Oil To Test Storage Capacity

Posted on by Robert Boslego

Timing when oil storage will be full is one of the key issues of interest in the oil market. It depends on how long stays depressed, or how quickly it can rebound, and how much oil producers are cutting output in the U.S. and worldwide. The answers are unknown, but I will try to outline what is known and likely.

Oil data in the U.S. is the most timely and accurate, so that’s a good place to start. Crude oil inventories in Cushing, Ok., the delivery hub for the NYMEX WTI crude futures contract, reached 59.7 million barrels in the week ending April 17. About 2.1 million is used for line fill, and so 57.7 million is the net stocks held in tank farms. That represents 76 % of net working storage of 76.1 million barrels.

Given the excess storage, it would not explain why trader panic drove oil prices negative just prior to the expiration of the May contract. The reason was that the remaining storage was leased. “The terminals have already contracted their storage 100%,” said Ernie Barsamian, chief executive officer of The Tank Tiger, a terminal storage clearinghouse, was quoted.

And so traders who were still long but could not take delivery had to sell at any price. And buyers got Continue reading "Oil To Test Storage Capacity" →

Gold Miners And Inflation

Posted on by Gary Tanashian

I think the case is closed, or it should be closed. But with firmly ingrained perceptions passed down from one generation of inflationist gold bugs to the next, you never know. Remember the old dismissive “gold is silver is copper is tin is oil is hogs” line from the 2003-2008 time frame? Probably not, but I remember it because it was me saying it against an army of inflationist commodity and resources bulls advising to buy gold, buy silver, buy oil… buy resources of all kinds to protect yourself from the evils of inflation!

As an interlude, here is a pleasant interaction I had with a reader (actually, the interaction was his in a comment to an article of mine, but you get the drift) during the 2016 gold sector launch that ultimately proved to be ill-fated by mid-year because… inflation.

I’m sick of internet d******s and the lying media and govt trying to tell me there’s no inflation! Inflation in the US is VERY HIGH. Its currently 8.3%, and has averaged 9.5% over the past 7 years.

Dude, the article was about why gold stocks do not benefit from inflation and why at that time the backdrop was positive (again, it degraded badly later in the year as inflation reared its head). Of course, there is inflation, all along the Continuum of deflationary macro signaling against which they routinely spray the stuff out of fire hoses, like now for example.

Without the secular decline in Treasury bond yields and complete abdication of the mythical Bond market Inflation Vigilantes, the decades-long inflationary regime would not be possible. Jerome Powell was unimaginably hawkish during the market correction of late 2018. The herd could not understand why, but we could. Inflation signals were getting out of hand as the yield spent a couple of months above the Continuum’s limiter (monthly EMA 100).

30 year bond yield

But sure enough, that got fixed as we suspected it would as the Continuum got hammered down since then into today’s deflationary doldrums. The Continuum has reloaded the inflation gun yet again as yields have tanked and bonds have bulled ever since. Continue reading "Gold Miners And Inflation" →

Gold Futures Trade At Seven Year High

Posted on by Mike Seery

Gold Futures

Gold futures in the June contract settled last Friday in New York at 1,698 while currently trading at 1,740 up over $40 for the week continuing it's bullish momentum while still experiencing high volatility.

At the current time, I do not have any precious metal recommendations as I was stopped out of silver earlier in the week. However, if you are long a futures contract, I would place the stop loss under the April 21st low of 1,666 as an exit strategy as this is a very high-risk trade with large price swings that we experience daily. For the bullish momentum to continue, prices have to break the April 14th high of 1,788 in my opinion as we are witnessing a bullish trend as we are above the 20 and 100-day moving average. However, the problem with this market at the current time is that it has large sell-offs and then comes back every single time, but it has not been an easy trade to the upside even though we are trading at a 7-year high.

Economic stimulus continues to support prices as the U.S. government is putting trillions of dollars into the economy because of the Coronavirus situation as that is supportive towards the precious metals as trading this commodity should only be dealt with large trading accounts due to the risk.

TREND: HIGHER
CHART STRUCTURE: POOR
VOLATILITY: HIGH

Coffee Futures

Coffee futures in the July contract settled last Friday in New York at 117.55 while currently trading at 109.60 a pound down about 800 points for the trading week hitting a 5-week low as prices look to head back down to the 100 level in my opinion. Continue reading "Gold Futures Trade At Seven Year High" →

The Financial Cohort and COVID-19 Destabilizing

Posted on by Noah Kiedrowski

COVID-19 ushered in the real possibility of widespread loan defaults, liquidity issues, ballooning credit card debt, and stressed mortgages. To exacerbate these COVID-19 realizations, a delicate balance between interest rates, Federal Reserve commentary, yield curve inversion, and concerns over a potential/scale of depression in late 2020 must be attained. The financial cohort is in a difficult space as the broader economic backdrop continues to dictate whether these stocks can appreciate higher. Ironically, in 2019 banks logged record share buybacks and increased dividend payouts stemming from successful stress tests. The initial shock of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the market capitalizations of many large banks to be cut by ~50%. Some of the largest banking institutions such as Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), and Bank of America (BAC) were sold off in the most aggressive manner since the Financial Crisis. At these depressed levels, are the banks investable in light of the COVID-19 backdrop?

Destabilizing Effects of COVID-19

COVID-19 has materialized into the black swan event that only comes along on the scale of decades. This COVID-19 induced sell-off has been the worst since the Great Depression in terms of breadth and velocity of the sell-off. This health crisis has crushed stocks and decimated entire industries such as airlines, casinos, travel, leisure, and retail with others in the crosshairs. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones have shed approximately a third of their market capitalization, with the sell-offs coming in at 33%, 29%, and 36%, respectively, in late March. Some individual stocks have lost over 80% of their market capitalization and now run the risk of filing for bankruptcy.

The longer the COVID-19 economic shut down persists, the higher the unemployment will rise. More companies will run the risk of Continue reading "The Financial Cohort and COVID-19 Destabilizing" →

Crude Oil Dominates Market Action

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Crude oil was the determining factor for market direction all week. It all started four days ago when crude oil traded into negative territory for the first time ever, trading down negative $37.63 a barrel, a decline of some 305%, or $55.90 a barrel. That drove the stock market down early in the week.

However, as crude oil tried to bounce back the rest of the week, it failed to wipe out its early week losses, but it wasn't enough to end the week in the green for crude oil or stocks for that matter. Continue reading "Crude Oil Dominates Market Action" →