Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
Lenders to the oil and gas industry have been extraordinarily lenient amid the worst downturn in decades, allowing indebted companies to survive a little while longer in hopes of a rebound in oil prices. But the screws are set to tighten just a bit more as the periodic credit redetermination period finishes up.
Submitted by 'Jeremiah Johnson', retired Green Beret, via SHTFPlan.com,
Many of the things that are happening this very moment have direct parallels in literature of the past. Whether it is an account such as the “Gulag Archipelago” by Solzhenitsyn or a work of “fiction” such as “1984” by George Orwell is irrelevant. Elements of the history or the storyline (regarding the former and the latter works) are now becoming thoroughly inculcated into the fabric of modern reality.
With all of Europe and the Americas closed for holiday, what little market action there was overnight came out of Asia, where China once again was engaged in its last hour "National Team" market manipulation, which saved the SHCOMP from a red close after the now traditional last hour buying spree, pushed the Shanghai Composite from red on the session an hour before close to near the highs of the day.
Back in October 2014 when hedge fund Starboard went "activist" on Darden Restaurants, it had a simple proposal for the company's preeminent restaurant chain, Oliver Garden: overhaul the entire menu. These were some of its suggestions:
Following yesterday's dollar spike which topped the longest rally in the greenback in one month, the prevailing trade overnight has been more of the same, and in the last session of this holiday shortened week we have seen the USD rise for the fifth consecutive day on concerns the suddenly hawkish Fed (at least as long as the S&P is above 2000) may hike sooner than expected, which in turn has pressured WTI below $39 earlier in the session, and leading to weakness across virtually all global risk assets.