Crude

Following last night's API-reported large draw in overall crude inventories (year-end and exports driven), DOE reports a 5.09mm draw (more than expectations of a 4.1mm draw but less than API's 5.6mm draw). However, Cushing inventories rose for the 9th week in a row (+917k) and more troubling for the future is gasoline inventories soared 10.58mm barrels - an all-time record (and distillates rose 6.31mm barrels). Crude prices already gave up their API gains and are tumbling back below $35 on this build news.

Before we go into details of the overnight carnage, this is where we stand currently: S&P futures now down 33 points or 1.63% while 2Y Treasury rallies pushing its yield back below 1% as EU stocks extend their drop after China weakened its currency, North Korea says it tested a hydrogen bomb; Brent crude falls to lowest level since 2004.

Taking away from the government its power of compelling the citizenry to accept money that it monopolistically controls and abuses may serve as an important legal and economic change to force the government and those who live at its spending trough to face the reality of the welfare state’s ideological and fiscal bankruptcy before it is too late to avert a complete collapse of the society.

For the last week of December - typically a month when inventories are drawn down dramatically to avoid year-end tax-burdens - API reports a huge 5.6 million barrel inventory draw (massively bigger than expectations of a 488k build). It would appear, after 3 mixed weeks, that energy firms waited for the very last week to dump inventories into year-end (as seasonally occurs). Of course the transit of the first post-export-ban tanker may have also helped. While WTI spiked higher it is fading a little as Cushing reported a very large build of 1.4mm barrels (the 9th week in a row).

WTI Crude prices just broke back to a $35 handle for the first time since mid-December as the combination of un-growth, Saudi price cuts, a rancorous OPEC, and production increases weigh on the world's most important commodity. At the same time, oil producers are getting hit with the Canadian Dollar plunging above 1.4000 to its lowest since 2003...

"The Saudis are preparing for Iran’s return," said Mohamed Sadegh Memarian, who recently retired as the head of petroleum market analysis at Iran’s oil ministry, as they sharply cut the prices they charge for crude oil in Europe (to the biggest discount since Feb 2009). The move that will likely undercut Iran happens as sectarian tensions escalate between the rival Middle Eastern nations.

That wasn't supposed to happen. In the not so distant past, a dramatic escalation in tensions between OPEC nations (in this case Iran and Saudi Arabia) would have led to a spike in crude oil prices. However, as futures opened Sunday night, the brief rally in oil prices was met with selling pressure and instead of buying calls, traders loaded up on $30 puts. The oil market's different this time - here's why...

After yesterday's historic -6.9% rout in the Shanghai Composite, which saw the first new marketwide circuit breaker trading halt applied to Chinese stocks (on its first day of operation), many were wondering if the Chinese government would intervene in both the once again imploding stock market, as well as China's plunging and rapidly devaluing currency. And, after the SHCOMP opened down -3%, the government did not disappoint and promptly intervened in both the Yuan as well as the stock market, however with very mixed results which global stocks took a sign that the "national team" is no longer focused solely on stocks, and have resumed selling for a second consecutive day. 

Just two weeks ago we warned of the looming "hyperinflation monster" in Africa with the continent appearing to be running out of dollars as some of Africa’s largest economies, including Nigeria, Angola, Ethiopia and Mozambique, are restricting access to the greenback to protect dwindling reserves. Specifically we warned of Angola's already-soaring inflation hampering its ability to 'adjust' its currency towards its black market 'reality'. But that did not stop the central bank devaluing Kwanza by 15% over the weekend - the most since 2001 - to record lows as crude prices crush their economy and the flow of USDs.

On the heels of a tumultuous weekend that saw Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran after the Saudi embassy was torched by protesters angry at the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, CDS spreads for the kingdom have blown out to six-year wides while the implied odds of the riyal peg finally breaking are hitting new record highs.

Dispppointing drops in China and US Manufacturing PMIs, combined with a record glut, appears to have trumped Mid-East tensions and sent WTI plunging back into the red. This has triggered another round of selling in US equities, sending The Dow down 450 points and back to a "16" handle...

A lot of people were expecting some really great things to happen in 2015, but most of them did not happen.  But what did happen? A global financial crisis began during the second half of 2015 threatens to greatly accelerate as we enter 2016. This is what the early stages of a financial crisis look like, and the worst is yet to come.

It all started off relatively well: oil and US equity futures were buoyant on hopes Iran and Saudi Arabia would break out in a bloody conflict any minute boosting the net worth of shareholders of the military industrial complex, and then, out of nowhere, like a depressed China in a bull shop, the "mainland" crashed the party and it all well south very, very quickly...