Baltic Dry Index. 478 Brent Crude 38.19
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
You can never plan the future by the past.
Edmund Burke. Statesman.
We open with a look at the oil
sector. The great global oil glut looks set to surge again in 2016. Barring a
war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a fracking disaster looms into sight. Twenty dollar oil in 2016? Short Scotland!
The future will be
better tomorrow.
Dan Quayle. Politician.
Man who nailed 2015 oil plunge is predicting a dismal 2016
Published:
Dec 31, 2015 2:14 p.m. ET
As
oil-battered investors say farewell to 2015, Tom Kloza, founder and global head
of energy analysis at data firm Oil Price Information Service, or OPIS, is
offering a pretty dour outlook for crude-oil prices in 2016. Kloza is
predicting that West Texas Intermediate crude-oil futures traded on the New
York Mercantile Exchange CLG6, +1.28% will hit $32 a barrel.
On
Thursday, the final day of the trading year for markets, WTI crude prices were
at $37.76, or 3.6% higher. But over the longer term, Nymex-traded oil, the U.S.
benchmark, has lost 30% of its value in 2015, while Brent crude, its European
counterpart LCOG6, +3.13% fell 34%.
Investors might want to take heed of Kloza’s prognostication. After all, early last year he made a spot on call that crude prices would hit $35 a barrel in 2015.
The oil expert’s view this time is tied to the belief that U.S. shale producers won’t significantly pump the brakes much in their production levels in the new year. So far, shale production hasn’t substantially abated.
On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration showed U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose a greater-than-expected 2.6 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 25.
“I think next year is very similar to this year and I think there’s a good chance oil is going back to numbers reached back in December 2008,” Kloza told MarketWatch in an interview, echoing comments he made earlier on CNBC, in the video attached:
More
Russian Oil Output Hits Post-Soviet Record Amid Lower Price
January 2,
2016 — 9:27 AM GMT Updated on January 2, 2016 — 3:43 PM GMT
Russia’s crude output set another post-Soviet record in
December, according to Energy Ministry data, as the nation’s producers
seek to withstand the slump in oil prices.The country’s crude and gas condensate production increased to 10.825 million barrels a day last month, beating the previous record set in November by 0.4 percent, Bloomberg calculations based on the data show. Output for the year increased 1.4 percent compared with 2014, exceeding 534 million metric tons, or almost 10.726 million barrels a day, according to the preliminary information e-mailed from Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit.
Russian crude producers have been setting post-Soviet records even amid plunging prices and U.S. and European Union sanctions that cut access to foreign financing and technology. The companies have managed to squeeze more crude out of some aging fields in West Siberia and brought a few mid-sized new projects on line.
More
First U.S. Oil Export Leaves Port; Marks End to 40-Year Ban
December 31,
2015 — 10:26 PM GMT Updated on January 1, 2016 — 12:58 PM GMT
The first U.S. shipment of crude oil to an overseas buyer
departed a Texas port on Thursday, just weeks after a 40-year ban on most such
exports was lifted.The Theo T tanker has left NuStar Energy LP’s dockside facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, along the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico, Mary Rose Brown, a spokeswoman for NuStar, said in an e-mail. The ship is carrying a cargo of oil and condensate to Italy from ConocoPhillips’s wells in south Texas that was sold to Swiss trading house Vitol Group.
A campaign by oil explorers including Continental Resources Inc., Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. to lift the 1970s-era export prohibition culminated in a Dec. 18 congressional decision to end the ban.
Vitol, which owns stakes in refineries from northern Europe to Australia, has a second cargo of U.S.-sourced crude scheduled to depart a Houston port within days.
Iran says boosting oil exports depends on future demand
A rise in Iran's crude oil exports once sanctions against it are lifted
depends on future global oil demand and that should not further weaken oil
prices, a senior Iranian oil official was quoted as saying.
Oil prices are likely to come under further pressure this year, when
international sanctions on Iran are due to be removed under a nuclear deal
reached in July. Brent crude LCOc1 settled at $37.28 a barrel on Thursday.
Iran has repeatedly said it plans to raise oil output by 500,000 barrels
per day post sanctions, and another 500,000 bpd shortly after that, to reclaim
its position as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries'
second-largest producer.
More
In other news, a wobbly start to 2016.
Asia shares, currencies tumble; oil jumps at start of 2016
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 1.7 percent, after shedding nearly 12 percent in 2015 as China's cooling economy took a toll on its trade-reliant Asian neighbors and global commodity prices.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 fell 2.6 percent to 2-1/2-month lows, while mainland China shares .SSEC tumbled more than 4 percent.
---- Adding to worries about China, its central bank fixed the yuan at a 4-1/2-year low, while manufacturing surveys showed any hopes for a recovery in that sector were premature.
"While fiscal support has helped slow the rate of economic
deceleration, China needs to balance the need for stimulus with the reality of
the unsustainable buildup in debt. This will continue to limit the scope for
stimulus, and suggests further economic deceleration in 2016," said
BlackRock CIO Ross Koesterich in a note to clients.
More
China factories struggle as weak exports drag industry in Asia
China's factory activity shrank for a 10th straight month in December as
surveys across Asia showed industry struggling with slack demand even as the
policy cupboard is looking increasingly bare of fresh stimulus.
Uncertainty over the economic outlook was exacerbated by a flare up in
tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, that has sent investors scurrying from
stocks to safe havens such as the Japanese yen.
---- The Caixin/Markit China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) slipped to 48.2 in December, below market forecasts of 49.0 and down from November's 48.6.
