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Crude Contradictions Therefore Uncertainty And Big Volatility

By |2022-05-13T17:59:34-04:00May 13th, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

This one took some real, well, talent. It was late morning on April 11, the crude oil market was in some distress. The price was falling faster, already down sharply over just the preceding two weeks. Going from $115 per barrel to suddenly less than $95, there was some real fear there.But what really caught my attention was the flattening [...]

OK, NYMEX, Go On…

By |2021-03-18T19:55:52-04:00March 18th, 2021|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Well, that will get everyone’s attention, at least for now. Should something happen to the crude oil rocketship, there goes inflation. A day after the FOMC releases substantial upward revisions to inflation rates its models now project for this year, the NYMEX pits jump all over them with oil’s worst day since just after last April’s negative price turmoil. Before [...]

Hot Oil, Cold Weather, Uncle Sam’s Green

By |2021-02-24T19:24:35-05:00February 24th, 2021|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For a couple of weeks, the $600 payments from Uncle Sam seemed to have found their way into the tanks of Americans driving their automobiles a little bit more than they had. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the total amount of gasoline “supplied” by the domestic marketplace reached 8.4 mbpd the second week of February. Like retail [...]

Oil’s Recurrent Re-Curving

By |2021-01-27T17:37:46-05:00January 27th, 2021|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The post-Pfizer vaccine rush pushed most of the contango out of the WTI futures curve. The aftermath of the Georgia Senate vote, and with it dreams of even larger, more carefree fiscal “stimulus”, drained all the rest. As of this week, the entire crude curve is once more contango-free; backwardation front to back.The physical markets have been able to fundamentally [...]

Inflation Hysteria #2 (WTI)

By |2020-12-09T17:20:13-05:00December 9th, 2020|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Sticking with our recent theme, a big part of what Inflation Hysteria #1 (2017-18) also had going for it was loosened restrictions for US oil producers. Seriously. Legacy of the 1970’s experience depending too much on OPEC, subject to embargoes, American oil companies had been prohibited for decades from exporting oil. Not that it would have mattered before 2014, the [...]

Vaccines and Senate Subsidies, Ls and Ks

By |2020-12-02T19:15:41-05:00December 2nd, 2020|Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

In a sense, it’s being priced like a game of chicken. On the one side, there’s been vaccine-aphoria now combined with this week’s subsidy-mania driving narratives more than markets. Really not all that much higher in prices, certainly not anywhere in the neighborhood of the red-hot temperature of the rhetoric being used to describe these two particular developments. Oil’s up [...]

COT Black: No Love For Super-Secret Models

By |2020-04-27T18:13:03-04:00April 27th, 2020|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

As I’ve said, it is a threefold failure of statistical models. The first being those which showed the economy was in good to great shape at the start of this thing. Widely used and even more widely cited, thanks to Jay Powell and his 2019 rate cuts plus “repo” operations the calculations suggested the system was robust.Because of this set [...]

COT Black Is Partially Back With A Lot of Towels

By |2019-02-06T16:33:23-05:00February 6th, 2019|Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is in a bit of a tough spot. Being subject to the federal government shutdown meant shutting down the various Commitment of Traders (COT) reports for all the products listed on the exchange. There are a lot of them. Though the government and therefore the CFTC has reopened, it is going to be some [...]

Elections And Morbid Contango

By |2018-11-07T15:56:32-05:00November 7th, 2018|Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets|

As always, it’s about the whole thing. A true economic boom spreads out real gains to the vast majority of the population. There will always be some proportion of people who are left out. But in the good ones, the true upswings, that share is minimal. This is the big problem right now, especially as GDP has been positive in [...]

COT Black: Powell Better Thank Congress While He Can

By |2018-08-28T12:02:04-04:00August 28th, 2018|Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Who can Jerome Powell thank for the PCE Deflator? Not Janet Yellen who handed off to him instead “transitory” factors. Nor was it globally synchronized growth which was supposed to have been the deciding element. Instead, it appears more and more that the only place where Chairman Powell might legitimately offer his gratitude is the US Congress. We have to [...]

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