S&P 500 energy

The number of oil rigs in America has now risen for 23 straight weeks (and 50 of the last 52 weeks), up 11 to 758 in the last week - the highest since April 2015.

"It’s becoming bearish mania," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group Inc. in Chicago. "If we keep going down, we’re not going to be adding rigs in a few months, we’re not going to be adding production"

And we suspect, given the lagged reaction to prices, that inflection point in rig counts is close...

US equity futures were marginally in the red, while Asian markets rose and European stocks dropped. WTI oil rose 0.6% to $42.79 as some suggest the time to go long has arrived; oil tumbled 2.3% in the previous session. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1 percent.

Here are the main market developments while you were sleeping.

Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

If anyone is cheering the news of an OPEC deal it is U.S. shale producers. The OPEC agreement sent oil prices shooting up this week, with WTI and Brent quickly surging above $50 per barrel.

While markets remain relatively subdued ahead of tomorrow's nonfarm payrolls report, after several days of losses in US stocks, which have taken "sell in May" to heart and pushed the S&P500 to three week lows, overnight markets ignored the latest weak data out of China where the Caixin Services PMI was the latest indicator to disappoint (dropping from 52.2 to 51.8), and instead focused on crude, which rebounded from yesterday's post inventory-build lows and briefly printed above $45/bbl over uncertainty related to the impact of Canada wildfires on production and how long will last.

In the new normal, where bad news is good news, stagnation is growth, and depression is a buying opportunity, it should be no surprise that the so-called "safety stocks" of the Consumer Staples sector have never been more risky. At a P/E valuation of 22x, food, beverage, and tobacco companies have never been more expensive.

But, "safety stocks" are not the most expensive stocks in the US equity market...

This is what a speculative frenzy looks like!

more than doubled in the last month!!