oil

Submitted by Michael McDonald via OilPrice.com,

One reality in the markets is that despite the best efforts of analysts and traders, no one ever knows with any degree of certainty what will happen to the price of an investment in the future. Oil exemplifies that premise right now. All year there has been a tremendous amount of discrepancy in predictions for oil prices with some commentators looking for prices of $10 a barrel and others expecting prices near $100.

   "I've been coming to Singapore once a year for the last 15 years, and flying in I have never seen the waters so full of idle tankers,"

   - Senior European oil trader a day after arriving in the city-state.

Back in November, when the world-record crude inventory glut was still in its early innings, we showed what we then thought was a disturbing image of dozens of oil tankers on anchor near the US oil hub of Galveston, TX, unwilling to unload their cargo at what the owners of the oil thought was too low prices.

Having pointed out the gathering storm in VIX ETPs, raised concerns of a "reasonably high probability" of a large drop in stocks, and explained how complacently short-term risk is being priced, Goldman's portfolio strategy team have unleashed a dramatic warning. Shifting to an oveweight cash position for the next 3 months, Goldman warns "we downgrade equities to Neutral over 12 months on growth and valuation concerns. Until we see sustained earnings growth, equities do not look attractive, especially on a risk-adjusted basis."

As Goldman famously declared on Sunday night when it boosted its near-term oil prices targets (while cutting its 2017 estimates as a result of what it admits will be a delayed rebalancing of the oil market), the biggest upside risk to oil over the next months remains the threat from unexpected supply disruptions...