Business

In case you were under the impression that oil was stabilizing, we thought this chart might help clarify just how "different" it is this time in the energy complex...

U.S. crude inventories are at levels last seen when President Herbert Hoover was battling the Great Depression.

After this week's build - Crude stockpiles climbed 8.38 million barrels to 494.9 million in the week ended Jan. 22, the highest since November 1930, according to weekly and monthly data from the Energy Information Administration.

Following last night's huge 11.4mm barrel inventory build forecast from API (the largest since 1996), DOE reports an 8.4mm build (against analysts estimates of +4mm). It seems the blowback from the huge gasoline and inventory builds is flowing back upstream to crude but there is some good news as Cushing saw a 771k draw after 11 weeks of builds (and production dropped very modestly). On the demand side, it's just as ugly with Gasoline demand -2.5% YoY and Distillate demand down a stunning 14.8% YoY.

Moments ago Caterpillar reported its latest monthly retail sales statistics and the numbers have never been worse.

Following existing home sales post-regs change spike, new home sales (after 9 months of missed expectations) soared 10.8% in December to a seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of 544k (smashing expectations of just 500k). This is 1k short of the February 545k highs going back to Feb 2008. Median home prices dropped however (a good thing for affordability but not so much for The Fed's wealth illusion machine) to the lowest since May.

Home Sales (SAAR) soar..

And the good news (for affordability) is prices tumbled...

With analyst expectations almost 50% above Apple's current price, and only 1 "sell" recommendation among the 52 analysts covering the "no brainer" stock, one has to wonder how long it will be before the 45 "Buys" downgrade their permabullish perspective..

BGC's Colin Gillis and ABG Sundal Collier's Per Lindberg deserve some special recognition as the 2 least bullish analysts, but here is the Top 10 before last night's call...