Two Notes: Crude Oil & Bonds

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I’ve been busier than ever of late — not much time to blog. Thus, a few notes:

1) Often the rate of change in a price can tell you something, particularly if the good in question is widely traded/held by a wide number of parties with different interests. In this case, I am talking about crude oil prices, and the related set of prices that are cousins.

Overall demand for crude hasn’t shifted, and neither has supply. Yes, there has been some buildup of inventories, and some key global players refuse to cut production in response to lower prices. But the sharpness of the price move feels more like some large player(s) who were relying on a higher oil price finally hit their “stop loss” point, and their risk control desk is closing out the trade.

I could be wrong here, but paper barrels of oil trade more rapidly than physical shifts in net demand, and risk control and margin desks will force moves that are non-economic. Wait. Surviving is economic, even at the cost of forgoing potential profits.

We’ll see how this shakes out over the next few months. There’s a lot of pain for pure play producers, and those that aid them.  I particularly wonder at governments that rely on crude exports to support their budgets… they may not cut, but what will they do, if they don’t have reserves? Cuts will have to come from economic players initially. It make take a revolt to affect non-economic governmental entities.

All that said, sharp price moves tend to mean-revert, slow moves tend to persist, so be wary of too much bearishness here.

2) An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal entitled Bond Funds Load Up on Cash. This qualifies for the “Dog Bites Man” award, as it puts forth the conventional wisdom that interest rates must rise soon.

That drum has been banged so frequently that it is wearing out. We’re not seeing the pickup in lending necessary to convince us that the economy needs higher real interest rates so that more savings would be available to be lent out.