Energy & Commodities

Bad News: Oil is Going Higher

“The age of plateau oil is also the age of price-sensitive oil. All the cheap, easy oil is gone.

The only question is how do we deal with that reality.

What are we willing to pay for? Generally $70 to $90 is the transition range. Below $90 a barrel some production becomes marginal. Below $80 you start to see decrease in production. And $70 is the floor.” Comment by Ray Leonard, president and CEO of Houston-based Hyperdynamics Corp.

Peak Oil doesn’t mean we have run out of oil. Quite the contrary: Planet Earth willnever run out of oil.

What Peak Oil means (and has always meant) is it will cost us more resources to produce the oil that’s leftover.

It’s all about accessibility. The more accessible a resource is, the cheaper it is to get. The less accessible, the more it will cost… pretty straightforward, if you ask me.

So, what’s happening today?

1) A fracked well (say, in the Bakken) is way more expensive than non-fracked wells. On average, each well in the Bakken costs between $7 to $10 million to drill.

 

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…..read more of this extensive analysis by Brian Hicks – Energy & Capital HERE

“Lost Confidence Can’t Be Restored” Gold’s Final Move & Where To Deploy Cash

“Gold is going to keep going up until the US dollar is finished.  So the reign of the US dollar will come to an end.”  Keith Barron, who consults with major gold companies around the world, and is responsible for one of the largest gold discoveries in the last quarter century, also said, “At that point the global collapse will be in full-swing.”

On the heels of another major country being downgraded yesterday, Barron also warned, “The real problem here is that you can’t restore confidence at this point in the cycle.”  Here is what he had to say:  “Europe is getting worse all the time.  The IMF is now saying that European banks may have to sell off an additional $4.5 trillion of assets.  At the same time, they are trying to push various governments for increased austerity measures, and it’s not working.  Either the countries are simply not implementing the increased austerity or they are not implementing them to the extent that the troika wants.”

…..Keith Barron continues with his Oct 11th 2012 interview HERE

THIS MOVE WILL BE HIGHLY INFLATIONARY & WHERE TO DEPLOY CASH

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On the heels of continued bank runs in Europe, today King World News interviewed one of the legends in the gold world, Keith Barron. Barron consults with major gold companies around the world, as well as major brokerage houses, and he is also responsible for one of the largest gold discoveries in the last quarter century. Here is what Barron had to say about what is taking place in Europe: 

“There are a number of things happening which are quite important.  The Spanish government has agreed to nationalize Bankia, which is one of the largest banks in Spain.  The bank had a major run on it and so extreme measures had to be taken.

There are more banks in Spain and other Mediterranean countries that are experiencing bank runs as well. People are withdrawing their money from the banks because they are worried about the banks going bust. I would also note it is becoming much more of a certainty that Greece is going to be exiting the euro.

This is despite the fact that today there were assurances that Greece might be willing to go for more austerity.

I think if Greece goes for more austerity, you could very well see potential violent overthrow of the government.  The people in Greece are really angry and they cannot take much more. The unemployment rate is far too high and it’s clear that austerity is not going to get Greece out of the hole.

With that as the backdrop, the gold price for the time being is treading water. Gold is basically bouncing around and waiting for some direction.  There are a couple of things which are very critical that I expect to happen.  This will impact the gold price. 

The first is going to be the next Fed meeting, which is scheduled June 19th and 20th.  The reason that will be such an important meeting is because the Fed is really going to have to bring in QE3 now if they intend to have any kind of impact on the November elections.

The runway for QE3 is getting shorter and shorter.  If they wait until the August meeting, they will have a political problem on their hands.  The Fed is supposed to be independent, and August will be viewed as too close to the election. 

Another contributing factor to some upside fireworks in the price of gold will be the Greek elections.  The only way to get out of this mess is massive money printing by the European Central Bank.  This will be done to bail out Greece and keep the other Mediterranean countries stable.  This move will be highly inflationary.

So we’ve seen the gold price being quite resilient recently.  I think we’ve turned the corner and seen the bottom on both gold and the gold equities.  Many of the gold equities have been knocked down 30% to 50% or even more.

There was a lot of hot money in the sector.  I’ve seen this happen before.  In the space between September and December of 2008, we saw the junior market get crushed in a similar fashion.  By the following March it had roared back.

Obviously, for those who have cash to deploy, this is an excellent time to put that money to work.  I would say this is especially the case with companies that have their dividends geared to the price of gold.  That’s where I’m putting my money right now, gold and silver producers and royalty companies paying healthy dividends.  You will get a double-bang for your buck, both in rising dividends, and the rising price of the equities.”

Original Source: Kind World News

KWN Markets & Metals Wrap: 

We have added new segments to the KWN Markets & Metals Wrap, covering stock markets, gold, silver, trading and a plethora of other factors affecting the US & International markets. I am giving King World News listeners globally access to what has long been my weapons in researching where many of these markets are headed directionally. We cover a number of factors which can influence the global market price action.

Look Out: The ‘Central Bank Put’ is Moving Into Bubble Territory

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Earlier today, El-Erian in the Financial Times released a short and apt note on the limits of the central bank put. It’s richly ironic that an aggressive promoter of unbridled capitalism, Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan, spawned the innovation that is the biggest market intervention of all time: the Greenspan put, which gave way to the Bernanke puts of the crisis and its aftermath, and have been emulated by apt students at the ECB, in the form of its Securities Markets Program, which has been tweaked, rebranded, and relaunched as the Outright Monetary Transactions, or OMT.

