Volatility
March 1, 2022 | DAC, Daily JAM, NMM, Volatility |
Back in October 2021 (on October 7 to be exact) I added shares of Danaos (DAC) and Navios Maritime Partners (NMM) to my Volatility Portfolio. Disruptions in the global supply chain had produced a bidding war by companies willing to pay almost anything to get their goods, components, and raw materials from Point A to Point B. And these two shipping giants were positioned to reap the rewards of that chaos. Today, though, the chaos is on the other foot (so to speak).
February 27, 2022 | COP, Daily JAM, DAL, EQNR, Jubak Picks, LNG, PXD, Volatility |
On Saturday the European Union nations that control SWIFT, the dominant global network connecting banks, announced that they would expel some specific Russian banks from the network. The U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom agreed with the move. The U.S. and its European allies left open the question of sanctions directly on Russia’s central bank.
The move to deny access to SWIFT means that the named Russian banks, and I’m not naming them because I haven’t been able to find a list, won’t be able to pay other banks or receive funds from other banks. They will not be able to transact business with international banks over the SWIFT network for their client businesses. I’d expect that out of an abundance of understandable caution, many Western banks will refuse to do business with Russian banks at all.
February 24, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Volatility |
Oil and other fossil fuels aren’t going to go quietly. And it’s extremely unlikely that the countries whose global power is predicated on oil are going to give up that power easily. From this viewpoint, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first in the next generation of energy wars, as fossil-fuel powers fight to extend their power into a new global energy age.
February 17, 2022 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility |
$2.2 trillion of options are set to expire on Friday. That includes $545 billion on individual stocks, Goldman Sachs estimates. And about $985 billion of S&P 500-linked contracts and $165 billion in options tied to the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), the world’s largest exchange-traded fund, Bloomberg reports.
During the last year equity indexes have shown a reliable pattern of lurching lower near the expiration Friday
February 11, 2022 | COP, Daily JAM, EQNR, Jubak Picks, LNG, Morning Briefing, PXD, Volatility |
International benchmark Brent crude jumped as much as 4.7% to $95 a barrel for the first time since 2014. Brent was up 23.68% and trading at $94.77 at 3 p.m. New York time Friday. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate, which normally trades below Brent in price, was up 4% to $93.50 a barrel at 3 p.m. in New York.
February 3, 2022 | COP, Daily JAM, EQNR, Jubak Picks, LNG, PXD, Volatility, XLE |
U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate rose above $90 a barrel–it closed at $90.87, up 0.60% for the day, for the first time since 2014. International benchmark Brent crude gained 0.42% to close at $91.53 a barrel. Of course, it took a wild confluence of events to push prices above $90.
February 1, 2022 | COP, Daily JAM, EQNR, Jubak Picks, LNG, PXD, Stock Alerts, Volatility |
OPEC+ meets tomorrow and the oil cartel and friends like Russia is expected to approve an increase in production that will reduce last year’s cuts in production. But the odds are that the decision won’t matter.
February 1, 2022 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Yesterday stocks reversed direction big time. After days of pounding lower the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 1.89% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.17% The NASDAQ Composite climbed 3.41% and the NASDAQ 100 tacked on 3.29%. Even the small cap Russell 2000 gained 3.05%. On those numbers I ‘d say the days action looks like a big oversold bounce off of a truly terrible January. But dig a little deeper and it looks like something else–or maybe additional somethings–was going on.
January 24, 2022 | Daily JAM, Videos, Volatility |
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My ninety-second YouTube video “Trend of the Week Even More Volatility in Treasuries” went up today.
January 24, 2022 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility |
When I posted over the weekend that coming increase in interest rates from the Federal Reserve and the possibility of soaring energy prices from a Russia/Ukraine conflict and the ensuring sanctions by Western allies against Russia constituted a double whammy on emerging market assets and developing economies. A strong dollar and higher U.S. interest rates would exacerbate a looming debt crisis (yes, yet again) in the developing world, and higher oil and natural gas prices (and tighter supplies) would hit developing economies really really hard. I said then that I’d be looking for hedges to insure against and profit from the downside risk in emerging market assets. Well, things have moved faster than I expected
January 23, 2022 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Emerging markets and developing economies are looking at two very big and relatively near-term threats. First, and we know this one is coming, interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve could trigger a new debt crisis. Developing country debt repayments to creditors are already running at their highest level in two decades–even before higher U.S. interest rate and a strong dollar increase the burden on emerging markets and currencies.
January 21, 2022 | COP, Daily JAM, EQNR, Jubak Picks, LNG, PXD, Short Term, Volatility |
On Saturday, January 15, in my “Saturday Night Quarterback” post wrote that conflict (a more comprehensive term than “war) between Russia and Ukraine remained a low probability event–but that the probability wasn’t zero and the the odds of conflict had increased in the past month. What’s happened since then? The odds of conflict have climbed
