Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stocks, Bitcoin and Crypto Markets Breaking Bad on Donald Trump Pump - 21st Nov 24
Gold Price To Re-Test $2,700 - 21st Nov 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: This Is My Strong Warning To You - 21st Nov 24
Financial Crisis 2025 - This is Going to Shock People! - 21st Nov 24
Dubai Deluge - AI Tech Stocks Earnings Correction Opportunities - 18th Nov 24
Why President Trump Has NO Real Power - Deep State Military Industrial Complex - 8th Nov 24
Social Grant Increases and Serge Belamant Amid South Africa's New Political Landscape - 8th Nov 24
Is Forex Worth It? - 8th Nov 24
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

A Billionaire Insider Just Made a Bold Bet on Crude Oil

Commodities / Crude Oil Nov 12, 2014 - 12:28 PM GMT

By: Money_Morning

Commodities

Dr. Kent Moors writes: There was a very dramatic development in the oil market last week. It involved a well-known insider and a bullish bet on crude.

Harold Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources Inc. (NYSE:CLR), announced that his company – a major producer in the Bakken and other U.S. unconventional oil basins – had unwound its hedge positions.


So why is that so important?

Hedges like the ones unwound by Hamm are used to compensate for the possibility of future oil price declines.  In a single bold move Hamm had made one of the biggest bets ever on rising oil prices.

So while the TV pundits are still wringing their hands over the decline in crude oil prices, a deep market insider was preparing for crude to go in the opposite direction…

Up.  
Here’s why I think Hamm and Continental have it right…

What’s Really Drives Oil Prices

First, a number of analysts have been pointing out something over the last few days that I have been saying for weeks now.  The decline in oil prices does not reflect the overall rise in demand.

You see, despite our penchant to view oil only through the lenses of the  trading benchmarks in New York (West Texas Intermediate, or WTI) and London (Brent) the demand that drives today’s prices is not American or European.

The real drive is coming from developing countries. And this is not simply the known giants such as China or India. Rather, it involves the greater (and exploding) Asian market, along with the resurgence developing in Latin America and Africa.

It is true that the emergence of shale and tight oil in the U.S. has prompted revisions in demand expansion by both OPEC and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

But the results still point to:

(1) An overall demand increase by at least 1.2% year-on-year;

(2) and a sustained Brent price of about $95 a barrel and a WTI peg of closer to $88.

Recall as well that the net impact of American shale oil on global pricing is tempered by the current (and over four-decade long) prohibition against exporting U.S. production.

This impact is limited to reducing imports into the U.S. – a situation that has been in place for some time now, and is hardly a justification for the curious read of declining demand internationally.

So, let’s look elsewhere to explain this disconnect.

A second possibility might be indications that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is declining, translating into an expected forward concern over sluggish or recessionary market projections.

But that’s just simply not the reality either. GDPs are still climbing ­- not falling.

Yes, there have been some concerns expressed over Chinese growth prospects. But those have dissipated considerably as the performance in China continues to go higher. Of course, India has its own set of problems, but even there the prognosis is up.

In the absence of marked downward signals, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) – the five developing countries now driving primary global interest – are just not giving us any reason to suspect that a cut in the global economic forecast  is warranted.

Expansion may come below some lofty (and unrealistic) predictions, but the aggregate picture hardly justifies the view that a GDP contraction is on the horizon.

A Short Story About Falling Oil Prices

That leaves us with a third reason driving this disconnect. And it turns out to be the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

For some time now, significant money has gone into “riding” the price of oil futures down. This is, in short, a story about shorts period.

Now shorting a stock or a commodity is hardly new. Investors do it all the time if the prospects look promising that the price will be moving south. Of course, heavy short positions may upon occasion dictate such movement, at least in the near term.

That’s especially true if the guys moving the heavy short positions are the same “experts” predicting the fall. In this way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ultimately, the market will eventually correct for this overemphasis on the down side. When that correction occurs, shorts need to be covered and that always sends the price up even more than the underlying market indicators would seem to warrant.

After all, a recipe for disaster for the shorts is to go into the market to buy the contracts needed to cover rising prices. Even though this would seem to be handing these guys just what they deserve.

This would seem to be the primary reason why both WTI and Brent are priced at levels some $8-$10 per barrel below where they would trade in a normal market.

Take yesterday’s price action for instance. Following several days of a (slowly) recovering price, augmented by two major banks indicating the crude oil pricing fall is over and the major move by Hamm, the price nonetheless began to retreat again.

So then why did oil prices fall yesterday?

Simply this. “Analysts” began sending out mid-morning prognostications that OPEC was not likely to cut production in its upcoming meeting. What they didn’t tell you was that with the Saudis already opposed, it would be difficult for the cartel to approve the cut anyway.

What it did do, however, was to prompt long oil positions to be closed, creating another wave of shorts to replace them.  That’s all.

Let me make this perfectly clear: A stable trading range between $85 and $90 a barrel does not require any cuts from OPEC.

It only requires a trading environment in which the commodity rather than the artificial moves orchestrated by the “flash boys” determine the price.

That day is coming in short order. For those taking a position beyond the end of their own nose, Hamm and Continental have gotten it right.

Source : http://oilandenergyinvestor.com/2014/11/billionaire-insider-just-made-bold-bet-crude/

Money Morning/The Money Map Report

©2014 Monument Street Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Street Publishing. 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201, Email: customerservice@moneymorning.com

Disclaimer: Nothing published by Money Morning should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investent advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication, or after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Money Morning should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Money Morning Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in