Posts Tagged
‘OPEC’
by Phil - March 16th, 2010 8:13 am
The dollar is diving and the futures are flying this morning!
Word is that the Fed will remain doveish in their 2:15 statement today with no sign of tightening in the near future. That has (as of 7:30) rallied gold 1.5% to $1,115 and oil is back over $80 and copper is $3.35 again while the Euro jumps back to $1.375 and even the British Pound squeezes the hell out of the shorts as it flies from $1.497 at 3:30 to $1.514 (1%) in 4 hours, which is a pretty big move for FOREX!
The EU also helped themselves by laying out a groundwork for a financial lifeline to debt-stricken Greece, breaking a taboo against aid to cash-strapped governments in order to avert a crisis for the euro. Officials from the 16 countries using the currency worked out a strategy for emergency loans in case Greece’s plan for 4.8 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in tax increases and wage cuts fails to stave off fiscal disaster. “We clarified the technical arrangements that would enable us to take coordinated action which could be swiftly put into place in the event it is necessary,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters late yesterday after leading a meeting of Euro-area finance officials in Brussels.
The EU is also meeting to discuss ways to reign in hedge funds and credit-default swaps but the revised bill from Chris Dodd is now so watered down by compromise that it no longer requires regulators to agree that excluding a swap from being cleared “is necessary and appropriate for the reduction of systemic risk.” So what’s the point? The problem is that there are $605 TRILLION Dollars of CDS’s written against a Global GDP of $50Tn. Usually, it’s a red flag for the police when a person insures their home for 12 times what it’s worth, right?
Hexagon Securities LLC and at least 19 other financial firms are pressing regulators to force swaps clearinghouses to lower entry barriers in order to improve competition in a $605 trillion derivatives market dominated by the world’s biggest banks. They also seek tougher conflict-of-interest laws to ensure that a bank’s derivatives desk doesn’t influence clearinghouse decisions that could shut out new competitors. ROFL - move to Russia, you Commies! This is America, where big banks rule and "firms with less than $5Bn net worth" drool! See, my daughters taught me that one - wins every argument!
Speaking of people who rule our lives - Saudi Oil Minister,…
Tags: Bernanke, C, Dollar, Fed, GS, Housing, JPM, Oil, OPEC, UNG, USO, XLF, XOM
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by ilene - March 6th, 2010 1:18 pm
By Phil
Commodities are a TAX. They are the worst kind of tax because they flatly (not progressively) charge every man woman and child in this country more money for the same food, fuel, shelter and clothing that they had to have last week in order to live. It doesn’t matter if those people are trying to save or trying to tighten their belts or trying to get out of debt - high commodity prices are a shake-down that rips money out of the pockets of the middle class and funnels it to the very, very small class of commodity producers, commodity speculators and the people who finance them and collect the fees.
Over 99% of the people in this country do not own mines or oil wells (and I’m not counting small farmers because they are literally raped by speculators and bankers, often leaving them worse-off than the consumers) or huge plantations and they do not buy futures contracts on margin with cash they borrow at prime plus 0.5% nor do they own tankers filled with 2M barrels of crude that they arbitrage along the crack spread, looking for an opportune moment to deliver their goods (hopefully during a crisis) at a maximum profit.
So 99% of the people in this country don’t even own a commodity ETF - they have no way to profit from high commodity prices and they need to eat, and they need to buy clothing and have shelter and they need fuel to heat or cool their homes and go from place to place. There is a word for people like that, at the bottom end of a transaction they have no control over - VICTIMS!
The American people are the victims of a $2.5Tn commodity scam - 50 times bigger than the Madoff scandal, pretty much one Madoff PER WEEK yet they sit there and take it because those same commodity pushers are major advertisers in the media - so there are no stories about it and the commodity pushers are massive campaign contributors with armies of lobbyists so our Government does nothing about it other than show up to parties and go on junkets. In fact, do you know who the single largest hoarder of oil was in the last decade? It was the US Government as George the Second purchased 240 MILLION barrels of oil AT ANY PRICE, creating a spike…
Tags: Bush, commodity crisis, commodity prices, Federal government, Oil, OPEC
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by Phil - February 26th, 2010 8:27 am
Wow, a 6% GDP!
