OPEC

It is no wonder Venezuela is suffering... Venezuelan bond prices have collapsed around 51 - the lowest close in at least 5 years as yields surge to around 21% yield. The market is pricing in extremely high probability of default (around 63% over 2Y, and 80% based on 5Y CDS) which, as Bloomberg reports, is surging as "every $1 drop in oil is around $770 million of lost revenue, so their ability to pay has taken a big hit."

• Moody’s Downgrades Japan’s Credit Rating (WSJ)
• China Factory Gauge Drops as Shutdowns Add to Slowdown (BBG)
• Euro zone factory growth stalls in November as new orders sink (Reuters)
• Espírito Santo Faces Money-Laundering Investigations (WSJ)
• Oil at $40 Possible as Market Transforms Caracas to Iran (BBG)
• Hong Kong warns protesters not to return after clashes close government HQ (Reuters)
• Bond Secrets Decoded 9,539 Miles From Wall Street in Lot (BBG)
• Ruble Rally Turns to Rout as Fortunes Tied to Sinking Oil (BBG)
• Loans Made in Blink as Banks, Funds Vie for LendingClub Clients (BBG)

The entire commodity complex is seeing major contagion-like price declines in early trading. WTI Crude is back below $65 for the first time since May 2010 - now down 16% since the initial leaks of OPEC's decision last Wednesday. Gold and Silver are getting whacked and copper has plunged below 300 - back at its lowest since June 2010. The news over the weekend that Brevan Howard is liquidating its $630 million commodity hedge fund following recent poor performance is also likely not helping as what looked like late-Friday margin call liquidations are extending notably this evening.

It's not just Shale oil stocks in the US that are hurting. Following the OPEC decision to not cut production and squeeze US producers, Saudi Arabia's major stock market index has tumbled into a bear market, giving up all the year's gains. As one analyst noted, "investors are afraid if oil stays where it is, it will negatively impact the government revenues, thus creating potential headwinds on government spending." Dubai stocks - our long-time favorite bubble index - has also been hammered, down over 7% intraday at its worst...

The oil industry is no longer what it once was, it’s not even a normal industry anymore. Oil companies sell assets and borrow heavily, then buy back their own stock and pay out big dividends. What kind of business model is that? Well, not the kind that can survive a 40% cut in revenue for long. Cheap oil a boon for the economy? You might want to give that some thought.

The precipitous decline in the price of oil is perhaps one of the most bearish macro developments this year. We believe we are entering a “new oil normal,” where oil prices stay lower for longer. While we highlighted the risk of a near-term decline in the oil price in our July newsletter, we failed to adjust our portfolio sufficiently to reflect such a scenario. This month we identify the major implications of our revised energy thesis.  The reason oil prices started sliding in June can be explained by record growth in US production, sputtering demand from Europe and China, and an unwind of the Middle East geopolitical risk premium. The world oil market, which consumes 92 million barrels a day, currently has one million barrels more than it needs.... Large energy companies are sitting on a great deal of cash which cushions the blow from a weak pricing environment in the short-term. It is still important to keep in mind, however, that most big oil projects have been planned around the notion that oil would stay above $100, which no longer seems likely.

A look at the global capital markets as if analysis matters.

You can’t force people to spend, not if you’re a government, not if you’re a central bank. And if you try regardless, chances are you wind up scaring people into even less spending. That’s the perfect picture of Japan right there. There’s no such thing as central bank omnipotence, and this is where that shows maybe more than anywhere else. And if you can’t force people to spend, you can’t create growth either, so that myth is thrown out with the same bathwater in one fell swoop. Some may say and think deflation is a good thing, but I say deflation kills economies and societies. Deflation is not about lower prices, it’s about lower spending. Which will down the line lead to lower prices, but then the damage has already been done, it’s just that nobody noticed, because everyone thinks inflation and deflation are about prices, and therefore looks exclusively at prices.

What best shows that for Venezuela it is essentially game over, is that as the chart below shows, Venezuela’s international reserves declined $1.3 billion in the week after President Nicolas Maduro transfered $4 billion of Chinese loans to the central bank. In other words, the scrambling oil exporter was forced to burn one third of its Chinese bail-out loan to keep itself solvent. The country’s reserves dropped to $22.2 billion today, according to central bank data. As Bloomberg also notes, Maduro on Nov. 18 ordered the Chinese loan proceeds to be moved from an off-budget fund, so that they would show up in reserves and help boost investor confidence in an economy beset by the world’s highest inflation and widest budget deficit. The following day, Venezuelan bonds rose the most in six years in intraday trading. “If the plan was to calm the bondholders, then burning through a third of that money in five working days doesn’t do it in any way,” Henkel Garcia, director of Caracas-based consultancy Econometrica, said in a telephone interview.

Despite the best efforts of business media to paint a rosy picture of the Black Friday spend-fest, stocks had only one trajectory - from upper left to lower right - from the open. Small Caps were slammed but all major indices gave up significant knee-jerk "energy schmenergy" gains to close ugly. However, The Dow was pushed just into the green - and new record highs - to prove everything in the centrally planned world is awesome. Crude oil prices were monkey-hammered to 5-year closing lows. The USDollar gained on the day - after 3 down days - and combined with Swiss referendum expectations, gold faded notably (as did Silver with oil). Treasury yields tumbled 10-12bps on the week and HY credit notably underperformed.

We should be glad the price of oil has fallen the way it has (losing another 6% today as we write this). Not because it makes the gas in our cars a bit cheaper, that’s nothing compared to the other service the price slump provides. That is, it allows us to see how the economy is really doing, without the multilayered veil of propaganda, spin, fixed data and bailouts and handouts for the banking system.

• Oil Seen in New Era as OPEC Won’t Yield to U.S. Shale (BBG)
• Alberta Producers With World’s Cheapest Oil Face Cascading Woes (BBG)
• Bundesbank’s Weidmann Rejects Calls for German Stimulus Plan (WSJ)
• Google Should Be Broken Up, Say Euro MPs (BBC)
• Calm comes to troubled Ferguson; protests dwindle across U.S. (Reuters)
• Russia’s Banks Feel Capital Squeeze in Grip of Sanctions (BBG)
•  Italian Unemployment Rate Rises to Record, Above Forecasts (BBG)

The biggest, and most market-moving, event overnight continues to be yesterday's shocking OPEC announcement, which is still reverberating across the energy space as markets largely ignore European and Japanese inflation data which is once again sliding back dangerously fast, or Italian unemployment which rose more than expected, and joined France in hitting a new record high. As a result European shares remain lower, close to intraday lows, with the oil & gas and industrials sectors underperforming and telco and travel outperforming as oil continues its decline. EU inflation slowed in Nov. to 0.3%. Italian and Swedish markets are the worst-performing larger bourses, Spanish the best. The euro is weaker against the dollar. And while US equity futures are largely unchanged even as, or perhaps because, the world is screaming economic slowdown, bonds are finally getting the message with U.S. 10yr bond yields falling to only 2.20% as Japanese yields also decline.

Recently we posted the following article commenting on the impact of USD appreciation and dollar circulation among oil exporters, as well as how the collapsing price of oil is set to reverberate across the entire oil-exporting world, where sticky high oil prices were a key reason for social stability. Following today's shocking OPEC announcement and the epic collapse in crude prices, it is time to repost it now that everyone is desperate to become a bear market oil expert, if only on Twitter...