May 24, 2018 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Unless you’re invested in South Korean equities, President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel the June 12 summit with North Korea is a non-event in today’s financial markets. The iShares MSCI South Korea Capped ETF (EWY) was indeed down 1.60% as of 3 p.m. New York time, but the wider iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) is off just 0.61% and U.S. indexes are lower by even small amounts with the Standard & Poor’s 500 down 0.18%
April 20, 2018 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend, TBX |
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury climbed to 2.95% today, up 4 basis points on the day. That equals the high yield for 2018 set back in February. The driver this time is an increase in commodity prices that has revived fears of inflation
April 18, 2018 | Daily JAM, FANG, PXD, Short Term, STO |
West Texas Intermediate climbed 3.16% today to $68.80. Futures for May delivery moved over $68 a barrel for the first time in three years. Yesterday the American Petroleum Institute reported a 1.05 million barrel draw down in U.S. inventories. Today the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a drop in crude inventories of 1.1 million barrels. Energy analysts had projected an increase in inventories for the week ended April 13. But it’s not just near-term supply and demand figures that are pushing oil priced higher.
April 3, 2018 | Daily JAM, Short Term |
The financial markets decided that a global trade war wasn’t quite upon us yet this morning. That let stocks and oil bounce back a tad. But it also gave oil traders room to start worrying about oil supply again–after they spent Monday worrying that a global trade war would lead to a collapse in demand.
March 6, 2018 | Daily JAM |
Oil turned in a surprisingly positive day after the U.S. Energy Information Administration radically increased its projections for U.S. oil production in 2018 and 2019. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell just 0.18% today to close at $62.46 a barrel. International benchmark Brent actually gained 0.12% to $65.66 a barrel.
February 27, 2018 | Daily JAM |
The International Energy Agency today said that “explosive growth” in U.S. oil production from wells in shale geologies is likely to extend beyond 2018. As you might just imagine, an oil market that is struggling to believe that current levels of production cuts from OPEC are enough to balance supply and demand didn’t react well to the “explosive growth” characterization. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell 1.58% today
February 19, 2018 | Daily JAM |
The goal was to cut production enough to reduce global oil inventories to their five-year average. The hope of the coalition of OPEC and Russia that reduction in production would get oil prices up to $60 a barrel. Now with that inventory reduction just about in place and with oil at $60 a barrel, the Saudis are pushing for further production cuts and a target price of $70 a barrel.
January 11, 2018 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
U.S. crude oil inventories fell by a surprising large 4.95 million barrels last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. This took international benchmark Brent crude up as high as $70 a barrel during trading on Thursday before closing at $69.20 a barrel. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate closed at $63.57 a barrel. The move up to an intraday $70 a barrel raised the volume of voices calling that price unsustainable.
January 4, 2018 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
U.S. oil production rose to 9.782 million barrels a day last week from 9.754 million barrels per day in the prior week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Production had dropped in the prior week–the first week to week decline in two months. U.S. production has now climbed in 10 of the last 11 weeks. Better yet, rising production came along with declines in crude inventories.
December 14, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
No one should be surprised that U.S. oil shale producers are increasing production in reaction to higher oil prices after OPEC’s production cuts. The speed and the dimension of the increase, however, is more than previously hoped.
December 1, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
After climbing yesterday by 1.7% on news that OPEC and allies including Russia would extended their agreement to cut production through the end of the year, oil rallied again today. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate closed up 1.64% to $58.34 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude climbed 1.68% to $63.68 a barrel. The big surprise yesterday was that OPEC members Libya and Nigeria joined the agreement
November 27, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
On Friday oil futures hit a 29-month high. That took West Texas Intermediate to a gain of 8.5% in 2017 to date. However, energy stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 are off 9.8% when the S&P 500 itself is up more than 16% for 2017. Energy stocks normally go up when the price of oil rises Sp how do we explain the decline in energy shares at the same time as oil prices are rising?
