oil

Bloomberg oil analyst Javier Blas reported earlier today that Saudi Arabia has told OPEC that it lifted oil production in February, despite the ongoing OPEC production cut agreement with Russia.

For the first time in 3 months, oil dropped below $50 a barrel after crude inventories were shown rising by 8.2 million barrels last week. Inventory levels are now at their highest levels since the US government began recording data in…

If you want to know whwere Trump is headed on trade, don’t look at China or Mexico. Don’t even look at the UK. Canada is the country to watch for a number of reasons. First of all, Canada has an existing deal with the US and Mexico under…

When one thinks about why the US has outperformed, a lot of the analysis is destined to focus on fiscal and monetary policy. And while I think that’s an important thought process to go through, I believe that bank recapitalization and shale…

Last week I was talking about the Goldilocks scenario for the US. I think it is achievable. But this week, RBS tells us that the bears have killed Goldilocks. They say we should "sell everything". Of course, I am more bullish than RBS - or…

As Brent crude hits 11-year lows, it’s worth thinking about why it is so low and what the likely outcomes will be. Warren Mosler has a view I think works regarding the Saudis as swing producer, targeting quantity instead of price and I want…

Last week, the high yield market seized up, in part due to jitters surrounding a high profile freeze of funds at the Third Avenue Focus Credit fund. The big problem for Third Avenue was energy high yield credit and the contagion from that…

I have been pretty sanguine about the markets and the US economy. Yes, the commodities complex is worsening, but that doesn't mean this feeds through enough into other sectors to force the market down. And the real economy isn't at stall…

My argument has been that the US economy is not yet at stall speed and that recession is not on the horizon. However, I believe the US is slowing, and that, in conjunction with a strong dollar and the ongoing global growth slowdown, this…

The first time I wrote about shale oil resource misallocation in the wake of lower oil prices was back in October 2014, exactly a year ago. A lot has happened in that year, so I want to look back at the oil-related posts I have written in…