Oklahoma

Whether it is in sympathy with the now relentless surge in the Shanghai Composite which tacked on another 2.44% overnight to close at a fresh multi-year high just shy of 4400, well more than double from a year ago, or because Mrs Watanabe was unable to read the latest Japan trade data whose first trade surplus in 3 years hinted that there will be no new easing by the BOJ any time soon, but overnight the Nikkei closed above 20,000 for the first time in 15 years, with "makers of chocolate, mayonnaise, potato chips and household appliances" helping lift the Tokyo market according to the WSJ. The now daily Asian euphoria however did not last long in the European session, and after opening higher, the Stoxx Europe 600 slipped into negative territory just an hour into trading, and was down 0.4% by midmorning, lead by a near 1% decline on Athens' mains stock index, which has since recouped losses stemming from the overnight report that the ECB is considering an up to 50% haircut on Greek bank collateral, a move that would wipe out the Greek financial sector with ease.

Last week, we documented the mysterious case of WalMart’s move to shutter multiple geographically distinct locations across the US for “plumbing issues.” Once we dug a bit deeper into the history of the affected stores we noticed that one store in particular — the Pico Rivera, CA location — has been at the forefront of wage and working condition protests for the better part of three years. Now, as NY Times reports, "a claim set to be filed on Monday by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union with the National Labor Relations Board says that the closings were in retaliation for a history of labor activism at one of the shuttered stores, in Pico Rivera, Calif."

What in the world are the elites up to?

On the heels of the South Carolina “confrontation” which led to the shooting death of Walter Scott, we get a new video out of Tulsa in which one Eric Courtney Harris — who apparently sold an illegal firearm to undercover agents and who CNN compassionately describes as a “possibly PCP-addled felon” — is “accidentally” shot by a 73-old reserve deputy who apparently could not distinguish between his Taser and his glock.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to officially announce her candidacy for the 2016 presidential election on Sunday, putting an end to months of speculation about her plans. Here are some key things to know about the first Democrat to declare her candidacy...

When You See It ...

Before you think about holding out for a taxpayer government-sponsored bailout on your student loans, you may want to check the laws in your state because as it turns out, you may end up losing your driver’s license or worse, your barber’s license.

If there is one chart that most clearly captures the unsustainable US home price appreciation bubble, it is the following which was released overnight from RealtyTrac: home price appreciation nationwide has outpaced wage growth by a 13:1 ratio!

Oil prices bounced back on March 24 on a sliding U.S. Dollar, and then again overnight on Middle East turmoil, but the pain may not be over yet.

Forget about Rig Counts, we need to see Producer Counts go down considerably, until that happens the oil market hasn`t bottomed.

“I don’t think there is much space left to fill.”

The oil jobs nightmare is in fact spreading like a cancer. Last year there was much banter from the Wall Street shysters and Bakkan shale oil experts about the true breakeven price for shale oil not being $80 (which is the truth) but actually being as low as $58 a barrel. They were spreading this lie in order to keep idiot investors buying the stocks and bonds of these fly by night shale oil companies.  Well, we are now six months further down the line and Bakkan shale oil this morning is selling for $37 per barrel.

Having recently explained why the stock market is extremely overvalued (in his own words by Fed-driven multiple expansion alone), Alan Greenspan - seemingly brimming over with the need to remedy his years of lies/mistruths with some uncomfortable truthiness - is now taking on the US Dollar ("it is not from a strong US economy but a weak rest of the world") and oil prices (America has a massive surplus of oil and there may soon be nowhere to store all of it, "we'll be lucky if we can get $40 for it.")

Predicting and diagnosing the trajectory of oil prices has become something of a cottage industry in the past year. But along with all of the excess crude flowing from the oil patch, there is also an abundance of market indicators that while important, tend to produce a lot of noise that makes any accurate estimate nearly impossible.

Oil storage capacity in the US is now at 60% and is set to be completely exhausted in just three months. With storage at a premium, the contango breakeven trade will become increasingly more unprofitable and come June, each incremental barrel will have to be dumped on the market forcing prices lower.