oil

Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

Forget Trump, forget China, forget oil, forget central banks unwinding their balance sheets, forget Reuters trial balloons: there is a far simpler reason why the 'reflation trade' is about to hit a major pothole.

Despite yesterday's whopping beats by Amazon and Google which sent the Nasdaq to new record highs after hours, and brought Jeff Bezos "this close" to overtaking Bill Gates as the world's richest man, this morning futures S&P futures are little changed ahead of the closely watched Q1 GDP report, European stocks and Asian equities are slightly lower, oil is higher after Russia's energy minister Novak said Russia had reached the 300kbpd oil cut per the OPEC pact, and the dollar was modestly in the red.

With officials calling Saudi deputy crown prince bin Salman's $2 trillion estimate of Saudi Aramco valuation as "unrealistic and mind blowing," OilPrice.com's Cyril Widdershoven notes the primary discussion taking place is the overall level of transparency offered by Aramco’s leadership, which is supported by the Saudi government.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Venezuela is a naturally rich nation. It’s ranked seventh worldwide for biodiversity and has the world’s largest reserves of oil. This is a country that deserves, more than most, to thrive. However, as in all countries, it passes through economic cycles and, when on a downward curve, would-be leaders take the opportunity to claim that the “greedy rich” have sent the economy into a tailspin (which can sometimes be the case) and that the solution is to adopt a collectivist approach to governance.