Business

Remember last week when oil prices spiked despite a rise in crude production, inventory builds, continuing storage concerns at Cushing, and the admission that there is no March OPEC/NOPEC "freeze" meeting. Well that's all over as Russia's Oil Minister Novak conmfirms Russia's acceptance of Iranian rights to increase oil output post-sanctions, thus blowing away any ideas of a "freeze" or hopes for a cut in global production. April WTI just broke back to a $36 handle - erasing all of those algo gains...

2019.40 - that is the line in the sand for today - and for now, the S&P 500 cash index is trading back below this key technical support level...

The miracle bounce to the 200-day moving-average...

And today, for now, we have lost that level...

The battle begins.

Submitted by David Yager via OilPrice.com,

As we warned last week, the inflation genie is out of the bottle…

We now have confirmation that the Fed is aware of this…

Two key Federal Reserve officials said Monday they expect inflation to get closer to the central bank's target…

Their comments came after data late last month that showed core inflation rose 1.7 percent in the 12 months ended in January.

Source: CNBC

Indeed, even the Fed’s Vice Chair Stanley Fischer has warned inflation is coming… and the Fed wants it!

Facing a severe shortage of dollars and dwindling (if momentarily stable) FX reserves, Egypt moved to devalue the pound by around 13% on Monday in a move the central bank says will help attain “exchange-rate levels that reflect the strength and real value of the local currency in a short period of time.”

The central bank sold $198.1 million at auction at 8.85 versus 7.73 previously. Here's a look at the EGP versus Egypt CDS which had recently diverged quite markedly relative to recent history: