Business

In JPM's initial market comment this morning, reacting to the news of Comey firing, the bank said that "as far as the market is concerned, Comey’s dismissal saps Trump’s political capital and weakens relations w/Congress at the time when he is trying to move an ambitious pro-growth agenda through the Senate and House." What JPM was referring to was the potential of substantial incremental delays now facing Trump's parallel reforms, healthcare on one hand and tax reform on the other.

WTI and RBOB have rallied since last night's surprisingly large Crude draw (and gasoline build) reported by API, and DOE ata confirmed with inventory draws across the entire complex (including gasoline). WTIO and RBOB prices popped as Crude inventories dropped most since 2016 despite crude production rising above 9.3mm - highest since Aug 2015.

API

The U.S. economy will fall short of the Trump administration's goal of 3 percent growth this year and will only achieve that when its regulatory, tax, trade and energy policies are fully in place, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday.

The GDP target "is certainly not achievable this year," Ross told Reuters in an interview. "The Congress has been slow-walking everything. We don't even have half the people in place."

After two days of disappointing macro data out of China, with trade numbers missing expectations on Tuesday following by another drop and miss in producer prices overnight, the "great decoupling" between China stocks and both the S&P500 as well as the rest of the world continued, and the Shanghai Composite dropped another 0.9% to 3,052 to the lowest level since mid-October.

The value of the crude oil production alone is worth a staggering $1.7 trillion each year. Add downstream fuels and other services to that, and oil is a money-making machine. As VisualCapitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, both companies and governments take advantage of this resource wealth. More of the world’s largest companies work in the oil patch than any other industry. At the same, entire government regimes are kept intact thanks to oil revenues.