That was the lowest reading since September and well below the 50-point
level which demarcates contraction from expansion. It followed a fractional
increase in the official PMI to 49.7.
There was a faint stirring of hope as PMIs in South Korea and Taiwan
both edged above the 50 mark, though more thanks to a pick up in domestic
demand than any revival in exports.
Weighed down by weak demand at home and abroad, factory overcapacity and
cooling investment, China is expected to post its weakest economic growth in 25
years in 2015, with the rate of expansion slipping to around 7 percent from 7.3
percent in 2014.
More
I
never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert
Einstein. Mathematician.
At the Comex silver depositories
Thursday final figures were: Registered 40.30 Moz, Eligible 120.37 Moz, Total
160.67 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today a look at how 2015 turned out for stocks. And
stocks were the target of the world’s central bank’s all year, still
desperately trying to offset the near crash of the global financial system last
decade. Will the Fed really try to raise
their key interest rate three times in 2016? If so, what will that do to global
stocks?
When the operations of capitalism
come to resemble those of the casino, ill fortune will be the lot of the many.
John Maynard Keynes.
Stocks close lower; worst year for S&P, Dow since 2008
31 Dec 2015
U.S.stocks
closed lower in light volume trade Thursday, the last day of 2015, despite some
stabilization in oil prices.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average both ended lower for the year, their worst since 2008. The Nasdaq composite closed up more than 5.5 percent for the year helped by outperformance in biotech stocks and major tech names, except Apple. The iPhone maker's stock turned in its first negative year since 2008.
The Russell 2000 and Dow transports also had their worst year since 2008.
Selling accelerated into the close Thursday, with the Dow closing about
180 points lower. The Nasdaq composite fell more than 1 percent as Apple
declined nearly 2 percent.
The S&P 500 ended nearly 1 percent lower on the day, with energy the
only sector clinging to slight gains as oil settled higher, but remaining near multi-year
lows. Energy was the worst-performing S&P 500 sector, falling more than 20
percent.
More
Turbulent FTSE in worst year since 2011
Market volatility wipes £80bn off country’s top firms
Britain's leading companies will emerge from 2015 battered and bruised,
with more than £80bn wiped off their value, following the FTSE 100’s worst year
since 2011.
Despite the high points of early 2015, when the blue chip index partied
like it was 1999, turbulence dominated the later half of the year, as the
commodities price rout claimed a number of victims. The mining-heavy index
tumbled 323.77 points over the year - or 4.93pc - to close at 6,242.32, lagging
behind its European peers, who made gains despite a tumultuous 12 months.
----It was not a year for faint
hearted investors. In April, the index broke through its dotcom bubble peak to
touch 7,103.98, before the unprecedented
collapse in Chinese shares, following the surprise devaluation of the yuan,
caused market mayhem worldwide, and left UK-listed companies nursing hefty
losses.
The
onset of a commodities price rout resulted in a savage summer for the blue-chip
index. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was trading down 25pc to
$4,731 per tonne as markets closed – its biggest annual loss in seven years.
Meanwhile, nickel slumped 42pc and zinc also lost around a quarter of its value
amid fears of weak demand from the world’s biggest metals consumer, China.
More
Creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.
Benjamin Franklin.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this
new section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable
cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century
onwards? DC? A quantum computer next?
Europe's Turbine Manufacturers Doubling in Record Year for Wind
December 31,
2015 — 5:01 AM GMT
Vestas
Wind Systems A/S, Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA and Nordex SE, Europe’s three
publicly traded wind-turbine makers, all doubled in value in 2015 after record
industry installations for the year.
With one trading day left in 2015, Nordex is up 118 percent from the end
of last year. Vestas climbed 114 percent and Gamesa posted a 111 percent
increase.
Turbine makers are benefiting from surging demand for clean energy.
Global wind-power installations are expected to reach 63.7 gigawatts this year,
up 30 percent from 2014, the previous record, according to Bloomberg New Energy
Finance. New capacity next year will be comparable, with Brazil, the U.S. and
India posting the biggest gains in terms of megawatts added, offsetting
declines in China, Germany and Poland.
“We’re expecting 2016 to be an equally good year,” said David Hostert, a
wind analyst in London for New Energy Finance. “We believe the core markets in
Europe already plateaued and new growth will come from elsewhere.”
Nordex,
Vestas and Gamesa posted the second, third and fourth-biggest gains on the
WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index of 104 low-carbon energy
companies, trailing only the German solar inverter manufacturer SMA Solar
Technology AG.
Vestas, based in Denmark, and Spain’s Gamesa are also the fourth- and
fifth-biggest risers in the Stoxx 600 Index of European companies, which
doesn’t include Germany’s Nordex.
In percentage terms, those gains are still smaller than in 2013 when the
three manufacturers were rebounding from near-historic lows. Vestas rose
fivefold in value that year, Gamesa quadrupled and Nordex tripled. Still, with
this year’s gains, Gamesa is trading near its highest level since 2009; Vestas
is at levels not seen since 2008 and Nordex’s shares are trading at prices last
recorded in 2007.
The
International Energy Agency says renewable energy will overtake coal as the
largest source of electricity by the early 2030s. In 2014, clean power
accounted for 85 percent of the increase in generation worldwide, and from 2015
through 2040, the 3,600 gigawatts of new renewable capacity will outstrip
additions of all other forms of generation combined, the agency forecasts.
More
Results!
Why man I’ve gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that don’t
work.
Thomas
Alva Edison.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: +18 Down. NASDAQ:
+110 Down. SP500: +36 Down.
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