Business

It is going from bad to worse for oil bulls (such as Pierre Andurand), who after giving up hopes to see the first rebound in oil prices in 7 days, are now watching oil tumble to the lowest price since the Vienna oil meeting, down to $47.28.

The main catalyst, as discussed earlier, was Saudi Arabia's surprising admission that it had boosted oil production by 263kbpd to over 10 million just one month into the Oil production cut...

... while Kuwait warned that crude can drop to $45/barrel as a result of rising shale production.

FIAT Drainage Has Begun

Vince Lanci for MarketSlant.com

Gold will meet head winds as the world continues to hedge most of its  uncertainty with flights to the USD. Unless that uncertainty abates, it must in the end spread all the way to the US. This will happen regardless of what you think of Trump's policies. Trump may accelerate or slow the inevitable. But Government can only slow or speed up market clearing events. They cannot stop them. 

One week ago we asked - rhetorically  - "Why OPEC Is Colluding With Hedge Funds." As readers will recall, what we noted is that as part of OPEC's recent decision-making process, it had suddenly gotten very cose with the same "speculator" traders it had reviled and mocked for so many years:

The last time Robert Shiller heard stock-market investors talk like this in 2000, it didn’t end well for the bulls.

As Bloomberg reports, Shiller says when markets are as buoyant as they are now, resisting the urge to pile in is hard regardless of what else might be happening in society.

“I was tempted to do it, too,” he says. “Trump keeps talking about a new spirit for America and so you could (A) believe that or (B) you could believe that other investors believe that.”

Pershing Square's Bill Ackman once predicted Valeant would be the next Berkshire Hathaway, saying its shares could hit $330 took a roughly $4 billion loss on the embattled drugmaker as he reported his complete exit overnight.