Futures market

"One day while Sarao is busy trying to trick the U.S. stock market into falling, the market collapses, more sensationally than it has ever collapsed. And instead of digging some hole in Hounslow in which he might hide for a decade or so, or fleeing to Anguilla, where he has squirreled away his profits, he stays in his parents’ home and keeps right on spoofing the U.S. stock market -- and then is shocked when people turn up to accuse him of wrongdoing. He’s not some kind of exception to the standard operating procedure in finance. He’s a parody of it."

Trying to make sense of the global capital markets.

In the end, there are only two real drivers for the price of gold...

After trending sharply higher in recent months, the US dollar has entered a consolidative range against most of the major currencies.

Everyone this week focused on the slight production declines that this was a sign to go long oil, but what seemed to go under the radar was another build in both Cushing and the Gulf Coast storage hubs.

Just as we warned previously (here, here, and here), the knife-catching, contango-crushed, BTFDers that piled over $6bn into Oil ETFs have severely underperformed this year. The USO ETF has fallen by more than 9% since the start of the year, whereas front-month U.S. oil futures have dipped by less than 3% on account of roll costs, and as of last week, investors have started to exit this massive position en masse. As Reuters reports, outflows from four of the largest oil-specific exchange traded funds reached $338 million in two weeks to April 8 - the first since September and largest since Jan 2014. It seems Goldman was right about "misguided retail investors."

In recent weeks the sell side analysts who cover energy have become so complacent that they merely plug in the current strip prices into their earnings models for E&P companies. Not one, except Mike Rothman at Cornerstone Analytics, is questioning the “why?” or “how?” of what is occurring. The 200 or so players who effectively control the oil futures market have changed behavior and expectations as the oil price curve has collapsed. Prices from late 2016 into 2018 are essentially flat in the low to mid 60s, believe it or not, which would essentially bankrupt most of OPEC, US conventional oil, part of US shale and deep offshore drilling. So ask where is the oil going to come from? Yet the madness continues until investors realize E&P companies need a higher price to justify investments in the space.

The US dollar has been even stronger than this bull thought let alone the perma-bears.  Here's why,  

A dispassionate look at the drivers of the investment climate in the week ahead.

Even before the disappointing US jobs data, we anticipated a downside correction in the dollar after a sharp advance in Q1.   

The Fed has finally come to terms with the realization that control is no longer an option. It's been a mirage that's held up far longer than originally anticipated. The monster has now grown far too big and dangerous while possibly exposing, to their dismay, the only way they might have a shot of regaining some stability for future control is to let it fall apart: as they stand by and watch hoping to 'thread the needle' for further intervention just in time. Along with trying to have some C.Y.A. assurance to the 'In Crowd' that "Hey – we tried to warn you!" if it indeed does exactly that.
Which is scarier? A Fed that may be signalling they’ve lost control? Or, a Fed that still believes "Don't worry – we've got this!"

A non-bombastic look at the week ahead in the capital markets.

While the euro itself has recovered a bit from its worst levels in recent sessions, euro basis swaps have fallen deeper into negative territory on par with the epic nosedive of 2011. We are not quite sure what the move means this time around, since there is no obvious crisis situation – not yet, anyway. A negative FX basis usually indicates some sort of concern over the banking system’s creditworthiness and has historically been associated with euro area banks experiencing problems in obtaining dollar funding. This time, the move in basis swaps is happening “quietly”, as there are no reports in the media indicating that anything might be amiss. Still, something is apparently amiss...