I’m guessing as it’s only 7:30 but WOW! What an amazing economy this must be in the fantasy-land where they concoct these numbers. Let’s see, we have 138M working people so we must have added 8.6M jobs, right? NO??? Well, then the people who are working must be putting in a lot of overtime, right? No? I know, everybody must be making 6% more money than last year! No? Well, then it must be coming through in benefits, right? No? Hmm, this is a hard game isn’t it? I KNOW!!! Housing prices - with China-like GDP growth our housing market must be red hot and surely our homes are up 6% in value! No? Damn, I feel like I’m playing deal or no deal and I picked the case with the penny…
Just like our discussion about what total BS the CPI was - GDP is no different. GDP is the sum of Consumption, Investment, Government Spending and Net Exports which means a combination of inflation and government spending can boost our GDP even as real consumption falls and the rising dollar papers over export losses. In other words - I buy $100Bn worth of Toyotas (5M at $20,000 each) from Japan with the dollar at 85 Yen. Now the dollar rises to 93 Yen and I’m "only" buying $90Bn worth of Toyotas (5M at $18,000 each) and our GDP for that segment is up 10%. Wow - FANTASTIC!
Are we happy? Are more Americans working? Is there more shipping? Are there more sales at the Toyota dealership? No. Is Japan happy? Not at all, they are getting less money for the same cars. Another group that hasn’t been happy are the oil exporters, who shipped us an average of 10.5 Million barrels a day at an average price of $60 last year ($630M) and are now shipping us just 8.5Mbd at $80 last week ($680M). Sure they are still getting their $680M a day by choking off production and creating false supply shortages, but they miss the days when they were able to charge us $100 for 11Mbd.
Don’t worry my OPEC pals, JPM and the other oil manipulators are working very hard to make sure you once again have Billions of more American dollars that you can funnel to terrorists and this Democratic Congress turns the same blind eye to the shenanigans as the previous administration did so happy days will soon be here again as our leaders have the unmitigated gall to get up…
Tags: CHINA, CPI, Cramer, GDP, GS, JPM, Oil, OPEC, Steel, Stiglitz, terrorism, TM
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by ilene - December 30th, 2009 8:54 pm
Courtesy of Vincent Fernando at Clusterstock/The Business Insider
According the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest energy outlook, while world energy consumption is expected to grow in 2010, it will only be adding 1.1 million barrels of consumption and will remain below its past peak consumption.
This tepid demand growth will butt against production increases for many non-OPEC oil producers, which means that OPEC will be under substantial pressure to limit its output, and obviously will.
Yet this will require massive discipline for the member nations given that OPEC’s surplus crude oil production capacity will actually rise in 2010, after a huge increase in surplus capacity during 2009. 2010 will see the worst OPEC overcapacity situation since 2002, as shown below.
EIA: Through the forecast period, OPEC surplus crude oil production capacity should remain in excess of 4 million bbl/d, versus an average of 2.8 million bbl/d seen over the 1998-2008 period.
See Also:
Tags: Commodities, Economy, Energy, International, Markets, Oil, OPEC
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by Phil - December 30th, 2009 4:58 am
Is "extortion" too strong a word for what’s being done to us?
Extortion is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical pain/injury or psychological harm in order to enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further harm may lead to the cooperation or obedience of the person being coerced.
Perhaps there is not much we can do to stop the criminal cartel known as OPEC from withholding the supply of oil (they have cut production by 5M barrels a day globally in the past 18 months) or the US Energy cartel that has taken 32.4% of the US rigs off-line in the past 12 months - EVEN though oil prices are UP 100% over the same time period. I’m sure, if called to testify before Congress, T Boone and company will do some song and dance to pretend the economics of $80 oil justify 32.4% less drilling than $40 oil did last December rather than the very obvious fact that, by cutting off 32% of our supply, they were able to EXTORT us, to force us to pay through trickery and the pressure of witholding a vital commodity - an extra $40 per barrel.
$40 a barrel is costing the US consumer $760M a day - and that’s without the refining mark-up. $760M a day is $277Bn a year stolen from US citizens alone and over $1Tn globally - that’s 20 Madoff scams a year! If the oil companies were witholding water or air from us and demanding more money for something they were able to readily produce more of, then we would KNOW it was torture, right? Why should oil be different? It’s not a choice - for good or ill, we need energy to survive in this modern world every bit as much as we need air and water yet we allow both the blatant cartel of OPEC as well as the private cartel of US petroleum producers to manipulate the supply of energy and FORCE us to pay far more than the market rate could possibly be if the supply were not ARTIFICIALLY constrained.
Last…
Tags: BP, GE, ICE, JPM, MRO, Oil, OPEC, RDSA, XOM
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by Phil - November 11th, 2009 6:18 am
$2.5 Trillion - That’s the size of of the global oil scam.
It’s a number so large that, to put it in perspective, we will now begin measuring the damage done to the global economy in "Madoff Units" ($50Bn rip-offs). That’s right - $2.5Tn is 50 TIMES the amount of money that Bernie Madoff scammed from investors in his lifetime, yet it is also LESS than the MONTHLY EXCESS price the global population is being manipulated into paying for a barrel of oil.
Where is the outrage? Where are the investigations?
