The 2018 oil rally is happening at breakneck speed.
As I write this, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is above $66 a barrel, while Brent crude is breaching $71 a barrel for the first time since December 2014.
That means, as of Wednesday's close, WTI has risen 12.2% for the month; Brent 8.1%.
Now, I've written about the narrowing of the global crude oil balance for some time.
But it's looking more and more like that balance is arriving quicker than anticipated.
And this is what it'll mean for oil prices...
Much of my earlier career in intelligence was based on a simple assumption. It was the kind of approach the "craft" shares with a number of other pursuits.
One expects that the usual usually happens.
You look for outliers, patterns that don't fit the normal profile, or events emerging from unexpected quarters. Everything else is largely ignored, filed away, or filtered out.
Which makes the primary approach energy pundits have to geopolitical elements curious.
Perhaps it's because some of them are so young they have no genuine personal experience to fall back on.
Or maybe it's a reflection of this crowd's pervasive lack of any historical understanding that requires something further back than a 200-day moving average.
Many of these commenters paint the rise of a global flashpoint as an exception to some "rule."
The textbook (and largely fictitious) portrayal of a normal market in which supply and demand intersect to create price without any other factors intervening is still regarded as what markets do most of the time.
In other words, the thought is that the usual usually happens, with an event now and then upsetting the "natural" order of things. Maybe that was the case a century ago.
But it's certainly not today, with immediate worldwide news followed (unfortunately) by half-baked immediate analysis.
The difference here is striking. Crisis is not the exception.
Crisis drives the energy markets because it has been the main ingredient producing swings in prices for some time.
Actually, the connection between international crises and the price of crude oil has been rather direct.
The reason is straightforward...
by Shah Gilani
Back on July 4, I got in touch to talk about how and why my premium members are enjoying nice gains of 44% per day, confidently playing one of the market's wildest, most radioactive sectors.
Well, we had another whirlwind week with another 100% gain, thanks to one simple strategy I use that puts you in position to clean up whether stocks move up or down.
It's called the straddle, and Wall Street wants you to think it's complicated, but it couldn't be simpler.
Let me show you how it's done so you can try it yourself…
by
Mike Caggeso Associate Editor Investors backed away from Australian bank Macquarie Group Ltd. – despite a 45% gain in first-half profit – after Chief Financial Officer Greg Ward warned that the "very, very favourable equity market" the company enjoyed in the first half "may not be as favourable in the second half." Shares of Australia's […]
by
By Jason Simpkins Staff Writer First it was the cost of a tank-full of gas for your Mercedes SUV. Then it was interest rate on your home-refi loan. But when they messed with your morning ritual – and boosted the price of your morning latte, well, that was taking things just too damned far. Coffee-king […]
