OilPrice.com Weekly Oil Market Update: 03/15/2010 - 03/19/2010

Crude oil futures kept falling back from highs even though speculative funds increased their bets that prices are headed higher. The benchmark West Texas Intermediate contract ended the week at $80.68 a barrel, after nearing $83 earlier in the week, compared to $81.24 a week ago. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali Naimi, made it clear once again on Tuesday that the world’s largest oil producer prefers a range of $70 to $80 for oil prices. Speaking to journalists in Vienna prior to and OPEC meeting, Naimi said the oil-exporting group, which accounts for 40% of daily oil consumption, won’t let tight supplies push prices too high.

One Very Tragic Death

Even as the Lehman scapegoating campaign is on in full force, there is little doubt that the man who somehow was in the middle of virtually everything, was not Dick Fuld, or any of the bevy of rotating Lehman CFOs, but Lehman's very much under the radar Global Product Controller, Gerard Reilly. Reilly was the point man on Repo 105, the point person for E&Y's "investigation" into the Matthew Lee whistleblower campaign, Lehman's Level 2 and Level 3 asset valuation, the brain behind the idea to spin off Lehman's commercial real estate business, Lehman's Archstone investment, and likely so much more. Reilly stayed on at Lehman, solid as a rock, even as the CFO's above him rotated one after another. Tragically, on December 29, 2008, a 44-year old Gerald [sic] Reilly died while skiing alone on New York's Whiteface mountain, while on a trip with his wife, 4 small children, and two other families.

How To Capitalize On The Upcoming Irrationally Exuberant LBO Bubble

Bernanke's ludicrous monetary policy has forced financial companies to relever to mid-2000 levels. A recent CLO has broken the 12 month quiet period in the structured finance universe, and finally made it all too clear that bankers and asset managers have no idea what to do with all the free extra money lying around, earning nothing on the short end of the curve. Furthermore, with rampant M&A rumors every day (of which 90% are patently false) private equity must be getting nervous. As we all know, with great free money comes great irresponsibility to do really dumb things, better known as LBOs. We analyze the imminent tidal wave of going private deals, which, if Bernanke keeps ZIRP for another year as is widely expected, is just around the corner, and that the record TXU LBO of 2007 will be promptly surpassed, in both size and idiocy. Oh well, if you can't beat them, join them. We present some of the most profitable ways to play the LBO wave of 2010, and no, it does not mean tracking down Moody's Deep Shah and buying stocks 24 hours ahead of the announcement, in expectation of a 20% pop.

Guest Post: A Historical Note On Multi-Sigma Sovereign Risk

The current system and the global imbalancing act is going to change. The nature of that change is unclear. Comparing similar pasts to the present and extrapolating future effects is one approach. However, such mean reversion doesn’t work along an established time frame. What can be counted on is that unsustainable phenomenon like current account imbalances, negative savings rates, seeming infinite asset price appreciation will change. One way or another, falling savings rates and rising deficits become rising savings and falling deficits.

Goldman's Erik Nielsen Filters Out The Greek Background Noise

Goldman's Chief European strategist is starting to sound less and less confident that all shall be well. The same can not be said for his ebullient (and still employed) colleague Jim O'Neill, whose answer to everything is "BRIC." Anyway, here are Erik Nielsen's latest (and increasingly more skeptical) summary views on the Greek bailout. By the way, the IMF shotgun approach to "helping" any and every member country is to peg its currency to something and establishing a currency board. The IMF simply does not know how to do anything else. So how the hell can the IMF operate in the context of a monetary union?

40% Drop In Speculative Euro Short Positions For Week Ended March 16

The most recent CFTC committment of traders report indicates that as of March 16 net speculative euro short positions got clobbered in the past week, and declined by nearly 40%, from the all time record bearish -74,551 to -46,341. Comparably for the Yen, In the yen, of per March 16, speculative accounts had a net long of +15,197 contracts, another 40% decline from of the prior weeks's +26,288. On March 16, the euro closed $1.3769 compared to Friday's closing levels of $1.3534. In the meantime it was discovered that Europe won't be bailing out Greece after all, so all you speculators who closed out your shorts in anticipation of a squeeze: better luck next time.

Second Circuit Tells Fed If It Wants To Maintain Its Secrecy It Better Get Congress To Change America's Laws

Key selection from the Second Circuit's Fed FOIA appeal:

The requirement of disclosure under FOIA and its proper limits are matters of congressional policy. The statute as written by Congress sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it. If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute. 

In other words: if the Fed wants to maintain its strict secrecy, it better get Congress to change the laws immediately. Of course, if that happens it will become very clear who controls not just the fiscal and monetary destiny of America, its executive control (via the recently institued bilateral decision making of who apoints who - the President of the United States <-> The President of the FRBNY, and vice versa ), but also the legislative. As for the judicial, we will know definitively when the Supreme Court overturns this decision. In other words, the Federal Reserve is about to become the President, the Congress and the Supreme Court (not to mention Wall Street) all rolled into one.