oil

While much has been said about the impact on the dollar from the proposed Border Tax Adjustment, which may or may not be implemented depending on what Trump says/tweets on any given day (and as a reminder, there has already been a loud outcry against it by powerful lobby groups, including the Kochs, as a result of the expected decimation of US retailers should BTA be implemented) little has been said about how it could impact US commodity production in general, and oil in particular.

After Sunday's latest meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC countries in Vienna, energy ministers struck an optimistic note regarding the recent agreement to cut oil output as a committee set to monitor compliance with the deal meets for the first time. Oil producers said they are in "total agreement" on the mechanism for monitoring pledged output cuts, Kuwait Oil Minister Essam Al-Marzouk told reporters after the committee ended its meeting in Vienna.

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

Some people would argue that 2016 was the year that the world economy started to come apart, with the passage of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Whether or not the “coming apart” process started in 2016, in my opinion we are going to see many more steps in this direction in 2017. Let me explain a few of the things I see.

While in previous monthly letters and public statements, Bill Gross has expressed a negative view of Donald Trump, warning his tenure would be damaging, and urging investors to move to cash, culminating most recently in a Bloomberg interview in which he compared the president-elect's policies to those of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, in his latest monthly investment outlook he takes a more practical view of what Trump's policies would mean for markets, and specifically the one variable he believes is the key for market action going forward.

Having already traded heavy much of the Monday despite pressure on the dollar index which is trading near session lows, oil took out session lows moments ago on what appear to be three most recent catalysts.

First, Kuwait's oil minister shook some of the market's conviction that the Vienna OPEC oil production cut is being adhered to, when we said that the announced cuts so far make up just 60-70% of the total decrease pledged by OPEC and other major producers.