never Come Back Down
By Cierra Seay
  • Official inflation is 3.4% and prices are up 32% since 2020, but rent (41%), gas (47%), car insurance (64%) and ground beef (79%) all outran the 28% median wage.
  • The Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation on purpose. Rising prices push extra dollars to investors and shrink the real cost of a $40 trillion national debt.
  • Investors who simply owned the S&P 500 gained about 150% over the same six years, and the Fed's September 16 decision will show whether it protects the dollar or the economy first.
Read More
September 7, 2026
The U.S. Housing Market Just Flipped: Renting a Home Now Beats Buying One
By Kalbir Talwar
  • The US is in a buyer's market in 41 of the 50 largest metro areas, but prices sit near record highs and mortgage rates are close to 7%.
  • The same median house costs 27% more than it did in 2021 while the monthly payment costs 90% more, and incomes rose a little more than 10%.
  • A 2008-style crash is not showing up in the data, so the pressure is landing on buyers instead of prices.
Read More
September 4, 2026
An Interest Rate Hike in 2026? The Fed Just Broke Its Own Script
By Nate Gregory
  • The Federal Reserve spent a year signaling cheaper money, and its new chairman just warned that an interest rate hike may be coming instead.
  • The Fed is stuck between high inflation and a weak job market, and fixing one makes the other worse.
  • Higher rates also reprice roughly a third of America's $40 trillion national debt this year, which is why Washington wants cuts so badly.
Read More
September 3, 2026
5 Passive Income Ideas That Pay You Whether You Work or Not
By Jackson Moreland
  • School teaches one formula: work, earn, spend. Stop working and the money stops, so the wheel never ends.
  • Five assets pay you without your labor - dividends, rent, interest, royalties, and the things you already own.
  • $80,000 a year of cash flow takes about $1 million invested at 8%, or roughly 20 years of $1,000 a month.
Read More
September 2, 2026
The Best Way to Invest 10k: Three Options To Transform 10K into 10 Million
By Kalbir Talwar
  • Passive investing in stocks or real estate targets around 10% a year, and time in the market matters more than the price you get in at.
  • Active investing means putting your time in alongside your money, which raises the target to roughly 20% a year and raises the risk of losing it all.
  • Investing in yourself has no ceiling, because a new skill can create a new income that no market return can match.
Read More
1 2 3 … 26
Share via
Facebook
X (Twitter)
LinkedIn
Mix
Pinterest
Bluesky
Tumblr
Skype
Buffer
Pocket
VKontakte
Parler
Xing
Reddit
Line
Flipboard
MySpace
Delicious
Amazon
Digg
Evernote
Blogger
LiveJournal
Baidu
MeWe
NewsVine
Yummly
Yahoo
WhatsApp
Viber
SMS
Telegram
Facebook Messenger
Like
Email
Print
Copy Link
Copy link
CopyCopied