He hope we are not the only ones who find it oddly confusing that moments after the WSJ reported that the UAE, supposedly speaking on behalf of the Saudis, said OPEC is "ready to cooperate on a production cut", the very same WSJ writes that the "story may be bogus."
From the WSJ:
Look, the OPEC thing may turn out to be bogus. Lord knows we’ve heard that line too many times to count, and oil’s at $26/barrel. Even if it is bogus, though, the episode illustrates one thing: there is still a sizable contingent of operators out there just waiting for an excuse to pounce on equities.
In other words, we still are not near capitulation.
Yes, it may very well be bogus, and no, it has nothing to do with operators pouncing, and everything to do with the latest violent short squeeze, one which was accelerated by frontrunning algos which swept away all the offers for minutes, sending the Nasdaq briefly into the green.
The WSJ also adds the following walkback:
It’s not that I think somebody planted a rumor, mind you. I’m not saying the news is wrong or that it’s being misreported. I just think that we hear this kind of talk out of OPEC a lot.
“We’ve heard this chatter enough times over the past month so take it with a grain of salt,” said Lindsey Group’s Peter Boockvar.
They have a notorious history of “agreeing” on cuts and quotas, and then going behind each other’s back and doing whatever is best for individual states.
It’s best to wait until OPEC actually does something on this front, and then to wait and see if they honor it. In other words, we’re a long way away from anything really happening here.
We expect the Saudis to chime in momentarily and explain how everyone got punked by the latest "OPEC headline" for the 6th time.