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP, TOT, Shell, DB and Societe General founded the Intercontinental Exchange in 2000. ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace. It is outside the US and operates free from the constraints of US laws. The exchange was set up to facilitate "dark pool" trading in the commodities markets. Billions of dollars are being placed on oil futures contracts at the ICE and the beauty of this scam is that they NEVER take delivery, per se. They just ratchet up the price with leveraged speculation using your TARP money. This year alone they ratcheted up the global cost of oil from $40 to $80 per barrel.
A Congressional investigation into energy trading in 2003 discovered that ICE was being used to facilitate "round-trip" trades. Round-trip” trades occur when one firm sells energy to another and then the second firm simultaneously sells the same amount of energy back to the first company at exactly the same price. No commodity ever changes hands. But when done on an exchange, these transactions send a price signal to the market and they artificially boost revenue for the company. This is nothing more than a massive fraud, pure and simple.
"Traders of the the ICE core membership (GS, MS, BP, DB, RDS.A, GLE & TOT) wouldn’t really have to put much money at risk by their standards in order to move or support the global market price via the BFOE market. Indeed the evolution of the Brent market has been a response to declining production and the fact that traders could not resist manipulating the market by buying up contracts and “squeezing” those who had sold oil they did not have. The fewer cargoes produced, the easier the underlying market is to manipulate." - Chris Cook, Former Director of the International Petroleum Exchange, which was bought by ICE.
How widespread are “round-trip’‘ trades? The Congressional Research Service looked at trading patterns in the energy sector and this is what they reported: This pattern of trading…
Tags: BP, DB, Enron, GLE, ICE, Madoff, MS, Oil, Oil Scam, OPEC, RDSA, TOT
Posted in Immediately available to public, Members Only | 16 Comments »
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by ilene - August 13th, 2009 2:49 pm
Courtesy of Lawrence Delevingne at Clusterstock
We found another oil bear, but this one’s not quite as extreme as Robert Prechter (who thinks oil will crash to $10).
Edward Morseis, Managing Director of Louis Capital Markets and an ex-State Department energy official, argues in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs that oil prices won’t shoot back to the moon, as key producers boost production and capacity:
…Last year’s high prices and the recession have severely damped demand, and the growth of new production capacity, especially in Saudi Arabia, is buoying supplies.
The rapid fall and then rebound in oil prices over the past year surprised many people. But it was not unusual: commodities markets are cyclical by nature and have a history punctuated by sudden turning points. Although this generally makes it difficult to forecast prices, it is safe to say that commodities markets will remain lower over the next few years than they have been over the past five. In the oil industry, the most important new factor that accounts for low prices is the return of surplus production capacity among the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for the first time since 2002–3.
Later on, Moresis astutely points out it’s not in OPEC’s interest to spike oil. "[Saudi Arabia] will likely use its surplus capacity to keep prices moderate in order to spur global economic growth, maintain long-term demand for oil, and deter investments in alternative sources of energy."
Low oil prices is great news, so long as the administration remains focused on its alternative energy plans. Foreign Affairs suggests cheap oil presents an opportunity "to make energy markets less volatile and strike arrangements with producing countries that will better serve the United States’ long-term interests."
If we pull a redux of the 80’s though, and forget about the energy problem, lower oil prices could actually be our enemy.
See Also:
Prechter: Oil Will Crash To $10 A Barrel
Tags: Commodities, Economy, Energy, Goldman Sachs, International, Investing, Markets, Oil, OPEC, Robert Prechter, Wall Street
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by Phil - June 2nd, 2009 6:41 am
Oh so close yesterday!
I predicted the exact top in the morning post, saying: "A real Free Money Day if the US markets try to catch up (that would take us to 8,750 on the Dow!)." One thing we know at PSW is not to turn down money when they are giving it away and our ONLY play of the day was grabbing the DIA $88 calls at $1 (which we exited just under my top call at $1.45, up 45% for the day) and we added the DIA $89 calls at .88, exiting those at $1.02 (up 16% for the day) which helped take the sting out of our USO puts, which we stuck with despite the run. Other than that, we added one hedge and just watched the fun from the sidelines, still loving our cash as the markets tested our 40% (off the top) targets.