Yet as much as Rule Number One of investors is “don’t fight the Fed,” it’s hard not to notice that the effectiveness of central bank interventions is waning. Admittedly, the half life of pretty much any Eurocrat initiative seems to have collapsed, but even so, the initial celebration of the announcement of the OMT fizzled quickly. Similarly, after months of eager anticipation, the launch of QE3 produced a mere one day stock market rally, and key commodities and Treasuries gave up much of their initial move with surprising speed.

….read more HERE at NakedCapitalism.com

 

 – From the Financial Times Article below:

Beware the ‘central bank put’ bubble

by Mohamed El-Erian

“Essentially, the Fed is inserting a sizeable policy wedge between market values and underlying fundamentals. And investors in virtually every market segment – including bonds, commodities, equities, foreign exchange and volatility – have benefited handsomely. In the process, many asset prices have been taken close to what would normally be regarded as bubble territory, with some already there.

Central bank action, both real and perceived, rules the investment day, and will continue to do so for now. This is also the case in Europe.”

….read more HERE (Ed Note: you’ll have to sign up for free at a minimum, to read the the other 15 paragraphs above & below this article)

 

Buckle Up! – Is The Great Big Western Housing Crash Foreshadowing…..

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Ed Note: How long can Canada, Vancouver in particular, cruise along as the only Western City/Country cruising along untouched by housing contraction/crash. After a huge bubble caused by inane fiscal policies and the oceans of cheap money, the Netherlands are experiencing a great big housing bust (look at some of the percentages below).

It is surprising that there has been very little coverage of this crash in the media, then again most big media are fans of the policies poured in that got the 5th largest economy in the eurozone into this great big mess. There are some good clips & full article links below though, discovered by Mike Shedlock. There is one from Canada Oct 4th/2012: Canada may dodge housing hard landing, Flaherty says

Dutch Housing Prices Tumble 

The Wall Street Journal reports Dutch Housing Prices Tumble 

The slump in the Dutch housing market deepened in July as prices posted the steepest drop on record, highlighting the challenges facing the Netherlands ahead of next month’s general elections.
With prices now plumbing levels last seen in 2004, the downturn is weighing heavily on household consumption and has raised concern about the country’s huge mortgage debt pile, among the largest in Europe

House prices fell 8% from a year earlier, statistics bureau CBS said Tuesday, the largest decline in the 17-year history of the agency’s house-price index. Prices fell 4.4% in June and 5.5% in May.

Record Price Drop

Similarly, Bloomberg reports Netherlands House Prices Dropped the Most on Record Last Month 

House prices in the Netherlands, the fifth-biggest economy in the euro area, dropped in July by the most since the index started in 1995.

Prices declined 8 percent from the same month a year earlier, after falling 4.4 percent in June, national statistics agency CBS in The Hague said on its website today. Values have fallen 15 percent from a peak in 2008 and are back to about the same level as eight years ago, CBS said. Prices had already dropped 5.5 percent in May from a year earlier.

The Dutch Central Bank forecast in March that house prices will continue to drop through 2014 because of stricter mortgage lending rules and a reduction of a homeowner tax break that spurred the lending boom. Values may fall another 5 percent next year, ING Groep NV economists said in a note Aug. 9.

What About France?

France is the eurozone’s second largest country, following Germany. 

Note that French unemployment topped 3 million in August for the first time since 1999. France is now in a 16-month employment slide.

Government forecast for France is GDP +1.2%. I already believe that estimate to be way over-optimistic. Should a major housing bust pick up steam, a decline of 1.2% will start to look rosy.

Given president Francois Hollande’s seriously misguided tax policies coupled with inane business work rule proposals, there is every reason to expect a major French housing bust accompanied by sharp downward revisions in GDP estimates.

For more on France, please see …

France Set to Implode; Troika Soap Opera; Grappling with Neo-Nazis

Austerity Programs Hit France; Marchers Demand Vote on Treaty; Hollande Reneges on Campaign Promise

France to Set Top Marginal Tax Rate at 75%, Permanently Increase Wealth Taxes, Hike Surcharges on Banks and Energy Companies; Further Tax Hikes Next Year

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

 

 

 

October: Volatility Month & How To OutSmart It

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Time In Time Out: Outsmart the Stock Market Using Calendar Strategies, my first seasonal book, written in 1999,  I performed a basic seasonal volatility analysis. Investors often use the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), which was originally designed in 1993 to measure the market’sexpectation of 30-day volatility implied by at-the-money S&P 100 Index (OEX) option prices. Although calculating seasonal volatility from the VIX is a good current measure of volatility, VIX data does not go back as far as I would like to establish a trend in a broad market. As a result, I have approximated volatility as a dispersion of end of day prices for the S&P 500 using a twenty day standard deviation look back. Although there is a time  lag issue with this methodology, it does give a general indication of a spike in volatility in October. The month of October, on average has the highest volatility. The point is that volatility in October can present opportunities to increase equity positions. Last year the market corrected severely in September and the market started a strong rally at the beginning of October. HAC increased equity positions early in October to 30% last year. This year, without a major correction in September to “bounce” the market at the beginning of October, investors should lean towards adding their equity towards the end of October.

It is interesting to note that the volatility in the stock market,as represented by the VIX is historically low, during October, which on average has the highest volatility. This divergence is interesting and indicates that the market is very complacent and is susceptible to a large correction.

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The weakest part of October occurs from the 19th to the 27th. From 1950 to 2011, this time period has produced an average loss of 0.8% and has been positive 56% of the time. Even taking out the huge correction on October 19th, 1987, the numbers are still weak. If another large drop does occur in mid-October to late October, it should be viewed as an opportunity.

….to read the entire Brooke Thackray Market Letter go HERE