NYMEX

Crude oil prices are once again following the path of least deja vu resistance this morning. Having spiked into NYMEX close on Friday (exactly as they did following the rig count data the previous week), WTI is back to a $48 handle this morning following news that Saudi Arabia has increased production to its higest level since 2013. Iraq (another OPEC nation) stirred the pot further by forecasting increased supplies in the next month. This comes as US production hits record highs and vital Oklahoma storage tanks will fill up even sooner than expected, driving the "JK" spread above $2.50 (April delivery drastically cheaper than May). As on analysts noted, as "Cushing continues to fill massively, we could see a '3' handle on WTI."

Who could have seen this coming? In lesson 101, we 'taught' the HFT idiots that you "Sell API, and Buy DOE Inventories." In lesson 102, we 'taught' the HFT idiots that you then "Sell the DOE Rip." Today, we finish with a big "told you so dance" as we 'taught' the HFT idiots yesterday, no matter what WTI will ramp insanely into the Friday NYMEX close after rig count data. Next we get the insta-dump...

Yesterday we provided the initial template for how to trade oil if you are an HFT idiot. Today we move to the next step in the evolution... In a perfect mirror of last week's trading, Oil dumped on API inventories this week, pumped on DOE inventories (both massively more than expected builds) and then dumped it all back the next day on absolutely no news whatsoever - back to a $48 handle. Tomorrow we have 'rig count' data - which by now we know is entirely irrelevent for now to any changes in supply - but last week created a manic meltup into the NYMEX close... trade accordingly.

Stock market investors live by the Apple and die by the Apple... and with Apple's 2.5% drop today, broad stock market indices have cratered in the last few minutes retracing the gains accrued since Yellen started speaking yesterday...

While we previously exposed the 1430ET NYMEX Close Ramp trade, it appears a new algo-idiot trade has made an appearance. "Sell API Inventory data, Buy DOE Inventory Data"

Outlook for the US dollar and other markets in the week ahead.  

With WTI back under $50 once again (the mainstream media's new Maginot Line for oil complex stability - just like $80, $70, and $60 was), it appears more investors are waking up to the reality of an over-supplied, under-demanded global energy market. The 'squeeze bounce manipulation' that we saw over the last week - very reminiscent of the bounce seen mid-collapse in 2008/9, was predicated on falling rig counts (and capex). However, Goldman pours freezing cold fracking water all over that thesis as they explain that the decline in the US rig count remains well short of the level required to achieve a sufficient slowdown in US oil production growth to balance the global market. Simply put, they conclude, lower oil prices will be required over the coming quarters to see the US production growth slowdown materialize with risk to their already low price forecast to the downside.

Scenes like this one from the iconic movie Trading Places will henceforth be forever entombed in the annals of trader history, a history in which man is thoroughly replaced by machine, following news earlier today that the CME will close most of its futures pits in Chicago and New York. "The move deals a death blow to trading floors that grew in the 20th century alongside America’s agriculture, mining and energy industries and were once synonymous with capitalism."

Against Reuters expectations of a 3.25 million barrel build, DOE reports a 6.3 million barrel build... Just 24 hours after Jim Cramer proclaimed, "this smells like a bottom" in crude oil, the crucial commodity (though it is unclear whether lower oil is good or bad today for now) appears to have flushed a few weak hands in a 3-day squeeze and 1430ET ramp-fest as price reasserts to the 'fundamentals' of over-supply and under-demand. WTI has plunged from over $54 at the NYMEX close yesterday to around $50 this morning...

Following the torrid surge in crude in the past 4 days, overnight oil price have taken a step back - if only until the "newer normal" 2:30pm ramp into the Nymex close -  with both Brent and WTI down nearly 3%, with yesterday's latest API inventory data showing another massive crude build when it was released after the close, which in turn is pressuing futures modestly if decidedly, and not even the surprise PBOC RRR-cut (which many had seen as likely if only in advance of the liquidity sapping Chinese New Year) which hit the tape an hour ago managed to push ES into the green, at least for now. Curiously, not even the now standard low volume levitation in the USDJPY in recent trading has had any impact on US futures, which appear to have found a new correlation regime for the time being, one which tracks what oil does more than any other asset class.

"The price plunge is new, but if it is not reversed relatively quickly, it could make the apparently strong economic numbers in the U.S. in recent months seem like a lost warm memory by the middle of 2015. The problem, of course, is that the absence of pro-growth economic policies in the developed world (aside from monetary extremism) places a large premium on any industry that is actually growing and providing jobs and GDP. Given the fragility of both the global financial system and the economy, the plummet in the oil price is coming into a world in which any disruption can be harmful, even one resulting from a fall in prices of a major global input into the economic engine."