Business

US default risk has flatllined for weeks, market risk has leaked to record lows, and Treasury Bills have 'behaved'... until now. The last two days have seen a sudden aggressive spike in the yields of T-Bills around mid-October, inverting the yirld curve as debt-ceiling anxiety starts to build quietly away from NFLX and AMZN shares.

And the yield curve has inverted as analysts start to consider the chances of a two-week government shutdown as a base-case...

For now there is no perturbation in the VIX curve for the same period.

One week after we channeled Deutsche Bank's Torsten Slok, who two years ago warned that "Canada is in serious trouble", a warning which was especially resonant after last week's rate hike by the Bank of Canada - the first since 2010 -  which we argued threatens to burst Canada's gargantuan housing bubble...

... resulting in dramatic negative consequences for Canada's construction-heavy economy...

After API's surprise crude build, DOE dashed bears' hopes with a bigger than expected crude draw (-4.727mm vs -3.5mm exp) as the entire energy complex was inventoires decline. WTI prices kneejerked back above $47 on the proint but stalled a little as once again production jumped (to its highest since July 2015).

API

• Crude +1.628mm (-3.5mm exp)
• Cushing +608k
• Gasoline -5.448mm (-1.3mm exp)
• Distillates -2.888mm

DOE

Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

In a desperate bid to survive its economic meltdown, Venezuela is lobbying other OPEC members to agree to steeper oil production cuts, a move that would likely lead to higher oil prices.

Venezuelan officials have reached out to their counterparts in Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia to press them on more collective action, according to Argus Media. If there was enough interest, the next step would be an “extraordinary meeting,” which would weigh the option of cutting deeper.

The former chairman of one of Spain's largest banks has been found dead with a shotgun blast to the chest in a private hunting estate in southern Spain, the country's Civil Guard said Wednesday.