The 40% levels I laid out yesterday were: Dow 8,413, Nasdaq 1,717, S&P 946, NYSE 6,232, Russell 514, SOX 329 and Transports 1,868. The Nasdaq and Dow were already over so it was all about the Russell, NYSE and S&P which, as you can see from David Fry’s chart, made a brief spike up at 2pm, hitting 947 on the index and 95 on the SPY before pulling back to finish just under our 946 target. The NYSE fell just short of our mark, topping out at 6,202 at about the same time but the Russell became our 3rd index over the mark and held 521 into the close, their best level since we fell off a cliff in November. We are, of course, still waiting for the Transports, who made a huge 71-point effort (4%) yesterday and finished at 1,791 despite $68 oil. Note that the transports tried leading us in early May and were at 1,909 at the beginning of the month so not all that impressive until they break that. The SOX, on the other hand, have broken over their May top with a 5.3% gain on the day (14 points) that took them to 285, still 15% off the mark but a very nice effort! Our big concern yesterday was the VIX went up (4%) with the markets and closed back at 30, indicating a lot of put buying into our rally.
Geithner is over in China and we are at a very critical inflection point on the dollar, which bounced off downside resistance at 78.50, which is just about our December…
Tags: debt, Dollar, Geithener, Oil, OPEC, SPY, USO
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by Phil - May 29th, 2009 7:03 am
Clearly there are people who will do anything for money.
In the classic movie, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," the characters all lie, cheat, steal and kill as they chase after a chache of government gold. They all kill, they all try to kill each other and the only character trait they all share is they will all do anything for money. We are lucky enough to have a modern version of that, with our own government supplying GOLDman Sachs and other bad market manipulators with TARP money, which they are using to, not to lend money to the good citizens of the US but rather to prop up the commodities market, stealing Billions of dollars from the very people they claimed they were going to help.
Since the November bail-out, consumer lending had gone down, home foreclosures have gone up, unemployment has gone up, housing has gone down yet the CRB has gone up 25%, led by oil, which is up 88% at $66 this morning. $66 oil is a noose around the neck of this economy as the it was cheaper oil that helped us begin to recover as it stayed around $40 from November through the beginning of March. On a per barrel basis alone, that was $500M a day LESS than we are paying now but, despite the fact that oil is still 54% in price from this time last year, gasoline has gone up so fast that it’s only down 23% from the prices that knocked the wheels out from our economy. Including refined products, that extra $26 a barrel is costing US consumers $1Bn a day, $365Bn a year or 1/2 of the TARP money going straight out of our economy and back to the countries that fund terrorism through the very ugly hands of GS (who are partners in ICE) and other TARP recipients who have funded and coordinated this commodity "rally," screwing the American people over with our own tax dollars.
Aside from the very obvious upgrades by the TARP-sponsored Financial houses of anything and everything that even smells like oil and the GE-sponsored 24/7 pump-fest on CNBC, we now have Goldman Sachs this morning telling the sheeple specifically to: "sell Petrobras October $34 put options for $1.95 because a U.S. economic recovery and lower petrochemical supplies will limit declines in the price of oil." What Goldman does not mention is that they were one of the "large speculators" that increased…
Tags: BP, Dollar, Euro, GDP, Goldman Sachs, GS, ICE, MRO, Oil, OPEC, TARP, VLO
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by Phil - May 28th, 2009 8:27 am
Is this fun or what?!
I love it when a plan comes together and we have been nailing these crazy market moves. I have to admit Cramer had me worried on Tuesday night as we were short into the evening as the master said: "Let this be a lesson to all investors: Watch for these kinds of bull-market pullbacks, because they often precede a continued move higher… All they needed was a catalyst, any old excuse, and that’s where consumer confidence comes in." Fortunately, Jim’s jubilation was short-lived (and this is a great flip-flop on last night’s show) and we were able to press our shorts in the morning off my premise that the Consumer Confidence was BS that would be quickly reversed and we made enough in yesterday’s decline to finish the day with some bullish speculation. I don’t mean to pick on Cramer but, as David Fry wisely points out in his chart, it would be nice if he just admitted he has no clue and people should just be cautious.
While we are still mainly in cash and just having fun betting against Cramer’s sheeple, we went a little bullish on the Dow for the overnights (covering our long DIA puts) on the assumption that Obama would probably not have touted economic progress yesterday if they weren’t expecting some good data backing it up. As I said to members before we even got the speech at 2:18: "It’s not the kind of thing you’d want to say if you knew there was some bad data coming up so I have to assume that we’re going to get an upward revision to Q1 GDP on Friday or, in the very least, jobless claims should be below 600K tomorrow so I don’t want to be short overnight."
One thing we did short is oil and we loaded up on the USO puts as they climbed higher ahead of an OPEC meeting that we expected would yield nothing but sound bites. That went about as expected and we had great fun in member chat this morning already shorting the oil futures as they raced up to a failed test of $64. I am really happy with our short oil position as it turns out we can add OPEC to the list of nations that are counting on other nations to pull them out of a slump to the circle now goes like this: OPEC is counting on stronger demand from China, Japan and…
Tags: DHT, DIA, Durable Goods, Oil, OPEC, TNK, unemployment, USO
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(