1.Select a research topic of your choice based on a business issue and Essay

1.Select a research topic of your choice based on a business issue and design a research proposal for this topic - Essay Example Crude oil is valued in terms of dollars per barrels of gallons in the international markets (BALKE 1997). The aim of the research here is to analyze the influence of shifts in Crude oil prices to the general economic performance due to its immediate influence on the World’s leading stock markets. The study is aimed at finding the changes that do occur in the stock markets which are related to increases or fall in the crude oil prices. The data gathered in the study will be analyzed to a certain the influences of fluctuations on Crude oil prices on inflations (BALKE 1997). Crude oil prices stability in the international market is always short term in nature. As a result such fluctuations have always shown influences on the world commodity prices in one way or the other. From mid-2010, there was a considerable increase in commodity prices as oil prices rose by 40%. During this time there was an incredible increase in food items costs and other farm products, metals and precious commodities like minerals and gem stones rose at a faster rate than ever experience before the energy price changes. Increase in energy prices therefore resulted in the upsurge of prices for food commodities due to the high demand for energy in the production of grains (BALKE 1997). Fluctuations on oil prices do occur following developments on the equity markets which is influenced by crisis in the market such as those of European debt crisis. During this time, the OPEC Reference Basket showed an average of $ 106.32/b, which represented a decline in the previous price level by over $ 5.30. In this period the crude oil future market, the Nymex WTI front-month rose to average $ 86.43/b. Crude Oil price hikes sometimes can be attributed to other factors such as demand. Increased demand for energy in the international markets can be attributed to the increasing economic