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25 posts tagged with "Oil"
This week I am at a conference in Houston. I must confess that I don't attend many of the sessions at most conferences where I speak. But today, the guys at Streettalk Advisors have such a great lineup that I am there for every session. But it's Friday and I need to write. The solution? This week...
As I mentioned last Monday night in my Outside the Box, I did not make it to Turks and Caicos, but did end up in Baton Rouge for a special seminar on the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill. I have both good news (or maybe more like less-bad news) and bad news. Today's letter is a report on what I...
Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can't help but wonder what's happenin' to my companions,
Are they lost or are they found, have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.
-...
Where are we headed in 2009? We will explore that in detail over the next few issues of Thoughts from the Frontline, but today we will start with some of the larger forces which will have a major impact on the economies of the world, and I will end with my usual attempt to forecast the various...
There are things in today's markets that are simply astounding. They should not exist, yet they do. Why should US bills trade at negative interest? How can oil be trading at all-time highs in terms of spreads over the next year? Bank debt and bonds are trading at discounts not to be believed. Want...
"It will therefore be crucial that you see the world anew. That means looking from the outside in to reanalyze much that you have probably taken for granted. This will enable you to come to an understanding. If you fail to transcend conventional thinking at a time when conventional thinking is...
This week we look at the housing market in some detail. When can we expect it to turn around? Part of the problem is that a new wave of foreclosures is coming due, and this time it is not subprime. And that means more problems for the large financial companies. Also, as predicted here, consumer...
"The stock market is a voting machine in the short run and a weighing machine in the long run." - Benjamin Graham
The voting part of the equation is tempered by fear and greed. It is largely emotional, although investors like to think of themselves as rational players. That emotion is driven by...
President Nixon instated price controls on the 15th of August, 1971. Inflation was a little over 4% at the time. Price controls manifestly did not work (resulting in shortages of all sorts and a deep recession) and were rescinded a few years later. President Ford went to Congress with programs to...
I remember in the summer of 2006 I would face my blank computer screen on a Friday and wonder, what I could write about? The media was all Goldilocks, all the time. Today, there is such a target-rich environment. I could probably write three letters a week, there is so much happening that is worthy...
Last week I wrote that we could see a drop in the price of oil as speculators seemed to be storing oil in very large tankers and "slow steaming" them to port in a bet that prices would rise. When everyone is on the same side of the trade, the time is right for a reversal. This is especially true...
Why has the price of oil risen so much in the past few months? Is it a supply and demand issue as some believe; or is it because of an out-of-control futures market driven by the proliferation of commodity index funds and rampant speculation, as everyone tries to get in on the rise in commodity...
My essay in Outside the Box last Monday seemed to ignite a lot of response in the blogosphere. My basic contention was that the Fed had to act to facilitate the sale of Bear to prevent a meltdown in the markets. Many agreed, but others said Bear should have been left to hang, pointing out that a...
As the World Turns is a popular soap opera playing on American TV. It focuses, as do most soaps, on the lives and foibles of its characters, with plenty of dramatic flair. We are watching a different type of soap opera today which we could call "As the Subprime Turns. And the world is watching. It...
Summer driving season is almost upon us. I remember more than a few long road trips with young kids, who would eventually get bored and tired and lulled into sleep, and with a stop for gas would wake up and ask, "Are we there yet?" or "Where are we?" They would be impatient to get "there" (ok,...
I got a lot of mail as usual from readers about my annual forecast. It was about evenly divided between those who think I am too much of an optimist and those who think the economy will avoid a recession. There are a number of readers who think we have already seen the bottom, and that 2007...
Today we take another look at the energy picture and how it will change over the next decade. Just as the world switched from whale oil to kerosene and from coal to diesel, we will see a change in how we find and use energy. That is inevitable. But the transition will not necessarily be easy or...
Today we begin what will be an intermittent series on oil and energy. Each and every year there is a need for more and more energy of all kinds. The one thing we can say with confidence is that energy demand and usage in the next 20 years is going to increase dramatically as more than half the...
It's a race to see what will be the cause, or maybe better put, what will be blamed for the next economic slowdown. Will it be oil and rising energy prices? What about a slowdown in the housing market? You can't count out the Fed raising interest rates as source of economic slowdown. If China...
How can we go from oil priced in the low teens only a few years ago to oil now holding steady in the mid-50s? This week we have seen a projected price spike of $105 from Goldman Sachs. Can you say $4 a gallon gasoline, boys and girls? $100 to fill up the tank of your SUV? This week we look at...
