Crude Oil

Last week, under pressure from companies including Buffett’s BNSF - which has spent more money lobbying Congress this year than any other railroad - U.S. legislators passed, and President Obama signed, a law that delays the so-called positive train control mandate. That means railroad operators can put off having to buy and install equipment that safety advocates say would have prevented accidents that have claimed more than 245 lives and caused over 4,200 injuries since the NTSB began calling for the technology in 1969.

Having dramatically converged to the tumbling price of WTI Crude, Trannies are jumping dramatically after Bloomberg runs the following flashing-red headline: *CANADIAN PACIFIC SAID TO EXPLORE TAKEOVER OF NORFOLK SOUTHERN. Amid crashing railcar loadings (down over 23% YoY - worst since the financial crisis), this 'syngery' may make some sense but will likely only mean moar layoffs as "two wrongs do not make a right."

Moments ago in what we initially thought was a joke, abc9 reported that close to two dozen train cars derailed after a crash Monday morning. Lt. Brett Grimshaw of the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office said the crash happened a little after 8 a.m. when a coal train hit a road grader that had been backed up onto the tracks. And before you ask, yes, this train, too, belongs to BNSF, which in turn belongs to Warren Buffett,

Once again, the two major macroeconomic announcements over the weekend came from China, where we first saw an unexpected, if still to be confirmed, increase in FX reserves, and then Chinese trade data once again disappointed tumbling by 6.9% while imports plunged 18.8%. So how did the market react? The Shanghai Composite Index rose for a fourth day and reached its highest since August 20because more bad data means more easing from the PBOC, and just to give what few investors are left the green light to come back into the pool, overnight Chinese brokers soared after Chinese IPOs returned after a 5 month hiatus. Elsewhere, Stocks and currencies in emerging markets slump on prospect of higher U.S. borrowing costs before year-end and after data underscored slowdown in Asia’s biggest economy. Euro strengthens.

With crude stocks moving up solidly despite inventories being still almost one-third above the “cycle” trend from 2009 through 2014, the economics of that behavior suggest the opposite of what the FOMC would like to project. And that would seem to bridge the eurodollar curve’s front and back ends, aligning it with commodities more generally. In that view, eurodollar futures are suggesting exactly what they have been for almost a year and a half – that the Fed might or might not act, but if they do it won’t alter the economic course but only wield the potential to make a bad (and growing more so) physical and general economy situation that much worse.

China's exports fell for the fourth consecutive month in October as evidence of collapsing global demand and trade continues to pile up. “A lot of Westerners think this helped us out a lot. But the 2% depreciation actually hurt us. It was in every newspaper and customers called us within hours pushing for 6% discount, so we had to give them 4%."

As DB so well-puts it, "Welcome to random number generator day also known as US payrolls." Consensus expects 185k jobs to have been added in October but it’s fair to say that the whisper number has edged up this week with slightly firmer US data. It is also fair to say that even if one knew the number beforehand, it would be impossible to know how the market will react.

Russia is looking to expand its influence through oil trade. And a little-reported deal this week may give it access to an entirely new part of the planet when it comes to crude exports.

For those eager to cut to the chase and curious if overnight we have had another standard USDJPY ramp levitating US equity futures on low volume, the answer is yes. And since the USDJPY carry was patient enough, it managed to trigger the 2100 ES stops and as of this moment the futures were comfortably on the politically-correct side of 2100.

Crude oil algos traders are buying WTI despite DOE reporting the 6th consecutive weekly inventory build in US crude stocks (confirming API's build at 2.8mm barrels). Furthermore, for the 3rd week in a row, US crude production rose (back to one-month highs)... and then the humans appeared to read the DOE report and the selling began.

The most entertaining overnight story has to do with the latest farcical development in the Chinese "market" when just after open, it was reported that PBOC Governor Zhou said a trading link with Shenzhen will start this year which promptly sent all Chinese brokerages soaring, and the Shanghai Composite jumped over 3%. And then, out of the blue, the PBOC said the undated comments were actually as of May. As Bloomberg put it, "China’s central bank unintentionally sparked a surge in the nation’s stock market by publishing five-month-old comments from governor Zhou Xiaochuan that said a link between exchanges in Shenzhen and Hong Kong would start in 2015."

For the sixth week in a row, API reports a larger than expected 2.8mm inventory build (though that is lower than the last few week's build). Cushing stocks, however, saw a 508k draw, easing some storage concerns. Crude oil prices remain confused for now having pumped and dumped to unch.

So far today's trading session has been a repeat of what happened overnight on Monday, when following a weak start on even more weak Chinese data, US equities soared on the first trading day of the month continuing their blistering surge since that dreadful September payrolls report, which as we showed was mostly catalyzed by a near record bout of short's being squeezed and covering, which accelerated just as the S&P broke the 2100 level.

While understandably all eyes have been fixed on every monthly capital outflow update from China (even the ones that the Politburo is clearly massaging), few have noticed that one of the biggest total outflows currently in the global developed economy is taking place right in America's own back yard.