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The Senate and House passed the spending bill this week, which the President signed into law on the same day. Embedded in the law is a provision to lift the 40-year old crude export ban. The lifting of the crude export ban is a historic milestone, but seemingly less relevant for US E&Ps, Midstream and Oilfield Services as compared to a year and a half ago when WTI-Brent spreads were close to $9.00/bbl vs. the current spread of $0.80/bbl.

Now that all the suspense surrounding the Fed's rate hike is gone, and only questions about the future of risk assets and deflation remain in a "Policy Mistake" world, the market's attention is turning back to the disturbing topic which spread like wildfire two weeks ago when first Third Avenue, and then several more mutual and hedge funds announced they would liquidate while imposing redemption "gates."

By EconMatters

   Bearish Sentiment

A lot of bearishness has been priced into the natural gas market due to many factors including robust production, bulging inventories, and mild weather on average across the country. Natural gas in the futures market reached a low of $1.68 MMBtu for Henry Hub on the January contract this past week. Natural gas closed trading on Friday at around $1.77 MMBtu.

Now that the Fed's rate hike is in the history books and Yellen is eager to demonstrate that the Fed is confident enough in the US economy by unleashing the first tightening cycle in nearly a decade, market participants are dramatically shifting their attention, from the rate hike as a bullish key catalyst in the "renormalization" timeline ("buy stocks" because the Fed wouldn't risk recession if it wasn't confident in the economy), to the actual consequences of the Fed's dramatically changed reaction function, which as we explained previously, was far more hawkish than the market initially

The decision to approve a 2016 budget guidelines bill that targets a 0.5% primary surplus as opposed to a 0.7% surplus may have been the last straw for (former) Brazilian FinMin Joaquim Levy.

Speculation had been swirling for months that Levy’s exit was imminent as Brazil’s intractable political crisis made pushing unpopular austerity measures through Congress all but impossible for the University of Chicago-trained economist.